FANDOM FEATURE
Have You Checked On Your Neopets Lately? Neopets is moving past Y2K with a modern-day revamp. by Jackie Cucco, senior editor
T
he year is 2000. You change your away message to “Playing Neopets,” peel open some after-school Dunkaroos, and settle in for a long afternoon of Turmac Roll and Meerca Chase. Your Neopian bank account is full and so is your belly. Life is good. As virtual pets became all the rage in the late ‘90s — often in the form of pocket-sized, handheld devices — neopets.com became the destination to raise a pet on the World Wide Web. The website launched on Nov. 15, 1999, as a place to customize fantasy pets bursting with personality, earn a currency of Neopoints by playing dozens of mini-games, collect inventory from thousands of virtual items, embark on Faerie Quests, and explore the whimsical world of Neopia. Neopets began as a standalone company, later getting purchased by Viacom in 2005, followed by an acquisition from JumpStart Games in 2014. JumpStart finally launched an open beta rollout last year to give the website a mobile-friendly update and make it easier for players to check in on their Neopets, play games, and earn Neopoints anywhere, anytime. The website revamp will keep the same feel of the original brand, with the addition of new features that make it easier for users to play on their mobile devices. Neopets is also expanding with plans for a world-building, mobile game called Neopets: Island Builders; an animated TV series; a merchandising program; and even live events. The idea is to revive the brand while staying true to Neopets’ core values and catering to all players, whether they first discovered it 20 years ago or they’re discovering it now for the very first time. “We want to make sure we have
something for everyone,” says Executive Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for JumpStart Games, Scott Nocas. “There’s the nostalgia factor for older fans who haven’t played since they were young and there’s the excitement from people who are now playing it.” The Neopets team keeps a channel of communication open with players to provide updates of what they’re working on and what’s new. “We don’t want to lose those people that have been with Neopets since the beginning,” says Neopets Brand Manager Stephanie Lord. “We want to keep the pieces of the brand that people love, and we want to let fans know that we care about this community by engaging with them more.” From website development to creating merch, the Neopets brand gives fans an opportunity to have a hand in designing for the company as part of the Fan Artist Partnership Program. “We have generations of artists who grew up around Neopets and who were inspired to create amazing fan art over the years,” Nocas says. “You’ll actually see art from some of our fans themselves who will get paid to create it for our merchandise. Why should we create it when oftentimes these fans actually have amazing ideas that are going to resonate within the community?” Anthony Conley (@anthonyconleyart on Instagram) designed a lot of the original Neopets art and continues to create fan art today. He was hired as an illustrator for the company in 2000 and in his first week on the job, he designed the classic Neopets characters Blumaroo, Cybunny, and Techo. “I shared these characters with the creators of the site, Adam Powell and Donna Williams, and they loved them,”
Conley says. “Soon I was drawing many character redesigns and creating many new species. A few redesigns that I got to do were Polypup, which became the Gelert, and the original Bruce, who was a human dressed in a tux until I made him into a penguin-like character.” Conley was responsible for the birth of Scorchio, Yurble, Grundo, Meerca, Koi, Kougra, and many other popular Neopets species, taking inspiration from his love of ‘80s cartoons, such as Masters of the Universe, ThunderCats, The Smurfs, and Inspector Gadget. He also helped create concepts for major storylines, digital comics, mini-games, lands, and thousands of virtual items within the game. In the early 2000s, Neopets was so popular that the art team would travel to shopping malls across the U.S. for promotional events. “We greeted fans who waited in line for hours to request sketches of their favorite Neopets characters,” Conley says. “The lines would wrap around the outside of the mall and we artists would draw for 8-10 hours just to make sure everyone received a sketch.” Conley left Neopets in 2014, but was contacted by Lord last year to work on freelance art for the game, as well as some top-secret designs for the Fan Artist Partnership Program — a program that he thinks is a genius idea. “If you know about Neopets, then you know that the fanbase is amazingly talented and creative,” Conley says. “They are notorious for drawing, writing fan fiction, cosplaying, sculpting characters and site items, and sharing it all online. Opening up the channels for these creators to possibly have their work featured on Neopets merchandise is every fan’s dream.” There are hundreds of thousands of
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