Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm, quickly becoming the most downloaded app of all time. Everyone and their mother is playing Nintendo’s immersive Alternate Reality game. Companies are scrambling to get behind this massive new IP; T-mobile offers free data for Pokemon Go , GameStop is advertising their stores as Pokestops and McDonald’s has officially partnered with the app to turn their stores in Japan into gyms .
With the game’s meteoric success, every big company is scrambling to find the next big IP to attract millennials and their wallets. There’s a little site that would immediately bring back a nostalgic feeling to millions of teenagers and twenty-somethings. A place where you collected tiny monsters, fed them and played games to make them stronger. It’s called Neopets.com.
For the three of you that don’t remember Neopets , here’s a reminder; it was a site created in 1999 that allowed you to care for a virtual pet . There were flash games on the site you could play to get Neopoints, the game’s currency, and different mystical places you could travel to. It didn’t matter your gender, race or culture; as long as you had an internet connection you played this game.
In the early 2000s my friends and I were Neopets addicts. Everyday, I had a few daily quests I had to finish: first to Tyrannia to get an omelette and some jelly, then over to Faerieland to spin the Wheel of Excitement and take a dip in the Healing Springs, and then Tombola, Coltzan’s Shrine and The Fruit Machine.
I finished off my quests a trip to the Secret Laboratory, which I had gotten access to after spending hours upon hours farming Neopoints and buying the pieces to the treasure map. Once per day, I could ask an old, crazy scientist to randomly transform one of my Neopets into literally anything. For years I tried to get something good, until I ended up with two extremely rare Neopets: a Darigan Bori and a Faerie Grarrl. To this day, these are still two of my finest videogame achievements.
In 2005, Neopets was bought out by Viacom and was swallowed up by their corporate branding. There were Neopets action figures, dolls and electronic playsets. The game added a micro-transaction called Neo-cash where you could spend actual money to dress up your Neopet. I was getting older and had no desire to spend actual money to give my Bori a funny hat, so I left my pets to starve for all eternity.
Neopets is a shadow of it’s former self. If you visit the site now, it’s covered in pop-up ads and dated flash plug-ins. Now is the perfect time to update Neopets for a modern audience. You have nostalgia, collectible monsters and a full world to explore that twenty-somethings will go nuts over. In 2006, Neopets was one of the first sites to have an app. It was called Neopets Mobile and worked on any shitty flip phone. It allowed players to feed their pets, play games and even adopt a special otter Neopet not available anywhere else.
Make a mobile game with some pretty textured graphics with a bunch of mindless games that you can earn Neopoints in. Update Lutari Island for a modern audience with Facebook connectivity and that old Neopets feel. It may not have the instant success that Pokémon Go had, but it will hit players right in the nostalgic feels.
#MakeNeopetsGreatAgain
