Neopets goes independent, cancels NFT game and promises new era free from 'corporate baggage'

pcgamer.com:

Neopets was one of the hottest destinations on the World Wide Web of the early 2000s, but the virtual pet game's audience has been in decline for years now. Neopets itself has declined, too, admit its developers, who say they've had to «work tirelessly just to barely keep the site afloat» while operating at a loss for the past 10 years. Things are going to turn around soon though, say the devs, because for the first time since 2005, Neopets is an independent company again.

Viacom bought Neopets for $160 million near its peak in 2005, and in 2014 sold it to US edutainment company JumpStart, which was later acquired by Chinese game developer NetDragon. For undisclosed reasons, NetDragon shut down JumpStart last month, and Neopets might've gone with it had it not been saved by a «management buyout deal,» according to a blog post from the newly reorganized Neopets development team. 

That team, made up of Neopets developers who formerly worked for JumpStart and NetDragon, is now part of a new company called World of Neopia. The new development studio is led by Dominic Law, who previously led NetDragon's Neopets Metaverse NFT project: a Neopets NFT collection and an in-development blockchain game. According to the blog post, Law was the one who led the effort to rescue Neopets from the JumpStart shutdown.

«Free from the corporate baggage that existed in the past, the newly united [Neopets team] has now been entrusted with the decision-making and overall brand strategy of Neopets, enabling them to work solely on the betterment of the entire Neopets game and community,» reads the announcement.

Despite Law's background as the head of the Neopets NFT game—just a few months ago he said that Neopets has «all the right ingredients