Neopets
started out with a website created by Welshman Adam Powell, launched in 1999. In short, it's the virtual pet site. The basic idea is you are a Neopian — i.e., an owner — with a former limit of four Neopets (six as of November 2019, and ten with a premium account as of December 2021) per account. Owners can take care of their pets by feeding them and playing with them, but there are a number of things they can do — buy and sell items, play Neopets games, discuss on the Neoboards, explore Neopia, train and battle with their Neopets, and design a webpage. Some Neopians strive to become rich, others use it as a place to post Neopets fanwork, and still others use it to win contests.
Neopets has a lot of fiction: encyclopedia articles, short stories, a rich world, comics, game premises, and ongoing Story Arcs (known as "plots") which crop up every so often. And, if in need of inspiration, The Neopets Team (TNT for short) lets talented users post Neopets-related articles, novellas and comic strips.
The site has since evolved into a franchise — video games have been released, a now-discontinued Trading Card Game was made, as well as Nickelodeon shorts, a breakfast cereal, and a now-discontinued magazine. Neopets also provides a simple, efficient way of advertising — sponsor games. These games give easy Neopoints, so they're played by a lot of Neopians every day, which provides some good advertising. It's also rather successful with merchandise; McDonald's and Burger King even had Neopets plushies as part of their kids' meals some years ago.
In later years, Neopets also has several mobile games; the first was Ghoul Catchers, a Match-Three Game that was released in 2014 and shut down in 2021. Another mobile game, titled Legend and Letters, was a hybrid between a word puzzle and deckbuilder game, though it barely lasted a year, having launched in 2019 and ended support in 2020. An additional two mobile games have been released in 2024 following years of Troubled Production; Tales of Dacardia, released in June, is a Construction And Management Game where players are tasked to restore the titular island after it was devastated by a large storm. Faerie Fragments, initially released as Faerie's Hope from 2022 to 2024 and later relaunched under its current name in October 2024, is, like Ghoul Catchers, a Match-Three Game that stars Luxinia, who, after being freed from a crystal, begins building a new Faerieland following its fall.
In 2023, the site's providers merged as a new independent company called World of Neopia, Inc., promising a new era for Neopets as an independent site.
Neopets side games and other media with their own pages:
- Habitarium, a now-defunct game
- "Life With The Newbies," a Neopian Times story
- Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, a PS2 game
- Neopets: The Official Magazine, a now-discontinued magazine
- Neopian Times Writers Forum (but be careful of the insanity)
- NeoQuest, a series of RPGs on the main site
- Petpet Park, a now-defunct Gaiden Game
