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Thursday, January 26, 2006

Culture: Damn Neopia!


Neopets, neopets, neopets. I had heard so much about these virtual creatures, I finally drew the straw and signed myself up for a study in "immersive advertising." I wanted to know what is capturing the world's young minds and imaginations (its in 10 languages), and not to mention marketing dollars (McDonald's shop, Firefly Zone, etc).

I logged-in a couple weeks ago but up until yesterday hadn't had time to tend to my responsibility, a young zen-like nimmo named BonkerBuster. I signed-in and realized my pet's hunger status was "dying" and he was suffering from boredom. In a state of panic, I played games until I had enough NP to stuff him with the unnutrious food and spoil him with the crappy toys they sell in Neopia. But it wasn't until I realized he was of average intelligence that I went through the roof. God forbid I have a dull, dumb neopet and was up until 2:30a buying him books.

But what was so interesting to me was the complexity of the site - putting a down payment on to reserve your plot of land for a house, putting your money in the bank to gain interest, getting a job (which seems to be based on some kind of caste system), a safety security box, among other things. Aside from the job part, I realized that I'm far more advanced in Neopia than real life...And I can't help but think of Chuck Klosterman's portrayal of SimChuck and his experiences with Sim People in Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs. What's with virtual worlds?

3 comments:

AKI SYSTEMS 2600 said...
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AKI SYSTEMS 2600 said...

Don't sleep on the Neo-Pets. NEOPETS (now owned by MTV) IS THE 2ND MOST STICKY SITE ON THE WEB.

Neopets has a staggering 25 million members worldwide. It has been translated into 10 languages and gets more than 2.2 billion pageviews per month. These dedicated Neopians spend an average of 6 hours and 15 minutes per month on the site. That makes Neopets the second-stickiest site on the Internet - ahead of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and eBay, according to Media Metrix. What's more, its demographics are the stuff of marketers' dreams: Four out of five Neopians are under age 18, and two out of five are under 13.

read more at WIRED:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/neopets.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

Lachlan said...

It's a perfect trainning ground for the next generation of psycho-parents, obsessing 24/7 about getting their kid ahead!