TNT Increases its Communication + Jumpstart Buyout

[Pepper-Head]

During the month of June, Neopets had their annual Altador Cup (which Kiko Lake won again after winning last year). From feedback, they tried a new scoring and cheater detection system. It wasn't all successful, but the new Neopian Times editor, Scrappy, has really made an effort to answer questions and help in the community where she can. Before the final rounds, she posted a thread in the boards to answer questions (which apparently hasn't been done in a LONG time) and could be seen occasionally commenting in other Cup and suggestions threads. 

Just recently, she posted a thread in the suggestion forum specifically dedicated to hearing what the players want! This thread reached the max 25 pages in about 2 hours.

One thing that was teased at was the possibility of a battle based plot, soon. (this time for real soon)

Something that may help or delay this is a recent aquisition of JumpStart by NetDragon, who was very interested with their IP (specifically mentioning Dreamworks and School of Dragons)
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/news/66139/netdragon-buys-jumpstart/ 

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I always have a soft spot for the game that started it all, so monitoring its news is interesting! What do you think will happen to Neopets?

 

[Digital]

I always have a soft spot for the game that started it all, so monitoring its news is interesting! What do you think will happen to Neopets?

It is interesting that JumpStart was recently bought out. We will have to see what NetDragon thinks of the Neopet's IP. Reading the press release though kinda points out something that would be a boon to the Neopets IP, but another statement that basically kills it.

The Chinese publisher, which focuses on building internet communities, 

At this point, Neopets is basically a online community more then an active game property. I always felt that JumpStart ignored the power of the community for the most part. NetDragon has been far more successful with community building in their properties then JumpStart has been.

“Through this acquisition, we will tap into their excellent relationship with DreamWorks and utilise their IPs to enhance our existing products. We believe this strategic acquisition will open up tremendous opportunities for both NetDragon and JumpStart to offer innovative and world-class learning products to our users."

In short, I read this to mean that NetDragon cares more about new games to market, then focusing on maintaining or growing existing IP. Whether this will mean that they will slowly kill or sell off IP that is no longer revenue generating to any measurable degree, or just not maintain or build upon the IP, we will have to see.

Lot's of ways to go here.

 

[Pepper-Head]

This is the official notice posted in the Neoboards by Scrappy. Hopefully there's more news soon. I find it a little worrisome for Neopets' future, since the site needs a LOT to keep the attention of a modern new audience. I don't know how much Jumpstart actually did, or planned to do.

Hi Ya'll!! Scrappy here. I know there's been a lot of talk about this acquisition so I'm here to set the record straight. Yes, Jumpstart has officially been acquired by NetDragon but there is no reason to worry. We are very excited to be a part of the NetDragon family! This will lead to great things for Neopets in the future and it is something all of us here at TNT are very excited for! That's all I have for ya! Enjoy this lovely summer day in Neopia  - TNT 




 

I know there might be a hard period transitioning with the new company to align with their goals and understanding of Neopets. There is little discussion so far in the boards from what I've glanced through, but generally people aren't optimistic at all. The lack of mention of Neopets as valuable IP isn't very comforting :S  

 

[runeowl]

This is quite off topic, but does anyone have any experience getting an account back on Neopets after having lost both the password and the email on the account? I would love to check back into neopets now and then but can't ^_^'' 

I tried making a second account and contacting support through that (a very long time ago), but they never bothered to email me back.

 

[Pepper-Head]

@runeowl - I've seen it happen, people usually recommend specifying as much specific identifying information as you can to help match up the account to you!

Buuuut there has been a notorious backlog on account restoration. ESPECIALLY since last year's Altador Cup when many accounts were wrongfully frozen for being suspected cheaters. This year, accounts were just flagged and players no longer earned points, but maaaaany people were affected and sent in tickets.

Usually they don't recommend sending in multiple tickets, but if it's really been that long of a time ago it might be worth bumping it (if possible?) or posting a new one. People used to spam the FB page asking for their ticket to be looked into but I think the social media manager left LOL

 

[runeowl]

The ticket's been open since october of last year TT-TT But I guess I'll just have to wait my turn. Thank you!

 

[kami]

This thread reached the max 25 pages in about 2 hours.

