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Is neopets losing players?


Finn the Human

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More people are being discontent about TNT customer service and are leaving. Still, Neopets has 10x more players online at any time than all other virtual pet sites.

 

Lowest no. of players nline is 1 am NST. Around 6-7k.

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I agree with Lawrence. It's crap but yeah, a lot of people have had issues with the way TNT are now running things and are leaving because of it. :/

 

The highest I've seen online nowadays is something like 21k.

 

And about the reward thing, I don't know how and if that would work.. Lots of people go on hiatuses, lose their details and come back on fresh accounts. Plus I think whatever the reward was it wouldn't matter, people would cheat and make the items worthless. :(

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Thanks for bringing up this topic. I really had no idea. I've only played for 8 months, so I always assumed it was a rather large number of players. I played a little tiny bit when I was like 13, but neopets was way different back then, and way less fun! So I don't understand why all of a sudden they would be losing players? They have all kinds of stuff on here now. New games are popping up all the time, etc. I never find myself getting bored because there is always going to be something I haven't done.

 

I think that neopets gets the majority of it's players from the older crowd though. Meaning most long-term players are probably around 16-25. I think the younger ones are too easily distracted from it and can get frustrated easy, and probably don't understand stuff like the 'stock market' and 'gambling' etc. This has gotten off-topic. Okay, I'll stop now. :P :offtopic:

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I agree with quilaso. I remember at one point where they use to have commercials to recruit younger kids to play, but now viacom probably stopped that because neopets is losing money. I think we should prepare for neopets to get smaller and smaller. There's not really anything else we can do.

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A large factor in the decline is shoddy customer service and bad moderation- when you're liable to get frozen for no reason- or worse, for doing well- and be completely unable to get your account back, well, lots of people leave and some of their friends see that and leave as well and so on. It gets to be a chain.

 

Another large factor in the decline is NC stuff. When it first came out some left, and as NC has become a larger and larger presence, more and more have left. The Fortune Cookies were the final straw for a lot of people, if I recall. However TNT wants to try and logic it, they're still buying you extra zaps, extra faerie quests, ect, which is by and large an advantage to those able to get them and something that TNT had adamantly stated they would not do in the past.

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If you think about it, it's not neccasarily a bad thing if it gets smaller is it? I mean - it sure would make restocking easier. I've already noticed that the money tree is less crowded. :P I highly doubt that neopets will be gone anytime soon though. They still have quite a lot of loyal players... and new people, (like myself) join everday. I'm actually kinda curious about this sudden decrease though, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. I might google it later and see what I come up with. I'm curious now. ;)

 

@Anime - You just brought up a really good point actually. The customer service and moderation is bad! You'd think that would be a top priority for them, I'm sure it would lead to more premium members that way. If my account was ever frozen for something stupid, I would more than likely stop playing. I'd be too angry because all my hard work was down the drain! I also agree with the NC stuff. I know they have to make revenue somehow, but you'd think they'd make enough from ad's. I understand adding premium, but the NC mall can be pricey. Especially for young college students like myself. It's no fun seeing everyones customized pets and then wanting to buy the new NC items so badly because they are shoved in your face everyday.

 

Sorry, just a bit of a rant there. No offense to anyone who buys neocash. I'm just jealous. :P

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It makes sense that the way TNT treat their customers have made the population decline, and they haven't been proactive to attract new players. I've read stories about accounts getting frozen for ridiculous reasons, which is discouraging.

 

While it might be easier for restocking (I don't know—there's still autobuyers), I think it's also harder to sell items, and find some of the rarer items that are no longer available to newer players.

 

I don't think the NC mall for customization isn't such a problem, but fortune cookies and the emphasis on NC items probably are. I'm not bothered by the NC mall, since I've played F2P games back then. If an user wants to blow $4,000 on Neopets (which has happened), more power to them.

