Hi Snarkie,
Do you think Neopets could ever be in the hands of owners who love the game, again? I know you mentioned you mostly look back at the place now as a good memory, but I’m just wondering if a part of you ever feels a little sad how it turned out compared to its heyday. Sometimes it seems like the current team is doing its best to drive players away, on a weekly basis, with specific decisions and actions/inactions. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they don’t even like the game. It’s super baffling. Theoretically, could Neopets be acquired by a wealthy group of fans or fansite in the future? Do you want to pool money buy it??! Just kidding. Probably just wishful thinking đŸ™‚
Hope you’re well!
A.
snarkie
Not a robot... probably.
Oooooohhh!!!! I think about this all the time <3 We need to take to reddit lol
I would totally be down for something like this but it seems complicated
8-week check in:
@Kirsten, right?! Agreed!
Sorry everyone, I think I put a stop to the flow of answers xD @Snarkie, just FYI, I’m not offended if you don’t feel like answering and skip it. Obviously this isn’t something you have influence over or current insight about and I was just purely curious to hear your take. I love the open dialogue and frankness on the other questions.
Ha! I appreciate the sentiment but if you go back in the history of these questions, 8 weeks is nothing. ? Answering takes way more time than people seem to realize and I answer in batches when I have free time that isn’t occupied by something else, which is double rare. So, unfortunately, long waits are very expected. ?
To the questions!
Firstly I want to clarify something for everyone reading (you said you knew better but others may not!): though I can understand you’re frustrated with some decisions they’ve made, the current team is definitely not “doing their best to drive people away”. I don’t know them but I can still guarantee that they are doing their best to make players happy and keep Neopets profitable enough to stay afloat. They’re not coming into work every day, going into a conference room, and brainstorming “How We Can Piss People Off Today”. There’s a big difference between actively sabotaging things and making (what some people perceive as) mistakes. I think people forget that the day-to-day folks on Neopets were very likely dropped in with no/little prior knowledge of decades-old lore and told to pick up where the previous team left off. They forget that it took years for our team to get where we were, which was far from perfect btw, and that we constantly made mistakes and pissed people off too. And that all of us on this side can identify those brand missteps we think they’ve made because we have the benefit of experience. They forget that everyone has to walk before they can run. Those folks are human. They’re trying their best. They will do some things right and do some things wrong, just like everyone else. Players can of course not like a decision but to assume that decision was made in bad faith is unfair. I actually see this take a lot in the GaaS space as a whole when a design team makes decisions players aren’t happy with and I’m baffled by it! No game developer is trolling you into hating their game. For one, this is their livelihood and they take it seriously. For another, they want to make something that players like and that they can be proud of, not the opposite!
So I guess TL;DR on that front: I would hope folks could give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume they’re acting in bad faith. You can help them learn what you like and don’t like ~kindly and constructively~ because they’re human people. And if they decide to go in a direction you don’t agree with, you may have to come to terms with the fact that it’s their brand, they have information we don’t that factored into their decision, and they’re doing what they think is right, even if you don’t agree.
Okay, sorry. I see that a lot and got carried away. Semi-rant over!
As for whether or not it’ll ever change hands again, it’s very hard to say! Especially without any insight whatsoever into their operations: team size, budget, future plans, yadda yadda. I doubt they’re looking to get rid of it any time soon! They seem to be taking it very seriously and trying to get different things going from what people have sent me to look at. But if they were selling, for reasons I’ve mentioned a ton in other answers, I assume it’d be the IP and assets, not the site. (They may want to sell the site along with but I think it’d be difficult to find a taker.) Plus, the current team seems to be dipping into some cool merchandising (thank, Fyora!) that has value in its own right. A lot of different things the brand has to offer could easily be leveraged for a variety of offerings that could be worth the investment. So yeah, I think they could find the right buyer for the IP if they were looking, definitely.
Could fans snag it? Sure! But then you have people who may know the brand (although only from the outside) but don’t know how to run a business/GaaS so they could very easily be in over their heads and do exactly what you hope against: accidentally run it into the ground. ? Hiring fans or having fans take over is an idea that sounds much better on paper than has worked in actual practice in my experience. (SEVERAL experiences. Hoo boy.) They know very specific things, usually with a particularly skewed perspective, and aren’t as helpful as you’d think. At least not individually. It’s incredibly hard for them to be objective and they tend to hyper focus on their favourite things, etc., etc. And that’s to say nothing of the WEIRD power dynamics that go on when a group like that tries to work together and money gets involved. I’m trying to imagine the idea of a fandom buying out something I absolutely love as a fan and I’m honestly filled with dread at the thought. Haha. It could work! I’m just saying I wouldn’t bet on it! Heh.
And yeah, the Neopets heyday was great—and brief: it came and went while I worked there, even!—and it would be nice if we could stay in certain bubbles forever but things change and I’m okay with that. Nothing lasts forever so I’m just glad I experienced what I did, while I did. And the brand has been around long enough to become nostalgic to a lot of people so maybe there’s another, different heyday coming in its future with what they have planned. That’d be lovely. ?
Thanks for the interesting questions! And for being so polite.
And don’t worry. If I don’t want to answer a question, I would reply and let the asker know! I don’t hold it against anyone for asking things if they’re curious. It’s only the rude people I ignore and delete and I’ve only had to do that once here on my own site. Y’all have been very nice.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective!!! *starry eyes* You are so awesome! Neopets was so lucky to have you.
I think it is pretty awesome that you still take the time to answer Neopets-related questions from your perspective and from your experience while working there. I am not sure how long it’s been since you left, but I’m guessing quite a while.