Neopets is finally in its revival era
Neopets may not look entirely different, but times are changing for the beloved and sometimes troubled create-a-pet website. For the first time in nearly two decades, Neopets is run by an independent company after new leadership negotiated a buyout from its former owner, NetDragon Websoft, which owned JumpStart Games, the company Neopets was a subsidiary under. To put it simply, Neopets is now free from the “corporate baggage” it’s held on to in the past, according to new CEO Dominic Law.
Law and the new Neopets team, now under a company called World of Neopia, Inc., announced the leadership handoff alongside a long list of promises to the franchise’s dedicated fans. Under a message of dramatically increased transparency, the Neopets team said it’s not only going to fix the website, but go beyond that, too — with a mobile app, a virtual concert à la Fortnite’s concert series, and lots of new content. World of Neopia appears to be making good on those promises so far. Days after the announcement, Neopets got back dozens of its Flash-based minigames that went offline when Flash died.
“We’ve had a lot of tech death since the original game was built on a platform over 23 years old, close to 24,” Law said. “There are a lot of bugs, a lot of things we need to fix. To be honest, the to-do list is probably more than 100 items to fix. But we’re prioritizing and making sure that we’re delivering what matters most to our community.”
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And what matters most to the community? A functioning site is at the top of that list, with working Flash minigames (now running on Flash emulator Ruffle), better security, transparency, and accessible support. Beyond a lack of games on the site in the past, Neopets has had a rough few years
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