Digital pet fantasy game Neopets has revealed the start of its first NFTs collection, the Neopets Metaverse collection. The digital stuffs will be minted and traded through programmed market maker Raydium, which uses the Solana blockchain.
The Neopets site was started in 1999 and in a very short time it became well- known among children and teenagers. Users could make and have a mysterious digital pet, play games, and they could also purchase and sell goods for it. In 2005, it was leading its attractiveness, and ranked as the second- stickiest website, before other websites like Yahoo, eBay, and AOL.
The owner of CBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon, bought the website in June 2005 for 160 million dollars. The biggest reason for its commercial success was due to its advertising model. This model worked with product placement in the digital world.
A part of its initial success, the popularity of Neopets has declined over the past few years. In 2020, it had an average of 100,000 daily viewers, while 2.2 billion views were at their peak. Furthermore, it shut down Adobe Flash Player, the media platform for Neopets to perform a set of animated activities, which later vanished.
The company said it plans to change the website in 2021, transfer content to a mobile-compatible format, and improve the experience for Neopet owners.
In a way, launching NFTs is a step in that direction because it shows that Neopets is still in line with technological trends. It also shows that the brand is looking to make a conversation about its name.