For over 25 years, Neopets has taught adults to care for virtual pets online. It’s one of the few games played exclusively on the internet, alongside Club Penguin and Gaia Online. Developed by Adam and Donna Powell, Neopets revolves around Neopia, where users care for and play with Neopets.
In comparison to Japan’s Tamagotchi, Neopets was solely online. Adam and Donna Powell created Neopets to entertain college students and generate advertising revenue. By the end of 1999, Neopets had over 600,000 registered users. From 1999 to 2005, Neopets was independently owned until Viacom purchased it for $160 million. Shortly after, Adam and Donna left the company due to creative differences.
In 2014, JumpStart Games bought Neopets. In 2017, JumpStart Games was acquired by the Chinese company NetDragon. Under this new management, new material was produced for the first time since the JumpStart purchase.
Currently, after a failed attempt to create a 3D version with NFTs called Neopets Meta, Neopets is led by former Neopets Meta CEO Dominic Law. Neopets is now independently owned by World of Neopia, Inc. Since 2023, the new team has been revitalizing Neopets with a new homepage and a mobile game, Neopets: Tales of Dacardia, among other upcoming updates.
At Los Angeles Comic Con 2023, I had the pleasure of speaking with Casey Sinclair, Project Manager and Senior Writer at World of Neopia, Inc. We discussed the newly released Neopets: Tales of Dacardia and reminisced about Neopets. Please note that this interview was conducted on December 3, 2023, so some information may already be outdated.
NEOPETS Interview with Casey Sinclair
Krystal: I’m here at LA Comic Con 2023, and I’m here at the NEOPET booth where they’re celebrating their 25th year anniversary. And I’m here with Casey. You are the senior writer and project manager, correct?
Casey Sinclair: Yeah, I work with a marketing team. My TNT (The Neopets Team) handle is TNTOneOfTwelve. You probably haven’t seen me. I’m not super active on the forums, but behind the scenes, work with a marketing team, work with narrative, work in licensing. And we’re really just here to grab the brand and really just engage with the community. We love our fans. We’ve got such an amazing reception here. It’s really great to just see people’s reactions with this amazing IP.
Krystal: -And at LA Comic Con, no less, you’re not only here celebrating the 25th anniversary, it’s also Neopet’s debut at La Comic Con, correct?
Casey Sinclair: This is our first LA Comic Con presence. We did San Diego and New York last year, but we figured, ‘yeah, we should show up at LA and see our fans in the Southern California area’.
Krsytal: We were discussing earlier about the positive reputation of Neopets and the longtime fans who played, such as myself, who played a long time ago, and now fast forward 25 years later, the Neopet brand is still alive, but some fans might be unaware of the, shall we say, rebranding of Neopets. Can you go into detail with that?
Casey Sinclair: Yeah, for sure. So I think it’s interesting in seeing people’s reactions today. We get everything from “Neopets?!”, “Oh, my God, this was so amazing to play in my childhood”, “You guys are still around?” “25 years?! you’re older than I am!” to, “oh my, Neopets! Are they still alive?” And we say, “yeah, they’re starving, but they’re still alive”, and I think that shows that there’s such a positive memory in the cultural consciousness of Neopets. People look at the logo on our booth and they just unlock those kind of core memories of Neopets. I think that’s what we’re about in terms of celebration, 25 years to speak to kind of the revitalization of the brand. So we have new leadership as of July of this year [2023]. And we’re really aiming to make a big push in terms of content, in terms of merch, in terms of engaging with the community and what the community has been asking for, fixing the site, introducing awesome new merchandise, introducing new plots. We have The Void Within plot coming next year [2024] and really trying to, like you said, bring those people back who may not be aware that Neopets is still alive in kicking.
Krystal: Are there any upcoming projects that you’re allowed to speak on? I know that the new CGI sort of game in the works, and I think it’s on the website. Is there something you can talk about that?
Casey Sinclair: Yeah. So, World of Neopets, we announced that back in July. It’s going to be a mobile game, kind of think hybrid, kind of animal Crossing, pet Sim style game. I have to say, with a disclaimer, it’s still tentatively in development. But we’re really trying to kind of have a different style of Neopets game where you can kind of be in the guise of a Neopet and kind of interact with Neopia, go around the world. But we still have a heavy focus on Neopets.com that’s like, mentioned the plot coming out next year.
We had almost every year during the 2000s, a plot come out that was so integral to Neopets, the storytelling. Right? And I work with a narrative team, amazing group of people. The storytelling was really important, and so we kind of wanted to bring it back to that. We’re also excited in that last year, in 2022, we launched Fairy’s Hope, a match three game. We kind of want to have something for everyone. But I was telling you earlier, it’s really important for us to have kind of this unified universe of Neopets games where people that want to play Neopets.com, we’re faithful to that. We support that. We introduce new content for that. We fix things that need to be fixed for that. But then anyone that wants to branch out and experience Neopia in new ways, they can do that as well.
We have Advent calendar going out right now that’s on the site. We have a little fun, little teaser at the end of that for people that played the fairy festival event earlier. We had a little comic at the end. Maybe they could expect something, who knows? And then we’ve already said in our live AMAs that happen every month, UC pets coming. Keep your eye out for that on the site. And then also, the last kind of pillar in our group of games is Island Builders. And Island Builders has been out for a while, but we have a closed beta going on right now where we’re prepping for the relaunch of Island Builders early next year. And we’re really excited about that new build. So revamped again, like, to scratch every itch for everyone that wants to interact with Neopia in different ways.
Krystal: To wrap this up, because I know you guys are busy for sure, it’s not only the games that are coming out, right, because at this convention itself, you guys had a panel in where you guys discussed a graphic novel. Can you go into detail with that?
Casey Sinclair: Yeah, so that’s only the games. We are partnered with Andrews McNeil that came out with our amazing cookbook earlier this year. Personally, one of my favorite products that we’ve ever come out with, it’s so faithful to the esthetic, the vibrant kind of pastel colors of early Neopets. So they have graphic novels in the works. We have our calendar here, our 2024 calendar. We designed that in house–
Krystal: –which, let me just add, seeing a Neopet calendar for 2024, it’s….amazing!
Casey Sinclair: Well, we wanted to kind of, like, pay homage to our 25th birthday. So we’re celebrating 25 years of Neopets. Our 25th birthday is in 2024, November 15.
Krystal: WOOO! Congratulations!!
Casey Sinclair: We’ve had 25 years in Neopets. We want to have another 25 years. So in addition to the games, we have the novels coming out, we have new products coming out. We have our neo hoods here today, new plush in the works. Can’t speak too much on that, but we’re listening to the community about all these kinds of things and kind of really want to, again, pay respects to the community and what the community has been asking for.
Krystal: All right, Casey, thank you so much for helping us catch up on Neopets on the 25th anniversary!
Casey Sinclair: Thank you so much and we want to just say a special shout out; Thanks for the interview, and thanks for our community for being here, and we’re happy to be at LA Comic Con!
We’re eagerly anticipating all the incredible updates coming to the world of Neopets! From exciting game updates to brand-new merchandise, the future holds endless possibilities. We can’t wait to see what’s next!
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