How Neopets’ nostalgic revival tripled users in six months
www.theguardian.com
An icon of millennials’ childhoods languished for nearly two decades. Now it’s attempting a comeback – banking on the fact that it hasn’t changed at all

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/12852381

With efforts to resuscitate Neopets ramping up, monthly users have nearly tripled to 300,000 in the past six months, and the company is on track to be profitable by the end of 2024, [current Neopets Team CEO] Law said.

Also notable:

Law said that rather than cracking down on fan-created components, the company is embracing them. It launched a “Neopass” login system that allows users to access games across the Neopets system, including third-party and fan-made games.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    In the early 2000s, Olivia Packenham would get home from school, listen to the familiar sound of the dial up tone as her family computer connected to the internet, and navigate her AOL browser to the virtual gaming world of Neopets.

    A crude social network that predated Facebook, the site allowed users to add friends, message one another, trade resources or virtual currency, and battle.

    That was until the entrepreneur and investing consultant Dominic Law, who joined NetDragon in 2020 as director of new markets, launched an internal campaign to revive the Neopets brand, which he called “a major leap of faith”.

    In addition to prioritizing drawing lapsed users back to the site, Neopets is flirting with licensing its intellectual property for a trading card game and a branded Monopoly board.

    Law said rebalancing the Neopets economy was a top priority for the company, and acknowledged that many hackers and black market traders had emerged because the site was neglected for so long.

    Such efforts to connect with Neopians have given many users hope that their experiences will be considered, particularly after the parent company experienced major backlash over a 2021 attempt to dive into NFTs and cryptocurrency.

    The original article contains 1,571 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 87%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!