A Neoscam?
Hello readers, welcome back to the whatchamacallit. Its been a while since I posted, my birthday has gone by, but that doesn’t matter. I am here to do a special report on the ‘NC mall’ on the neopets website.
I will start from the beginning. Nine years ago, two teenage Japanese girls wanted to make something like a tamagotchi system online, so they created neopets. It took three years, but neopets caught on. Many sites realized that this was a huge hit. Now, if you do an interactive play site, involving pets, you either do it like neopets does it, or the way club penguin does it. Some examples of these are milsberry.com ; webkinz ; and nicktropolis (sorry about the lack of link, nickelodeon is currently under maintenance. ads for nicktropolis are every where though, I’m sure you’d be able to find it easy.).
On the topic of club penguin, it has been recently bought by Disney, I will be blogging about that another time though. Viacom, the company that owns nickelodeon, knew that they had to have a site of both kinds in order to be good enough to take on all those interactive sites, so they bought the source. Thats right, VIACOM BOUGHT NEOPETS! Ever since, neopets has been going down hill. The idea of neopets is a free tamagotchi, a website, that wouldn’t charge you, for anything. a site that would bring joy and happyness through out the world, and would have cybunnys fluttering down the rainbow over neopia central and… Sorry got off track there.
What I’m trying to say is that viacom has turned the actually free neopets, into America. Slowly and subtly though. it started with several tool bars, but that wasn’t working. They sent out television adds on nick , but they were to subtle. so they brought out full out adds. They pointed out things like the new game ‘Shenkuu river rush’ and for some reason, lowered the amount of neopoints you start with by 1000. The NC Mall was the final blow though. Needing to use real money, to buy virtual items on a kids site? It should not be! I am going to write a twelve paragraph letter to neopets on this subject, after seeing how few people actually realize neopets is being taken over! I posted to the boards one after noon only to find 1 out of 6 people had responded to the unfairness of the NC Mall. If any of you goon neopets, it would be increadibly helpful if you aided me in this battle. Just send feed back that says I support Grim01 just copy that and paste it into a feedback message to the tnt. That is all.
1. Neopets didn’t start as a japanese game, It started in England and it was created by Adam Powell (a man) and Donna Williams. proof @ http://www.neopets.com/aboutus.phtml
2. Neopets nhas to find a way to make money. They can’t just be user friendly, or they would go bankrupt
3. It is not mandatory to get the items and the itens don’t effect the game very much.
P.S. Also Neopets was started on November 15 1999, which was 8 years ago (not 6)
P.P.S. If you have any more complants about this wonderful site, you can contact me at johnwclow@sbcglobal.net
[...] August 9th, 2007 · No Comments The Whatchamacallit thinks so and he’s an expert on the topic. He’s very unhappy about changes to his beloved site since Viacom purchased it. Thats right, VIACOM BOUGHT NEOPETS! Ever since, neopets has been going down hill. The idea of neopet… [...]
I have done extensive research on this topic.
The new yorker had said that it was started by two Japanese girls, but now I am remembering an editorial.
Neopets had a way to make money. They sold toys and had a magazine. From what I know, that payed the bills.
These ‘items that don’t effect the game very much just happen to allow you to customize your icon, something no store in neopia has done before, and now that I am remembering what year neopets is in, yes it is eight.
Thanks for the editing
[...] looking for advice on how not to handle Club Penguin, they could do worse than to read The Wachamacallit’s rant on the new Neopets NC Mall, the first site I’m aware of to offer virtual items to kids in [...]
To John - a website can be user friendly, free to use, and not go bankrupt. There are plenty of sites (some very popular ones) that do just that. Google and Yahoo come to mind.
this post is about neopets. I mentioned club penguin as a competitor. but I think they should eliminate the only clothes for members rule.
Although Neopets is a child-friendly site, I find that it caters to and creates addicts out of adults and teenagers more than it does to kids under thirteen. Thus, I see it as my free(er) alternative to MMORPG mainly because the latter requires too much video and virtual memory.
But yes, the dollar signs on Neopets are a downer and thanks to WordPress, my addiction to former has waned — as to how that is a good thing is still under debate.
I’m so pleased to see that young people are learning so much about (1) commerce issues and (2) the means through which consumers can exert influence on the owners of business. To watchamacallit: keep up the good work. Go ahead and write the letter.
NO! children are unaware of this issue and the press isn’t noticing it either
Neopets is a free site. Yes, it has advertisements. The NC Mall is there but you are not required to buy anything. It is completely free. I enjoy it. I do miss the fun spirit Adam Powell and Donna Williams brought to the site. That is where Viacom could use some help. Keeping the fun attitude of the creators.
You want to know what happens when a 9-year old sees the NC mall?
They don’t read that it expires. They spend their entire allownance and 90-180 days later–poof. Gone. Its really stupid. Its another money making scam. I do believe that neopets should go back to before i even joined–when it first started. But then they would lose money, and that would be a disaster. But if enough people complain, or just dont buy anything that could work.