I'm shocked it didn't fill up faster, tbh. XD 'Bout time they started actually talking to the users. I hope this makes a difference and they do really listen. I'm sure the constant buying and selling of Neopets' IP doesn't look super great, so they'll need to really assure their userbase that this is a positive change and things will improve moving forward. With a start of communication, that does seem a bit promising, but then again, I'm not longer active on Neopets anymore, so I'm not really in the loop as far as the community goes. But I'm crossing my fingers!

 

[Pepper-Head]

@kami For someone who claims to "only pop in to read the news" I sure do spend a lot of time digging into this stuff x'D

I think the reason the thread didn't fill up faster was because it was announced on Friday that Scrappy would be making a thread sometime over the weekend, a pretty vague timeline. It was posted on Saturday around noon.  

A few people pointed out that they suspected something was afoot since apparently, Viacom's TNT started asking for suggestions and talking about the app literally just before JumpStart bought Neo. But JS DID actually follow through on some suggestions immediately. So hopefully NetDragon can do the same.

 

[kami]

I think the reason the thread didn't fill up faster was because it was announced on Friday that Scrappy would be making a thread sometime over the weekend, a pretty vague timeline.

I was kind of joking XD  Just seems like it's been...well, this might be the first time ever XD  that Neo has opened up communication, haha. Back in my day (shakes cane) it seemed like whenever a critical thread came up, they closed it down. Can't have people complaining about shitty service, now can we? (It we can't see it, it doesn't exist ;P  )

But JS DID actually follow through on some suggestions immediately. So hopefully NetDragon can do the same.

That's awesome!  I really hope so!

 

[Digital]

A few people pointed out that they suspected something was afoot since apparently, Viacom's TNT started asking for suggestions and talking about the app literally just before JumpStart bought Neo. But JS DID actually follow through on some suggestions immediately. So hopefully NetDragon can do the same.

This makes sense from a negotiation standpoint. If I were staff at JS, and just had the company I work sold to another company - I would definitely be in a position to make my position worthwhile. This also works in JS's favor on the negotiation as the appearance of making one of their older (and valuable) IP's almost instantly active and thus arguably worth more.

NetDragon is known for their communities in games, they would be more willing to put value in an active community and continue it rather then just sell or hold the IP in a frozen state.

 

[Pepper-Head]

@kami- Ah I see what you mean!
Yeah the Altador Cup thread got a number of complainers (that really wasted space when Scrappy already addressed that she couldn't help with flagged accounts) but it was made very clear in the suggestion thread that negativity would get the whole thread closed. I've seen some threads dedicated entirely to ranting and stuff though so people get their outlet somewhere!

Those are some great points @Digital ! As old and dated as Neo is, I really would love to see some life breathed into it and see how it would play modernized. Hopefully NetDragon does value it! They happened upon the acquisition around the busiest time of the year (besides the Advent Calendar, I'd imagine)

They didn't have an editorial this week, so hopefully by next week we have some more answers.

 

[Digital]

They didn't have an editorial this week, so hopefully by next week we have some more answers.

I am sure there is a lot of stress to explain the absence, however I was surprised to see it was postponed after the burst of interest in communication. Normally, you tend to keep the status quo when going through these type of changes. Only note I could find was:

We’ve got some unfortunate news, Neopians! There’s no new issue of the Neopian Times for today. But rest assured that our Editor will be back at it again next week, answering some of the most buzzed-about questions around Neopia – stay tuned!

 

[Pepper-Head]

@Digital - I wouldn't be surprised if they only answered one question about NetDragon or just rehashed that there's more things coming for Neopia - the "most buzzed-about questions" text is reused almost weekly so I'm not getting my hopes up for too much information  

 

[MasterDaye]

This is a pretty late reply sorry, but I wanted to share a thought I had about this. Even though I have little to no knowledge about NeoPets in general, I am very much aware of the JumpStart company. I used to play the main JumpStart game and the DreamWorks games at that (does Rise of Berk count? I haven't really looked that one up, yet :'D). 

If the NetDragon company does have plans on making the JumpStart IPs more player-friendly, I do have a lot of hope for the DreamWorks games, as they are pretty... unplayable... <_< (I honestly just want there to be fewer paywalls in the games. That's all.)