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If you think about it, it's not neccasarily a bad thing if it gets smaller is it? I mean - it sure would make restocking easier. I've already noticed that the money tree is less crowded. :P I highly doubt that neopets will be gone anytime soon though. They still have quite a lot of loyal players... and new people, (like myself) join everday. I'm actually kinda curious about this sudden decrease though, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. I might google it later and see what I come up with. I'm curious now. ;)

 

@Anime - You just brought up a really good point actually. The customer service and moderation is bad! You'd think that would be a top priority for them, I'm sure it would lead to more premium members that way. If my account was ever frozen for something stupid, I would more than likely stop playing. I'd be too angry because all my hard work was down the drain! I also agree with the NC stuff. I know they have to make revenue somehow, but you'd think they'd make enough from ad's. I understand adding premium, but the NC mall can be pricey. Especially for young college students like myself. It's no fun seeing everyones customized pets and then wanting to buy the new NC items so badly because they are shoved in your face everyday.

 

Sorry, just a bit of a rant there. No offense to anyone who buys neocash. I'm just jealous. :P

Restocking is a lot easier than before but as dummydumpty said, there are less people to buy. TNT should offer more rewards to their long players. Like certain shops for users a few years+. That will motivate players to join. And also maybe have another NC Giveaway....
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A large factor in the decline is shoddy customer service and bad moderation- when you're liable to get frozen for no reason- or worse, for doing well- and be completely unable to get your account back, well, lots of people leave and some of their friends see that and leave as well and so on. It gets to be a chain.

 

Another large factor in the decline is NC stuff. When it first came out some left, and as NC has become a larger and larger presence, more and more have left. The Fortune Cookies were the final straw for a lot of people, if I recall. However TNT wants to try and logic it, they're still buying you extra zaps, extra faerie quests, ect, which is by and large an advantage to those able to get them and something that TNT had adamantly stated they would not do in the past.

It's pretty much this, plus another factor that nobody on here mentioned that I think also may have contributed to it, and that is Facebook. Before 2006, Facebook was college kids and older only, and therefore, TNT didn't have have to worry about them. Ever since Facebook opened to everyone 13 and older, that's where everyone and everything has gone, including Neopets users who have quit. Now, TNT does have to worry about competition from Facebook. Every non-social network site does.

 

However, TNT has stated multiple times in the Editorial that Neopets is doing fine financially. Don't worry about it shutting down anytime soon.

 

I don't see what's so horrible about NC anyway. :/ Name one successful game site that has absolutely NO pay options, and honestly, Neopets is pretty tame compared to most other sites where you actually have to pay real money to get the best weapons and stuff.

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Restocking is a lot easier than before but as dummydumpty said, there are less people to buy. TNT should offer more rewards to their long players. Like certain shops for users a few years+. That will motivate players to join. And also maybe have another NC Giveaway....

They already have the Attic for people who have been users for (I think) 3+ years. Things like that are only going to satisfy people with older accounts.

I only just started playing and I doubt I'll play for that long.

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They already have the Attic for people who have been users for (I think) 3+ years. Things like that are only going to satisfy people with older accounts.

I only just started playing and I doubt I'll play for that long.

I know that there is the attic. I meant like another post office, magic shop, etc. The Attic's restocking pattern is predicted that it could restock every 7 minutes. BTW are you leaving neopets any time soon?
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I think it's nicer to have less competition for some things on Neopets... I think it's better with less players. Trying to think of names or entering competitions are difficult as is. I can see how a lot of people would be unsatisfied with the services on Neopets which would cause a significant decline in players. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of attracting new/younger players. Lots of the old ones would be getting older/busy or have gone on hiatus and left and stuff.

 

But there's also people like me who come back to Neopets after having played in childhood/teenager years. At that time I didn't have regular internet access so I couldn't be online a lot but that didn't mean I wasn't a player. I have noticed that majority of the more serious players are in their late teens/early 20s. Maybe returning players increase the number a bit? Hmm.

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I know that there is the attic. I meant like another post office, magic shop, etc. The Attic's restocking pattern is predicted that it could restock every 7 minutes. BTW are you leaving neopets any time soon?

Personally, I think it would be nice to have a newbie-only shop like the Attic.

