The Cult of the NeoPet

Wired is running an article examining the ups and downs of the Neopet Addiction. The overly cute online 'game' mostly consists of teaching kids to look at ads, but somehow has developed a large following online. From the article: "A generation agrees. Neopets has a staggering 25 million members worldwide. It has been translated into 10 languages and gets more than 2.2 billion pageviews per month. These dedicated Neopians spend an average of 6 hours and 15 minutes per month on the site. That makes Neopets the second-stickiest site on the Internet - ahead of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and eBay, according to Media Metrix. What's more, its demographics are the stuff of marketers' dreams: Four out of five Neopians are under age 18, and two out of five are under 13." Relatedly, Kotaku has a quick blurb about the Scientology backdrop against which this cuteness is projected. Update: 12/09 19:14 GMT by Z : Fixed broken link. There's a bug there, methinks.

Comments

correct link

[EddieBurkett]

The link in the story is wrong. Go to http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/neopets.h tml

Neopets Founders?

[daviddennis]

Anyone know what happened to the founders? They were strangely silent in the Wired article, even though they apparently still work for the company.

The Scientology angle's pretty interesting, and the echos of Scientology-speak with their management were positively eerie. I've come close to crossing swords with that group in the past, and I must say I'm not keen on doing so in the future.

I have to say, it's a very clever concept. It's worth visiting just to look at the bizarre creatures they've created. You don't need to sign up and sacrifice your body thetans to them in order to take a look.

Fortunately.

D

(I ran an anti-Scientology site until I found that dealing with the anti-cult was almost as life absorbing as actually being in Scientology :-( ).

Re:Neopets Founders?

[Otter]

I've come close to crossing swords with that group in the past, and I must say I'm not keen on doing so in the future.

Given that there's nothing Scientology-related about the NeoPets game, that the internal work practices there seem to be at worst weird and that the Scientology angle only came up from someone looking to (mildly) badmouth the company -- I don't see any need to "cross swords" with people who are minding their own business and certainly not harming you.

Is it really that surprising?

[Iriel]

Neopets combines a lot of the known elements that can make a website 'sticky'. As a web designer, I'm pretty aware of why. Just look at how successful things like Pokemon and Tamogachi pets were. However, these don't require you to take your save card or deck everywhere, you don't need to have some stupidly large object dangling from your keychain, and you can access them almost anywhere. This is just to start (concerning the convenience of them) off.

Not only that, but in schools, I read a lot of school studies about kids getting in trouble for playing Yahoo games or AOL games in classes with computers in front of them. With Neopets, you get all those games with a new skin and it appears to give you rewards for them as well. Even if kids end up buying the merchandise later, a big reason that Neopets does so well is because they have so many things that appear to reward you for using their web services with no fees up front. And their so damn cute!

I should know, I've seen people kicked out of computer labs in college for playing on Neopets when people were trying to finish their finals. Its rather creepy.

Freaking Scientologists...

[Schezar]

If there's one organization on this Earth that I can't stand, it's the Cult of Scientology. I make a point of harrassing them every chance I get.

We actually did a bit about this story last night on GeekNights.

They typically have their people sitting at little tables in the subways of NYC offering "free stress tests" and copies of Dianetics, hoping to get new converts. Every time I pass them, I take the time to stop and explain to the people they've ensnared that it's a cult. It's scary how many people don't know.

Typical example:

Me: Scientology is a cult. "You know that, right? They believe in an ancient alien named Xenu who exploded the souls of other murdered aliens with H-Bombs billions of years ago. They take your money."

Prospective Scientologist: "What? Wow... Thanks for the warning." -leaves-

Scientologst Asshole: "Hey! You can't say things like that! I'll call the fucking police! Leave NOW or I'll call the police! We're not a cult! It's slander to say we're a cult!"

Me: "The police, eh? Yes, why don't you call them? I'll stick around and wait."

They never actually call the police, but I wish they would sometime. I'd love to see these geniuses attempt to explain to a cop just what illegal act I was committing. "He was telling people about us!" "He says Scientology is a cult!"

So do a good deed. Spread the word about scientology.