Nicita

Breaking! JumpStart posted on the Neopets Facebook!

To our Neopets Members and Community:

Unfortunately, a recent restructuring of our resources means a number of respected employees working on Neopets are no longer with the company. JumpStart appreciates each and every one of our employees, and it was a sad day to have to say goodbye to our friends. While it’s disheartening to see team members leaving the company, we are incredibly thankful for everything they have done to create Neopets.com and the passionate community that surrounds the site.

https://www.facebook.com/Neopets

Heh, I see it's old news & was already posted in a new topic. Thought I'd keep it restricted to one topic & that's what you get 8D Oh well. Thoughts?

They went with children when Nick took over.

How well do you think they'd thrive if they played the Nostalgia Card and started catering back to college students and those who were around in the beginning?

I imagine some of those Nick Kids are probably getting college age about nowish so... 

I don't necessarily agree. Outwardly, perhaps, with the database merging with MonkeyQuest & the PetpetPark focus, but Nick made their choices content-driven. Nickelodeon very heavily targeted the NeoCash Mall and wearables in general, and that means their main target demographic were people that enjoy customising their pets (i.e. people with access to a credit card & the choice to use much of their extra income on capsules and the like). If they wanted to target kids, they would have focused on the games portal more than they did, or the pet interaction (i.e. exploring with your pet), or other elements. If they wanted to target oldbie players, the battledome, stock market, restocking, food club and those sorts of engaging features.

The moment JumpStart took over, Snarkie and other creative staff answered some of the frequently asked questions on the boards -- Players feared JumpStart, as an educational game development company for kids, would change Neopets into an educational games platform. Snarkie and JumpStart both confirmed that this was not the case, in fact, JumpStart bought Neopets to expand their userbase and sort of 'purchase' their way into a niche market full of passionate older players. Converting to a kids' site isn't what they say their strategy is. Of course we're currently still living off the content that was prepped during the Nick phase (given that content is made over a year in advance), but as soon as that peters down we'll see what JumpStart is actually after in the content they start offering

Curious to see what will happen; Their initial spontaneous changes (2m trade cap increase, auction house things) were nice, but they also let go of some of the old creative staff, which is mindboggling to me!

Mm, I've been browsing a bunch of topics with rules & guidelines as is :3 I'll take a look, thank you!

...Not necessarily a very talkative user, though, so a little intimidated by the post requirements for certain areas. I definitely prefer lurking, mrr.