Anybody here play or have kids that play Neopets?

[Trippy]

If so, can you explain to me the appeal of the site?

I've been looking at that site and its so badly designed and the new player experience so painful that I'm shocked that it has so many people playing it.

[CharlieMopps]

Yea, but the people that would play that sort of thing wouldn't know any better.

[Tale]

A couple of years ago my work created a Neopets controversy with something newsy we published online. It spawned one of the biggest legitimate email floods I've ever seen, thousands of manually written protest messages from people around the world, which I traced back to Neopets message board discussions.

Most of the emails were from female names and many had those annoying email smiley packs installed. Maybe 10% were male and wrote like they were very young. The overall picture I got was a MMOG-like community of very uncomplicated people who had not grown up - and if they were adults already, never would. They were blindly passionate about their addiction like a MMOG community, but none of them knew the first thing about computers or the Internet.

I picture the average Neopets player as opening it on the emaily MSN thingy machine after seeing it on a McDonalds placemat and o wow a cute pet luv it hugz xox.

While researching the email deluge, I NSFW tested their name filter: fail.

[Yegolev]

CuntCuntneo would be a great name for my hobbit burglar.

[Venkman]

When it launched, it was an extension of the total Neopets craze, something new for the fans to get into. If you look at it through that lens and consider when it launched, it helps what currently is there make a bit more sense. Outside of that though lens though, it's a mess. Webkinz is more self-consistent (mostly because it's real-world offering started as a mere plush animal, and really only now includes that and a TCG of some arguable relevance beyond getting more online goodies).

[CmdrSlack]

Most of the emails were from female names and many had those annoying email smiley packs installed. Maybe 10% were male and wrote like they were very young. The overall picture I got was a MMOG-like community of very uncomplicated people who had not grown up - and if they were adults already, never would. They were blindly passionate about their addiction like a MMOG community, but none of them knew the first thing about computers or the Internet.

I picture the average Neopets player as opening it on the emaily MSN thingy machine after seeing it on a McDonalds placemat and o wow a cute pet luv it hugz xox.

Right. So basically like every other person who posts on general forums for their game of choice.

[Tale]

Right. So basically like every other person who posts on general forums for their game of choice.

u suk lol runescape 4 eva

[naum]

Webkinz is the new online kiddie craze…

[Trippy]

Yeah I've been checking out Webkinz as well. I understand why that game is so popular but with Neopets all you ever see, as far as I can tell, is a static portrait of your Neopet -- you can't interact with it in any way -- and you can't even place him/her/it inside your home, which is just a crappy top-down view in any event.

[Mrbloodworth]

Webkinz is the new online kiddie craze…

That looks well done TBH. Looks like they adopted a toontown like chat.

[Trippy]

Yes they have. They supposedly have a chat area that isn't restricted to what you can select through menus but it's shut down at the moment. So it's the same as Club Penguin which has the two types as well (restricted and monitored chatting).

[Venkman]

This is why I keep referencing it :)

Webkinz is more an aggregate of single and small-multiplayer games, but does have some mini-public space areas (in the Clubhouse, a limited number of instanced rooms with a capacity of 10 each). You can be in your room and access the Arcade, a bunch of minigames. You can buy games from the store, put them in your room, and interact with them in a window to play games (as well as watch TV and other tigns). And you can go out to the Clubhouse and interact with games set in those environments, alone or competitively. All of this supports the typical microeconomy of KinzCash used to customize the character and your room. You can add more rooms, theme each one, etc.

You get one year of access with the purchase of a pet. The only way to extend that year is to buy another pet. You can also buy card deck packs at retail to play a light TCG, but I don't know anyone who does that. Mostly it's to get the unique ID numbers (similar to the pets) to type into your account and get new items for your ingame pet or rooms.

Club Penguin meanwhile is sort of the experiential reverse: it's mostly public space with games that can be played in these environments with other people at random. Webkinz is far more contrived, befitting a game targeting a younger audience. I'm surprised they even attempted to add real text chat to the game, given the audience and the predators it can attract.

This is not the last we'll see of big IP holders and/or real world manufacturers coming to this space. Your'all familiar by now with BarbeGirls.com I'm sure, where you can get some goodies by buying the $60 MP3 player but otherwise don't need to. And there's the Miuchiz 3, 3 MMOs built on a common engine to support three different Brands (Bratz, Pawz, Monsterz), playable on a handle and then with that character inserted into (and removed from) the game world.

