Neopets Is About To Endure A Reinvention After 23 Years

Neopets, the beloved digital pet sport from the 2000s that featured Flash video games and an enormous omelette, is below new administration—they usually’re trying to reinvigorate the world of Neopia. On July 18, the newly shaped World of Neopia, Inc. revealed a prolonged weblog put up below the byline “The Neopets Group” (TNT) detailing the way forward for the franchise, from the abandonment of metaverse and NFT plans to the updating of the famously damaged Flash video games.

The way forward for Neopets

Because of over $4 million in funding secured from buyers, TNT wrote that “for the primary time in over a decade, [the team is] outfitted to make significant modifications in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance.” These modifications embody discovering a repair for the Adobe Flash drawback, as the EOL of Flash in December 2020 successfully orphaned tons of of 1000’s of Flash-based video games. “We’ve got begun exploring the usage of Ruffle [a Flash player emulator] to resolve the problems attributable to the top of Flash in hopes of rushing up the method of bringing performance again to our beloved video games,” the weblog put up learn.

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However fixing Flash-based video games isn’t all of the workforce plans to do. It additionally “took an extended, onerous have a look at group suggestions on Neopets Metaverse” and NFTs, two current initiatives which Neopets followers nearly uniformly hated. “It shortly turned clear that the sport simply didn’t line up with all the things that made Neopets…properly…Neopets,” the workforce wrote. As a substitute, the workforce is abandoning that enterprise (thank god), and focusing as a substitute on an upcoming cell sport known as World of Neopets, “a social life-simulation sport during which you reside your supreme Neopian life from the angle of a Neopet.”

Within the upcoming sport (which doesn’t have a launch date but), you’ll be capable to beautify a house, play mini-games, acquire Neopets, and discover “iconic Neopian lands in 3D.” The devs promised that World of Neopets won’t simply be a rebranding of the maligned Neopets Metaverse. “There aren’t any NFTs in World of Neopets, and the sport is NOT constructed on a crypto mannequin,” they wrote. Blessings!

There may also be alternatives for Neopets followers to turn out to be “model ambassadors.“

The beloved, basic Neopets web site will stay, with TNT promising “nice issues on the horizon for the basic digital pet web site that began all of it.” And a brand-new web site will launch on July 20 as a “one-stop store for all model bulletins, hyperlinks to our completely different video games and merchandise, a repository of Neopets articles and associated hyperlinks, and anything Neopian you may consider!”

The “new period” of Neopets promised by the workforce is feasible, thanks largely, to the model now not falling below the administration of JumpStart Video games, which the workforce stated “struggled to seek out success for Neopets” earlier than shutting down on June 30 of this yr.

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Now, the workforce is led by Dominic Legislation, described as a Neopets superfan who pushed JumpStart Video games mother or father firm NetDragon to maintain the model alive within the wake of JumpStart’s shutdown. “A administration buyout deal was struck” that allowed the 2 Neopets groups to “mix forces and turn out to be an impartial firm” that’s “free from the company baggage that existed prior to now.” Weirdly although, Legislation’s most up-to-date job title on LinkedIn is Chief Metaverse Officer at Neopets.

I actually am prepared for Neopets’ triumphant return, sans NFTs and crypto trash. Are you?