With a $4 million takeover in July, World of Neopia CEO Dominic Law intends to revive Neopets, a 24-year-old web browser game admired by 35 million players. Law has plans to take advantage of the game's intellectual property to generate merchandise and open a new revenue source, as well as devise more games under the Neopets label.
Moving abroad can prove to be a lonely experience, something Dominic Law experienced firsthand when he relocated from Canada to Hong Kong at nine years old in 1996. Before having access to Wi-Fi, staying in touch with friends was virtually impossible, so when Law came back to Canada for visits, this is where he was introduced to Neopets and used it to stay in contact with his Canadian friends. Now, as the CEO of World of Neopia, Law has purchased Neopets for a whopping $4 million from NetDragon Websoft. Those who grew up in the early days of the internet are likely to remember Neopets fondly, with its signature bright yellow interface. Law reflects on the platform, concluding that, "It's great that we can have a platform that transcends public geography and connects people, and I think that's a big part of my childhood."
When Neopets was launched in 1999, it allowed players to care for cartoon pets, chat with other users, and play minigames, and the game eventually accumulated 150 million registered users with 35 million monthly active users at its peak in 2005. The current CEO of the World of Neopia previously worked for NetDragon Websoft, and observed the power of the Neopets community while in that role, noting that the game still had over a million active users despite being 24 years old. Even with a much lower user base than its peak, the game is still generating profits- although this is largely due to poor management, causing little evolution over the past decade and making some minigames unplayable due to the discontinuation of Adobe Flash software. Since he bought Neopets, the CEO said that his team is in the process of restoring these minigames and modernizing them to improve the experience.
CNBC conducted an investigation which demonstrated that, although some of the minigames were inaccessible and certain functions indicated that Adobe Flash was no longer supported, the majority of the site operated normally.
Law is cognizant that Neopets was developed in an alternate gaming epoch, and the landscape has significantly altered in the two and a half decades since its creation. Becoming not only profitable but also competitive in today's overflowing market of gamers is a formidable task. Mobile titles provide portability, whereas console and PC games are equipped with cutting-edge graphics and immersive game worlds which leave Neopets' classic web page-browsing and Flash minigames in the dust. Nevertheless, Law maintains that "the bright side for Neopets is that we fundamentally didn't do anything new for the last 10 years, and we can keep the primitive internet gaming culture as it is.” He said, “You can do whatever you desire, take your own journey. Playing Neopets isn’t regimented in any way.” He elucidated that this stagnation also meant Neopets didn't progress like the remainder of the gaming sector, which has been “intently fixated on just money-making, microtransactions, and ways to extort each dollar from your pocket.” “We’ve always been a game that is more about enjoyment and recreation. I believe in the long haul, that will persistently win. One of the principal reasons we've endured more than 20 years is that we likely generated an amusing enough game.”
He recognizes that Neopets is not likely to battle against big-name titles on mobile like Genshin Impact from Chinese creator miHoYo or the widely accepted shooter Call of Duty from Activision. Rather, it will find its place by leveraging the sentimental attachment players have to Neopets. "We're similar to a living antiquity, like an exhibition hall that you can continually visit and have a distinct way of playing games," he said. Law claimed that giving new users the chance to try what players did 20 years ago on Neopets is the game's selling point — a chance that the large game companies will have difficulty recreating.
Law's team has been conducting what they refer to as a "reactivation campaign" to gain back players, attending gaming events and recruiting well known figures like singer John Legend as brand ambassadors to initiate "a new era for Neopets." Compared to a totally new game, Neopets already has well known name recognition, which in turn reduces the "cost to acquisition" — the amount of effort necessary to get players to return to the game.Law mentioned that Neopets can send reactivation materials to former players through their connected email addresses. He said that from small scale experiments it has been established that "we can pretty much do no performance marketing and still attain a substantial enough core community to come back and play any of the new content we produce." Performance marketing involves online campaigns in which marketers pay advertising businesses or advertising platforms in accordance with outcomes accomplished.
Law believes that a considerable number of "previous players" will return as certain game aspects are rectified, citing that current user involvement, user participation, and money flow have reached a five-year high and Neopets.com is among the top 25 gaming websites in the U.S. regarding traffic and user involvement. Notwithstanding, Law doesn't anticipate that these reactivated players will remain active for long. "They might come back to say hello to their pets, yet they won't stick around because they've just grown out of the game."Neopets' incomes are gathered from promotion, in-game investments, and memberships. Subsequently, while income may ascend close by an underlying form in website activity as former players come back, that cash may likewise decline if customers don't remain.To uphold Neopets' long-term monetary dependability, Law plans to authorize the privileges to sell merchandise and make new games. A few joint efforts arranged for 2024 incorporate a coordinated effort with board game Monopoly and Upper Deck, an organization that fabricates exchanging cards.At his keynote address at Gamescom Asia, Law commented that while "past players may not return to play Neopets, yet they can come back to buy their childhood recollections" in the form of merchandise. He commented that merchandise produces more than 80% of income for other major intellectual properties like Disney's Mickey Mouse and Nintendo's Pokemon. For Neopets, Law stated that the merch business would incorporate both physical, for example, plushies and apparel, and computerized, including in-game purchases.
Law is seeking to introduce "phygital" products, where customers have the option to purchase physical items that come with digital bonuses when scanned with a QR code. Their objective is to draw back previous participants and interest young people in the Neopets brand through the development of new video games and the original website. In 2024, World of Neopets, a 3D simulator game developed within the Neopets world will become available, maintaining elements of the existing experience, but also offering a more contemporary feel with minigames of a more social nature. Law has stated that this game will let players both reconnect to classic Neopets memories and also have a gaming experience that is more on par with modern titles like Pokemon. Does this signal the end of Neopets.com? Not at all, Law has claimed, and the site will remain active, still providing the minigames and other features that have been part of the Neopets realm for the past 24 years.
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