McDonald’s and other brands advertised real products in the virtual world, blending reality with fantasy in a way that has become increasingly common over the years. The entire website was a case study in interactive advertising. In hindsight, Neopets was moderately educational but little more than a way to sell merchandise. Once you were in, discussions covered everything from pressing Neopian issues, such as the Battle for Meridell, to anything a 11-13 years old wanted to post. For those under 13 who wanted to partake in these discussions, you needed to print out a permission slip, have your parents sign it, and fax it to Neopets offices in California. When not engaging directly in Neopia, the Neopets site enabled users to talk to fellow kids from around the world through NeoMail, Neobards, and Guilds.
There were other games that weren’t so easy to understand for monolingual English speakers and still remain a mystery.
One popular game was a Coca-Cola game written in Japanese because it was a basic online game that had many versions, so instructions on how to play weren’t necessary.
Those of us with too much time on our hands cracked other secret areas like games available in other languages, which you needed the specific URL to access.
Jelly World officially didn’t exist and Neopians would deny its existence while giving you directions to this magical land of free jelly, which could literally save your Neopets life if you were poor and unable to afford food. Unlike real life, these were usually true. If you can think of an aspect of real life, chances are it had a Neopets counterpart. Neopians raised up to four Neopets, contributed to the newspaper The Neopian Times, earned the Neopia’s currency (Neopoints) through activities, invested in the NEODAQ, saved Neopoints at The National Neopian Bank, defended Neopia from intruders, shopped at various stories, and explored strange lands. In many ways, it was the perfect gamified microcosm of adult life for preteens. However, Neopia had a thriving community. And your pets fought and defended Neopia like Pokemon defend fictional cities. You had to keep your pets fed and healthy like Tamagotchi. Diving deeper you’ll discover that the site was more than another virtual pet themed game.
While Neopets is often broadly described as Tamagotchi meets Pokémon, it’s only an accurate description when analyzing the site at surface level. In an odd way, Neopets introduced us to other Anglophone cultures.
At first it was odd, until we found out that Neopet’s creators Adam Powell and Donna Powell (né Williams) were from the United Kingdom. If you were a preteen or a parent of one at the turn of the millennium, you could not escape Neopets.įor many American kids, it was our first introduction to British spelling and advent calendars. The site was a behemoth that was translated into 10 languages. Wired reports that, in 2005, Neopets had 25 million members worldwide and over 2.2 billion page views per month. At its height between 2002-2007, Neopets the virtual hangout spot for every ’90s kid. Founded in 1999, Neopets quickly grew into the hottest site on the internet for kids.