Ahhh, Neopets. I've played that game since I was 10 years old…though I must admit, it was a lot different back then; to sum it up, it was more fun, and less commercialized.
I had never seen any other website where you got to take care of virtual pets, make your own shop, make money, even build a house and change the way your pet looks! I had a lot of fun doing all of those things; I played a lot of games, though there weren't many back then, and tested my wealth and abilities against other players. I have a lot of childhood memories from that site, and up until recently, I'd gotten a fuzzy, “Look at meee, I'm a kid again!” feeling from it.
I watched as Neopets grew. The creators had grown the website up, so it looked a little more cartoony to keep the younger audiences entertained, and it worked. They were receiving more page views than ever, which really is an important part of a company surviving. Neopets claimed that as long as there were enough members and page views, they'd do whatever they could to keep the ads at bay.
Unfortunately, that was short-lived. They began with just ads up at the top, like all websites. Then they sneakily implemented a huge ad at the bottom of most pages, hoping no one would notice. After that, they added games from sponsors, such as Lucky Charms, Disney, Hannah Montana…stupid things of that nature, which is all fine and dandy. Even the ads weren't too bad.
Then something happened to the Neopets Team. I think they got a bug shoved into their nether-regions, because all of a sudden I seemed to be breaking all of the rules in the hour or less that I played per week on the site. “You have received this warning because your Beauty Contest entry has boobs.” “You have received this warning because some random person reported you on a message board, and we believed them.” “Your account has been suspended for saying, “Fo shizzle” in a message board.” “Your account has been suspended because you said you'd have a contest in your guild.”
In fact, let me type here my most recent violation, which is the cause for this rant that I have delayed for some number of months.
“Guilds cannot have contests, parties, neositting, dating services for pets or people, adult topics/sexual situations, politics, religious themes, live chat or use css to block the layout, etc. Your guild may be deleted if it does any of these things.”
I'm sorry, but…are you kidding me? No contests, politics, live chat, custom layouts? You aren't allowed to discuss politics or religion? They've become just like the people who are trying to ban Christmas! Do they really believe that a 12 year old is going to be offended if someone disagrees with their political views, which as 12 year olds, they probably don't have? Is “fo shizzle” REALLY a bad word that escaped through the filters?
The problem with Neopets is that they have to try so hard for their sponsors to be the good little folks that they wish they were. If they weren't politically correct, stick-up-the-hoohah blue collars, WHO would give them money?
Neopets began as a college project that evolved into something fun for kids and college students alike. They were brilliant to think of something that worked out so well…I just don't understand why they had to turn it into a corporate pile of cow dung. I wonder if they ever feel bad that thousands of kids are disappointed that they're seeing car insurance ads on top of their Neopets bank, or that to advance yourself in the site, you need to buy their merchandise to get special codes?
I can't say that this website is all bad, however. Their plots are engaging and memorable, their games are creative and amusing, and their sarcasm sprinkled throughout will sometimes let out an "lol" or two from its audience. In the gaming aspect, the Neopets Team isn't half bad. In a real-human kind of way, they only make any of this for the mighty dollar; they seem to have forgotten what it was like to let things slide by from time to time…ESPECIALLY on their message boards.
I have determined that the Neopets Team lives on the message boards; all times I have ever disobeyed them has been through these boards. Naturally, I didn't know I was doing anything wrong…I've typed the same way in those boards for years. I never used to have to worry about saying something that might set them off about something completely unrelated, i.e., I never used to worry about saying that my guild had a contest, that my neopet was drawn with a womanly figure, or that making fun of someone using a word they had already typed, would get me in trouble with their communist laws. I never used to be afraid of posting in their Beauty Contest forum, the cleanest board on the game, but apparently people have met their fate here as well. If I'm irked about it at my age, think what a ten-year old would do if they ever discovered that they were frozen for wanting people to look at their favorite entry in the contest.
As I have determined before, Neopets has slowly turned from a clean, fun community, to a financial goldmine of cartoony products and politically correct facism with a lack of concern for the members that make them have any sort of existence at all. Congratulations on your success, Neopets.
