19 replies to this topic

[Connery]

I've only been back for two days after being away for around two years and it seems a fair bit has changed on the management side. Are Adam and Donna involved at all at this point? They've also got all of that Neocash micro-transaction stuff. Sure isn't the same site it used to be.

[Derriere]

You know you could EASILY google this?

[Foe]

I've only been back for two days after being away for around two years and it seems a fair bit has changed on the management side. Are Adam and Donna involved at all at this point? They've also got all of that Neocash micro-transaction stuff. Sure isn't the same site it used to be.

Yes or so I believe.

[Eyesore]

Via Wikipedia

20 June 2005 is when Viacom purchased Neopets.

[Connery]

You know you could EASILY google this?

Ya, my mistake. Sorry, I obviously wasn't thinking.

Thanks for the response, Eyesore; I should've been able to see the correlation between Viacom and Nickelodeon. I guess they switched over to the Nickelodeon tag because of Neopets' demographic.

[Hydrogen]

Read: when did neopets sell out?

[Mr. Hobo]

Read: when did neopets sell out?

Man I remember years ago when they first added either the side or top banner, some guy made a screenshot predicting what neopets would look like in a few years. Ads boxed in the site with a big sponsor ad in the middle. Everyone replied with 'lol'. Now I go on the site and instead of a big sponsor ad it's a neocash ad and it's only missing an ad at the bottom of the screen. Scary stuff

[Kyle]

Man I remember years ago when they first added either the side or top banner, some guy made a screenshot predicting what neopets would look like in a few years. Ads boxed in the site with a big sponsor ad in the middle. Everyone replied with 'lol'. Now I go on the site and instead of a big sponsor ad it's a neocash ad and it's only missing an ad at the bottom of the screen. Scary stuff

Yea I remember when the only ads were on the side bar and it was like 20% ads, 80% neopets game ads

[Avian]

I hate the mass commercialism, but I understand it. Thanks Adblock.
Look at the amount of money D&D online and Free Realms makes from a system almost identical to the NeoCash system. They'll milk that for all it's worth

[Hydrogen]

I hate the mass commercialism, but I understand it. Thanks Adblock.
Look at the amount of money D&D online and Free Realms makes from a system almost identical to the NeoCash system. They'll milk that for all it's worth

Everyone and their grandma has jumped onto the microtransaction bandwagon. I'm actually a bit surprised it has even come this far. I believe it to be a very flaky business model. If I were a venture capitalist, I would hesitate to invest in a company based on microtransactions.

[Avian]

Well, until one of the big ones flops, it's going to continue to be used massively (Everquest 1 has Station cash, EQ 2 is completely micro-transactions now, Zynga makes a fortune from it). That's the company I would love to see flop, actually (that sounds terrible). Zynga. Read - FarmVillians

[gemificus]

Yea I remember when the only ads were on the side bar and it was like 20% ads, 80% neopets game ads

i remember when my mum first made me join cos her friends sons loved it and it helped them out.. at 6 n 4 they got everything and at 15 i got nothing , i watched then get a shh every five pages now my kids at the same ages can't catch a break without cheating

neopets deff sold out they will you to cheat just to keep the site going and freeze you if u make it too obvious n they don't really have a choice,, way i see it

[Noitidart]

I'm very saddened too I absolutely hate the redrawn pets But they had to be redrawn so they can be clothed/NC Mall.

[Casilla]

Everyone and their grandma has jumped onto the microtransaction bandwagon. I'm actually a bit surprised it has even come this far. I believe it to be a very flaky business model. If I were a venture capitalist, I would hesitate to invest in a company based on microtransactions.

What the heck are you talking about?  Virtual item sales are way profitable, and microtransactions encourage more spending.  Because people tend to be impulse buyers - so, they buy $30 in NC, and then go around the mall looking for items.  Hey, their cart now has $40 of NC items in it.  Do they pull out the items they don't want?  Maybe, if their RL cash is tight.  But most of the microtransaction (non-card) users are adults or older teens.  To them, what's another $5, $10?  It's not that much.  The vast majority of the people on the NC boards or Premium fit this demographic; and they are always buying new crap because someone else has an item they want, and they have to buy in order to trade for it, etc.


Microtransactions fool a person into spending a lot more than they intend to by keeping it in manageable, bite-sized portions.  People tend to forget about previous transactions with online microtransactions as well.  I know a person who spent $1000 in Facebook games over the course of a year because he completely lost track of his spending...he had the money in the bank.  He'd buy something.  Find out it wasn't enough, buy some more.  You only show a fraction of that on your statement each month, and it seems manageable at the time so he didn't think about it, even though it's more than you would usually spend for an MMO.  And you do that for like six games, it adds up quickly.  Now, $1000 is a bit extreme, but an adult Neopets user spending $100 over a couple months with NC?  Not at all unrealistic.

