19 replies to this topic

[Hydrange]

Since a month or so, I hardly sell anything from my shop, when my prices are the same as always. Even the faerie employment office is full! At this time, there used to be 1 and a half pages full of jobs that pay less than 100np and nobody wanted. But now there's like 15 pages! I can go at the minute :08 when all the good stuff is meant to be gone, and get a job that pays 8k! I would have expected something like this to be progressive, but it's been so sudden! You may think it may be the back to school thing, but even before the summer things were not so isolated.

[Waser Lave]

I've been tracking the # of players online at one point every day since July and it looks like it's dropped by about 1/3 since it started tracking. It was quite steady around 16k in July and more recently it's down to around 12k with some fluctuations even down to 6-7k.

[annddd]

I've been tracking the # of players online at one point every day since July and it looks like it's dropped by about 1/3 since it started tracking. It was quite steady around 16k in July and more recently it's down to around 12k with some fluctuations even down to 6-7k.

That's really surprising. However, I am just wondering that about forty to fifty percents of players now are restockers (using programs ?!), and only the rest of them are legal players.

[James]

Next year Codex will be more popular than Neopets.

[Mew]

TNT need to start focusing on attracting new players rather than bashing out as many NC items as possible.

[Waser Lave]

On this subject, I read something interesting the other day:

http://finance.bosto...tranks_facebook

So while the number of Neopets users has gone down in the last couple of years the 'stickiness' of the site has remained pretty constant and actually risen slightly.





According to that report the NC Mall domain actually has the most unique visitors too so I'd imagine they're doing quite well financially even with falling visitor numbers.

[Lasciel]

That's cool to know. I always wondered how many people actually still play neo, and how many are new players.
I think the learning curve is pretty steep for neo. Loads of things to get used to which may put a new player off.
Also, fewer people are finding it fun to just click through a 2D game, what with all the fantastic CG, animations, soundtracks, handheld gizmos that allow you to engage your screen etc.
If neo didn't have any more new players who play regularly, and the ones who are left are indeed mostly cheaters, it would no longer be fun I think

[Metigue]

School has just started in the UK and quite a lot of europe too, so that'll hit their userbase somewhat.

[Yung]

School has just started in the UK and quite a lot of europe too, so that'll hit their userbase somewhat.

School has picked back up in the US as well not just the UK. Still.... considering the actual age base of most of the users I don't believe that school being back in session would have an enormous impact on average user base.

[Pilot]

People will eventually get bored of click based browser games. (ie. Urban Dead) For a virtual pets website that has sustained this long, I think they've done pretty good so far.

[Sneaky]

I wouldn't doubt if most players are quitting or being banned. I've noticed a LOT more people leaving lately, although I can't quite say for sure the real reason but they claim they say it's because they're either bored, tired of how the place is, or they have more things going on outside of Neo to where they should/have to quit.

Not to mention that yeah, school does probably does have something to do with it.

[Hydrange]

Yeah school has started but this comes from early August more or less. Or maybe people decided to quit for good when school started again.

Anyway, I read this on the editorial:

Is Neopets in danger of shutting down? ~___ashley
Hahaha, we're assuming someone said something on a chat board? This question was asked a few times back to back by different people. No, Neopets is in no danger of shutting down, as far as we know. We're afraid you're stuck with us!

But after the issue with Meteor games, that were promising over and over they wouldn't close the week before they did, I don't know if believing it or not. However, I know that Meteor Games is not Viacom. I am sure Viacom can afford to keep Neopets running, even with losses. They have the same team of Neopets working on PPP and Monkey Quest, and these two are kinda popular.

I agree with that kids don't like browser based games, you just have to see how popular Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin are, and they are stupid as hell, they don't reward creativity or achievements like in Neopets, they are just plain stupid and yet they are so popular...

[Turnip]

Ehhh, the editorial isn't reallllyyy something which has mostly uh accurate answers so I guess it isn't best to take anything from there seriously
Like the time when they said there's no bank limit, then a few weeks later said there was but "no one's gotten close to it" and stuff like the site's never been hacked and all that~

[Syntax]

If you go online in the mornings, like say midnight - 5AM NST, the number of people online dropped drastically. It used to be around 10k at those times a few months ago; now it's about 5k plus. Which is shit if you're using an ABer cause no one clears the shops and the deflation that TNT is doing right now isn't helping issues.

Mostly, I think Neo is just a lot more boring for people now. There hasn't been a proper plot in years. There are very little NP things (especially wearables) for people unable/unwilling to pay NC. To look at it frankly; the most active boards - AC/PC/BD are all fucked up by TNT. AC has no new avvies, PC's trading values are all messed up by the Krawk/Draik deflation and idk about the BDC but I know they think the Battledome needs an update or something.

I mean, I used to chat on the boards, but most of my friends are either haitusing or quit, so I just leave the Abrosia on and go do other things.

[Hydrange]

If you go online in the mornings, like say midnight - 5AM NST, the number of people online dropped drastically. It used to be around 10k at those times a few months ago; now it's about 5k plus. Which is shit if you're using an ABer cause no one clears the shops and the deflation that TNT is doing right now isn't helping issues.

That is so true... this prizes update is not gonna do any good. They could've just added some 101 items, the least thing that neo needs is more worthless items clogging the shops, also the DK deflation. They look like good decisions at first, but it just pisses people off, the ones that saved for months to have a DK... what they should do is deflate a bit the price of some high rarity stamps, it's not gonna hurt anyone since that shop has more than 400 different items to restock, while the exotic foods shop or any other have way less, and another junk item given by a daily doesnt do them any good.

[Mishelle]

A lot of people are leaving or refusing to pay money for neo. I stopped paying for premium because there was no point, the charter boards are a deserted wasteland. I agree that they should deflate stamps rather than useless junk that clogs up the shop. It would also be helpful if they made it so shops could clear themselves rather than it just sitting there until someone comes along and clears it because that's just a waste of time and neopoints.

[MysteryMunch]

That general tendency to refuse to add small improvements (like the shop clearing Mishelle mentions) is probably part of what's going to end up causing the site's decline. There are some very simple changes that could be made to the site that would make everything easier for everyone, but that haven't been made; for example, the ability to sort your inventory.

Right now I think they're just milking a cash cow for all it's worth, and not paying attention to the damage they're doing. They just want to get as much money out of it as they can before it implodes.

[Silver]

Business wise, they're doing alright. The content has declined in the past few years (been playing for 8 or 9), and I agree, no good plots as of late. Neopets won't close because as someone stated, its the same tem which runs monkeyquest or w/e, and if viacom is gking to keep them on payroll, might as well keep Neo open.

[MysteryMunch]

It won't close for some time--not until it becomes unprofitable to run. Because a web site is so comparatively cheap to run, especially if you refuse to hire enough staff and make only low-quality improvements, the site will have to be practically abandoned before it closes.