Students Blog

Joni Cheng
CTIN 482

NeoPets Online is a browser-based MMMOG focused on raising and customizing pets, playing mini games and interacting with others through battles, guilds, forums and games. Although NeoPets is completely two dimensional and operates through browsers, players become immersed by the rich, creative avatars and world maps. Collins and DiPaola in their essay, A Social metaphor-based 3D Virtual Environment refer to this social metaphor experience as tele-presence, “the subjective sensation that remote users are actually co-located within virtual space.” The popularity of this game strongly depends on this factor of immersion, which is considered necessary for “an enhanced level of socialization, learning and communication.” (Collins and DiPaola 2003) The ability to form guilds, play multiplayer games, battle other users’ pets and submit fan art keeps the NeoPet community vibrant, as “any form of collaboration is a step toward[s] deeper community.” (Collins and DiPaola 2003)

NeoPets falls into three of four key categories to emotional playing; easy fun, altered states and the people factor. (Why We Play Games: Four keys to More Emotion Without Story, Lazzaro 2004). The entire game is characterized by easy fun; NeoPets captures users’ attentions with casual games that focus on absorption rather than competition and offers many areas to explore. Newcomers are given very few instructions, a wise tactic that promotes exploration and curiosity. Immersion can be produced when “ambiguity, incompleteness, and detail combine to create a living world.” (Lazzaro 2004)

The creativeness of NeoPets is effective in producing different emotional states in players, known as altered states. One example is the adoption center in a central town. When pets are adopted, they show happy, smiling, avatars that burst with joyfulness. On the other hand, pets that have not been fed or are abandoned are shown as crying, depressed and faded. One particularly emotion-inducing action is when a player abandons their pet. The button players’ click on to confirm abandonment toggles pitiful cries from the monster before it is abandoned. Battling pets with other people online also induces feelings of emotion including naches, fiero and schadenfreude (Lazzaro 2004). NeoPets offers players to pick out a certain pet/player to beat and forums provide users a method of communication and way of showing off their pets.

The third key factor that characterizes NeoPets is the people factor. As explained above, NeoPets relies on a strong community and groups within groups. Some players who might not play as often or are more casual gamers can play casual games and chat with friends and guildmates. They are players who “see games as mechanisms for social interaction” and enjoy experiencing the emotions mentioned above. (Lazzaro 2004) By forming a tight community, allowing for competition, cooperation and communication through casual games and pet care, Neopets achieves the right environment for their players.