I just wish neopets would go back to the old layout and no more NC mall, they could keep premium for all i care its only an option–And cant they make enough money through ads like they did before. They should regroup, refocus and rework the site. THey need to know how many people dont like the NC mall or the new neopets.
I agree with you and Sara (and other people) VIACOM IS TAKING OVER!!!! I should put that on my lookup XD!!! In YR 6 Neopets says in an editorial ‘Nothing on Neopets will EVER cost you anything, as it is extremlly un-fair to those who have less money than others’… Then BOOM! 7 monthes later, Viacom takes over, acts like that promise was never made, and adds crap. I joined for the very first time 1-2 monthes before Viacom came in, and I didn’t relize anything until Premium came (but then again, I was under 13, so I couldn’t go on the boards) I wanted Premium SO much, that I was determined to do SOMETHING! Even hack into PayPal! I’m so mad at them! If I ever get REALLY rich, I’m going to buy Neopets back and fix it, and un-freeze my account that got frozed while standing up agaisnt them! I mean c’mon! I only called them fags!
Thank you FINALLY, someone isn’t just saying ‘Wow, its realy amazing that you said this,’ or ‘I’m glad that kids today are taking notice’ *all eyes on marlowe* But what we really need to do is make the numbers on the NC Mall go down. I’ll explain what that means in a minute
BTW the OLD welcome bonus for neopets was 200
“lowered the amount of neopoints you start with by 1000.”
so you might want to try that again too.
To John - a website can be user friendly, free to use, and not go bankrupt. There are plenty of sites (some very popular ones) that do just that. Google and Yahoo come to mind.
Google and Yahoo can advertise FOR SOO many things. Think about it when you type in “heating” and all the ads for heating companies come up. Neopets, not so. They DO have ads but they’re all more or less in the form of pictures and pictures can only take up so much space before they get terribly annoying.
Okay so I spaced a little; what do you expect, I’m just a kid. I forgot to mention that in my profile didn’t I.
To quote thewatchamacallit:
“NO! children are unaware of this issue and the press isn’t noticing it either”
I have to disagree. I know, and I’m 12. My sister knows, and she’s 14. My two best friends know, and they’re 13. Children KNOW. And let me tell you - we’re not happy about it, either. Viacom is alienating Neopia - I don’t even go on anymore.
Thewatchamacallit, I’m not going against you in anyway. You’re absolutely correct about how awful Neopia’s getting to be. I hope you can convince TNT!
What are you guys complaining about? The amll i there as a way for them to make money. All it does it give you a way to dress up your neopet, it doesnt give you an advantage or anything. And theres even clothes that can be bought with out neocash. Running neopets must cost alot of money, and they have to pay for it somehow, so let them be
I’ve been on the site for years. I have 3 accounts on it. I’m sure that some of the people posting are ADULTS who, by the way, may not even know the first thing about the site. Neopet has gone from a way for children AND teenagers to have fun on the internet to something that only younger children can really enjoy. I find that having to pay real money for virtual items is just a greedy scam to make more money than is really needed to manage the site and that it is harder to get items that actually do cost virtual money since the ‘points-to-neopoints’ raition had gone down for most games. Most of the people wondering why others complain about the site are those who a new members. Those who have been on the site for years realize the downfalls that it had faced by being bought by VIACOM since they have seen it through different stages while the newer members have only seen it as how it is now.
I’ve been playing Neopets since it was created in 1999, I was even previously a volunteer monitor. I’m now 22 years old and can say I openly view the site objectively. You may assume that due to how long I’ve been playing and the fact that I was previously “staff” there, that I support the company through and through. This couldn’t the further from the truth. I’ve been one of the most outspoken opponents of their disgustingly unprofessional customer service department.
One thing I’ve yet to understand is why people complain about OPTIONAL features, which just so happen to cost money. I could understand if it were a feature that was an important aspect when playing the site, but it couldn’t be further from such.
The NC Mall is a completely optional feature which doesn’t affect gameplay. The only thing it affects is the “look” of your Neopet. All it allows you to do is add special “clothing” items to your Neopets. You cannot sell or trade the items. You cannot do anything with them except put them on your Neopets to alter how they look. If you don’t want to purchase any of the items, you don’t have to. If I have a disposable income, who are you (or anyone else) to say how I should be able to spend it? If I enjoy dressing up my pets, I have the right to do so and if I want to pay for said items, I have that right.
Neopets Inc. hasn’t been owned by Donna or Adam since Feb of 2000. On that date, the “company” was founded and owned by Doug Dohring (who owns doubleclick.net and various other ad sites and is a known Scientologist) Then, Viacom purchased the company in 2005 (if I remember correctly) Yes, Viacom is changing their target audience to a much younger age than the site was originally intended but what do you expect? Neopets Inc. was in the red for many years and they’re improving the site.
I don’t see how adding a few special paid features to the site completely ruin and make you want to scream VIACOM IS TAKING OVER! EVERYBODY PANIC!!! If you don’t want to pay for said features, don’t. Problem solved.
I’ve been to Club Penguin and Millsberry! Millsberry stinks,but Club Penguin rules! But not as much as Neopets,itself