Neopets is finally independent, new content could be coming

Hello, I’m old. Back when I was a kid, around the turn of the century, Neopets was incredibly popular among my age demographic. Since then, the Neopets brand has been bought and sold by various companies over the years. But, that ends now. Neopets finally owns itself and is fully independent.

If you don’t know what Neopets is, it’s still around today. At its core, it’s a browser-based game where you take care of digital pets, like a Tamagatchi. But, it’s much more than that. You earn ways to better your collection. You play minigames to earn their currency, Neopoints. You slice off a chunk of omelette from the Great Omelette. And of course, you adopt more pets… and Petpets for your Neopets.

Let’s talk about the history of the Neopets brand for a moment here. Neopets started its life out as an independently-owned browser-based game. Launched in 1999 by Adam Powell and Donna Williams, it thrived for several years on its own. 

During this time, a full trading card game was published by Wizards of the Coast. Development on a video game, Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, started.

Then, Viacom and Nickelodeon opted to buy it. They owned it for nearly a decade. Under the Nick brand, the video game came out, among others. They sold it off to JumpStart Games in 2014.

JumpStart Games, known for edutainment classics like Mario is Missing! And Mario’s Time Machine, finally shuttered its doors this past June, suddenly. This left Neopets without a real home. As of this week, Neopets officially owns itself again, after nearly two decades, according to a statement by The Neopets Team (TNT). 

They announced that they had raised over $4 million dollars from investors to buy themselves back from the holding company. 

This could lead to future content as well. Time will tell if they go bigger now that they have full control. But, they did assure the fans that they have no plans to do NFTs or cryptocurrency in the future, including in their mobile game.

You can read about all of this and more over on their statement. They went into a lot more detail about the deal and what they plan in the future for the Neopets brand. 

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