 

And not any time soon. After the next 1-2 years, I'll probably get less and less active as things change in the real world.

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Having fewer players might also be better because it creates a better sense of community. One reason I see a lot of people say the old Neopets was better was because there was a better sense of community. And that's usually how things are. Less people = better sense of community. A lot of people today, from what I've seen, want Neopets to be more like that: a small site feel without the small site problems, so to speak.

 

But if TNT wants to get more people on the site, what they really need to do is bring back stuff like the McDonalds promotions and real world merchandise. Then, more people would learn about the site and go check it out.

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Having fewer players might also be better because it creates a better sense of community. One reason I see a lot of people say the old Neopets was better was because there was a better sense of community. And that's usually how things are. Less people = better sense of community. A lot of people today, from what I've seen, want Neopets to be more like that: a small site feel without the small site problems, so to speak.

 

But if TNT wants to get more people on the site, what they really need to do is bring back stuff like the McDonalds promotions and real world merchandise. Then, more people would learn about the site and go check it out.

Yea, I created an account after my sister showed me it. She quit about 1 year ago....I remember on TV there were all these ads about the Altador Cup which my friends would say.....
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I've notice this as well, having been around for ~12 years. The userbase seems to be mostly loyal players that have been around for 4+ years (whether it be with their first account, or newly created ones).

 

I agree that it is because of customer service & bad moderation; I've experienced this first-hand with my friend. Long story short, she said something to me in a neomail, I can't remember exactly what it was, but definitely not something she should have got frozen for. Yet, TNT took it the wrong way & froze her account and after submitting a number of tickets with no success she just gave up. Even though she had a lot of fun on the site, she had a rather old account with a lot of NP/things accomplished, and had no interest in starting over from scratch and has left the site permanently.

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Yea, I created an account after my sister showed me it. She quit about 1 year ago....I remember on TV there were all these ads about the Altador Cup which my friends would say.....

I remembered seeing the Altador Cup Commercial, but I didn't have time to play then.

Recently, I was thinking it might be good for Neopets to do cross-promotional events. Not like the ad games they already do, though, as it's just Nickelodeon advertising their own products.

Personally, I think it would be cool if another game created a Neopets-related item for use in their own game and Neopets created and Neo did the same for them. Can't think of anything that would fit though. =/

(Does anyone else think Neopets pets in WoW would be hilarious or is that just me?)

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I definitely agree with the NC thing being a determining factor in the decline of active Neopets players! I was active right when the NC mall was released and many people were very upset with the whole idea and were saying they were going to leave if it got any more commercialized than that...which it has :P After I came back from that hiatus (with this new account) I was soo surprised at how much things had changed. There are ads EVERYWHERE now--on all sides of the page on some screens and even before some games! It's that kind of commercialized attitude that has probably driven a large crowd of people away. A lot of things about the game have changed so drastically in the past few years...I'm willing to bet some people favored the simplicity of the game in its former states.

 

Another factor is probably a lot of people that loved Neo as kids growing up and being too occupied with their lives to be interested in maintaining an account. i know that was true for me until a couple of months ago, anyway :P it's unfortunate to see this sort of downhill trend, but I think Neopets has more than enough players to keep the site going for a looong time. And like someone else said...that means better restocking for those of us that stay!

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Ok lets see here are some reson

1)its takes up to much time as a neo additcion some people spot cause they need to focus on school

2)many people ain't online in morning cause they go to school

3)TnT are freezing and lost of acount lost are happeining

4)some popele don't see why its fun

5)They think it sto "kiddish"in a way

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A lot of you bring up some great points. Right before Neo was bought out, they had a really great Halloween festival, and it was equal for both NC and NP items. I didn't mind a lot that they included NC in it because it was good for both sides, really equal opportunity fun. The year after, it was highly one sided towards NC items, and I was so disappointed - you guys remember that? I'm super cautious about Neomail now, that's why, since I usually only talk to folks from TDN, I try to keep anything personal here in PMs, I don't want to take the chance of my account being frozen for whatever crazy reason. But, I still actively play, and I still enjoy it.

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