And these are just the easy three to pick out. There is a lot of activity in this realm of el-cheaop browser-based/thin-client MMOs targeting other demographics, and a lot more coming.

[Trippy]

Club Penguin meanwhile is sort of the experiential reverse: it's mostly public space with games that can be played in these environments with other people at random. Webkinz is far more contrived, befitting a game targeting a younger audience. I'm surprised they even attempted to add real text chat to the game, given the audience and the predators it can attract.

As I mentioned above CP allows for filtered text chatting but those rooms are heavily monitored and the kids are encouraged to report each other. Webkinz presumably had a similar setup.

[Dren]

From what I can tell on Webkinz, you have to pick preformed phrases to chat.  There is no free-form chatting.  My wife and I checked it out before they started playing.  If there is a special area that allows open chatting, please let me know.

[Venkman]

The area is currently locked. Check next time you try and visit the Club House. The door on the left has a lock on it, but is presumably the environment in which moderated but open chat can take place.

My daughter will long have outgrown Webkinz before I let her into that room, whether in Webkinz or CP or whatever passes for the popular one as she ages. I can't imagine a open chat system so safely monitored I'd give her unfettered access to it. I basically believe there simply aren't enough people a company can hire to check into whatever bypasses however smart their automated system is. Not as these games get into the millions of users.

[Trippy]

I basically believe there simply aren't enough people a company can hire to check into whatever bypasses however smart their automated system is. Not as these games get into the millions of users.

That's why penguins are encouraged to report other penguins in CP.

[Hoax]

I'm glad we teach them when they are young to snitch on anyone bucking the status quo...   

Please, spare me any jabs from the parents amongst us, I would use green but really I'm only half being sarcastic.  Don't blame me blame Bush, Gonzalez and 95% of the other fuckers in DC, I'm in kind of an anti-authority mood even if the establishment is a penguin hotel or whatever the fuck we're talking about.

[Venkman]

I basically believe there simply aren't enough people a company can hire to check into whatever bypasses however smart their automated system is. Not as these games get into the millions of users.

That's why penguins are encouraged to report other penguins in CP.

I've ignored this because I find that policy niave at best, an answer to just about nothing. If the average 9 year old was so effective at recognizing the signs of a predator, and then comprehending the problems that could result from such conversations, the world would be a much safer place. Further, just look at your average adult MMO to see just how effective /report is. This is not a slight on the companies. They're trying their best, but they numbers are against them.

[Xanthippe]

My kids prefer Club Penguin to any of the others.  We have side-by-side computers, and my daughter's allowed to play CP when I'm next to her.  Nothing beats that kind of monitoring.

Mostly, they like to play with their real life friends, often while talking on the phone with said friends.

Much of what my daughter does is rp.  Like playing house or Harry Potter or whatever, only on a computer. 

My son's into the achievement angle.

[LK]

Much of what my daughter does is rp.  Like playing house or Harry Potter or whatever, only on a computer. 

My son's into the achievement angle.

Metaphor for the gaming industry?

[Venkman]

Some things are ageless.

[Xanthippe]

Some things are ageless.

There's a reason for that.

[Venkman]

Well, yes, but then we'd need a sociologist to explain it. Anyone else who tries gets branded as unpatriotic :)

[Mrbloodworth]

Yes they have. They supposedly have a chat area that isn't restricted to what you can select through menus but it's shut down at the moment. So it's the same as Club Penguin which has the two types as well (restricted and monitored chatting).

Yeah, the also seem to have a large "Dictionary" of words that cant be used, including numbers in that free chat.

[Venkman]

Raph posted this one too, looks like a near-direct iteration of Webkinz, with OpenText chat already in and different animal packaging. This MGA product is very different from their earlier Miuchiz execution, which was much more public space than instantiated minigames.

[ShenMolo]

My 6 year old daughter plays one of the Puzzle games on Neopets and loves it. I'm actually quite proud of her, some of the higher level mazes are pretty tough and require lots of trial and error. They are pretty brutal in that once you run out of lives you have to start over at the beginning, meaning to learn a new level usually takes running through the preceeding levels 4-5 times each before my 6 year old can figure out the one she is on.

Faerie Caves II is the Game

http://www.neopets.com/games/play.phtml?game_id=489