Now, I have no idea how long it takes Neo artists to draw/animate the NC items, but let's assume you have, at max, two hours per item (honestly I bet they get them done a lot quicker), and then you have, what, 50 pets?  You don't draw for UC pet styles.  So you have 100 hours of work per NC item.  Now, the average 2D artist salary in LA is about 50k/year.  That averages out to $25/hr.  You're spending $2500 per item for art (as I said, I bet it doesn't take as long per draw, but if the artists are smart they always round their time up anyway).  Now let's tack on an additional $100 for, you know, misc - someone had to design an item, set a price, make sure it makes it into the mall correctly, etc.  Whatever; probably averages out to just a few extra hours of some marketing or content person.  $2600 an item.

The average item price in the NC mall is 200 NC - most clothing is 150, most BGs are 250.  200 = $2.  That means you have to sell the item 1300 times.  That is not at all unrealistic.  I know for sure that capsules, at 250 NC and only usually having one limited edition item associated with each capsule (the other items in the capsule are already in the mall or retired mall items) will easily sell that very quickly.  I spend time on the NC boards and it's normal for people to buy limited release capsules 10 or 20 at a time.  For limited release items, it's probably made a good profit by the time the promotion is over.  I honestly couldn't begin to fathom the kind of sales for it, but I'd say the NC community on the boards/Premium is about 500 people strong...and a lot of people buy doubles to trade with out of the mall.  And those are just the people who go on the boards.  So they are easily breaking even with a healthy profit; maybe more if it's really cute or cool.  For everything else, it's in the mall an indefinite amount of time, so I imagine they keep it in there until it sells enough that they are comfortable with the profit made.  But capsules and events (and especially capsule events) are where all the money's at, which is why they keep having them.

Now, you want to encourage card sales, because card sales are done deals once you sell them to the vendor - you spend about $1 (maybe $2) per card making, packaging, etc.  But it also advertises Neopets to an audience where Neopets really doesn't do much advertising (outside of the occasional TV ads on a VIACOM channel like Nickelodeon).  So you encourage card sales by adding special items, maybe extra NC (if you buy the $25 card).  Once the card is sold to the vendor, you don't have to worry about it anymore.  But you also charge the vendor a lot lower price than the face value...I can only imagine 50%?


You really want to encourage straight CC transactions.  For large companies like VIACOM, I bet they have a 2% rate on CC transactions.  But let's say it's 2.5% which would put them in line with most online large vendors.  So that comes out to be a bit less of an expense than the card (for a $30 transaction versus a $25 card), but you also don't have to pay the vendor.

For Paypal, it's a different game with companies like VIACOM versus normal merchants in regards to chargebacks.  Furthermore, Neopets freezes people who do chargebacks on them, soooo I have a hard time believing it's a rampant problem...I doubt the chargeback rate is very high, and I doubt Paypal screws VIACOM over on it, either.  I would guess at most around 3%.  I could believe 5% but not really any higher than that.  Again - if it were a company like...Nexon...or any other semi-large MMO or smaller...I could see the chargebacks being a lot more of a problem.  But all-in-all, it's not a huge loss.  

No matter what, you're expecting to keep around 95 to 97 cents per every dollar charged in a microtransaction - be in CC, card or Paypal.  Or that new Ultimate pay or whatever system they have - I imagine it's the same kind of risk.

And honestly, it took Neopets a while to get in on the cash-shop idea.  It has only been out three years, now?  Nexon and other games have been doing it around 5 years now.  That isn't a VIACOM-Ruined-Everything decision - Meteor Games (where Adam and Donna now run) also do cash-shop sales through Facebook. And I think the microtransaction-mindedness of Facebook is the only thing supporting them, because unfortunately their games kind of suck.


Also, Neopets had ads well before VIACOM bought them, so I don't know what ya'll are on about.

Edited by Casilla, 13 October 2010 - 04:47 PM.

[Noitidart]

Cassssssssssssssssssssss holy shit

[Casilla]

Cassssssssssssssssssssss holy shit

You miss me and my wall-o-text; admit it.

[Noitidart]

Haha you know it babe.
I honestly didn't read through all that yet but I'm sure you have some good points in there.

[Invincible]

I read the whole thing, and she's right. I just wish it weren't true...

[Hydrogen]

I read the whole thing, and she's right. I just wish it weren't true...

That's exactly why I don't like it. I guess flaky wasn't the right word for me to use. I would never use that business model .