Neopets attempts to cash in on NFTs, proceeds to burn up goodwill

[MNbag]

https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/pzmcy2/pet_site_game_neopets_introduces_nfts_burns/

I can imagine the meeting that led to this:

Old Tired Executive™: What can we do to attract the darn kids to our game again?

Fresh New Intern™: We could spruce up the game with new features and paintbrushes.

Old Tired Executive™: Nah, that would hamper our profit margins.

Another Old Executive™: What about we try some of these hip crypto thingies, that would really attract the youth.

Old Tired Executive™: You are right about this, who should we trust with our revival?

Fresh New Intern™: We have artists and stuff.

Old Tired Executive™: Nah, give it to the B Team.

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[Kittygalore]

Isn't this Neo Pets a game? It's not an NFT game though as I feel like it's have seen some of their advertisements before so they sound familiar to me. I don't see why not get in the action, the craze is a wildfire and it's not a good thing to ignore it as it is right now.

[hatshepsut93]

This is a really good highlight of the disconnect between the "blockchain enthusiasts" and regular people just want to get working products. It's not surprising that pro-NFT people were performing all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince the rest that NFT are good and were generally condescending assholes. These people really do live in their own bubbles.

[MNbag]

Isn't this Neo Pets a game? It's not an NFT game though as I feel like it's have seen some of their advertisements before so they sound familiar to me. I don't see why not get in the action, the craze is a wildfire and it's not a good thing to ignore it as it is right now.

Just because it is popular doesn't mean you should jump onto it.

That is just FOMO, which can lead to shit decisions.

[so98nn]

This is a really good highlight of the disconnect between the "blockchain enthusiasts" and regular people just want to get working products. It's not surprising that pro-NFT people were performing all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince the rest that NFT are good and were generally condescending assholes. These people really do live in their own bubbles.

The problem is those kinda mafias are all over now. Yes I call them mafia because they are the plotter of whole thing. The NFT started with story of 69 mln dollar painting but it was just adrenaline rush afterwards. I mean those mafias, they started building the fake projects, or false promises to the new comers who were trying to sell their arts on normal platforms and in real world. But this is not the case in current scenario. NFT are also getting tampered like a game now, they are being used to lure the peeps around globe.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It's amazing how much outrage and cohesion amongst people that can be created by some barely-known game trying to pull off some sort of NFT scam.  Yet when our governments are screwing us all in the ass with economic policies that are surely going to wreck the countries in which we live, most people shrug and continue staring at their smartphones.

To all the millenials and young folks from the newer generation: if you don't start paying attention to what's really important, you're in for a fucking catastrophe, which is probably coming sooner rather than later.  I wouldn't give a second thought to Neopets, NFTs, or any of those sideshow distractions.  Support real cryptocurrency (like bitcoin) and either get involved in politics directly or make your voice heard to the politicians now in power.  If you don't, you'll regret it, believe me.

As far as this Neopets thing goes, what do you expect?  OP summed up what the conversation probably was like at their headquarters, and the bottom line is that they thought they could exploit people's mania for NFTs, which I think are absolutely ridiculous.  If you paid 1 satoshi for an NFT, you've paid too much.

[MNbag]

I wouldn't give a second thought to Neopets, NFTs, or any of those sideshow distractions.  Support real cryptocurrency (like bitcoin) and either get involved in politics directly or make your voice heard to the politicians now in power.  If you don't, you'll regret it, believe me.

That is equal to saying that we shouldn't waste water on a house fire because the Amazon is ablaze.

While I agree with the fact that the NFT market is at best filled with charlatans, it would be a stretch to say that situations like what happened with Neopets
are "sideshow distractions".

The reason why there is so "much outrage and cohesion" with these issues is that the targets don't have the ability to wipe your existence and the
existence of others with the natural ease of a muscle twitching.

But the more substantial reason is that unlike the "economic policies that are surely going to wreck the countries in which we live", there is a way to measure the success of the measures taken.

For the example of the NFTs, it is simple: get the company to take down them and say sorry.

In contrast, it is difficult to judge whether certain economic policies are successful or not as there are many, many criteria to choose from.

Leader: We have done it, we had saved the economy
Economist: Sire, you had destroyed half of the country doing so and 90% of the population is still starving.

No wonder when faced with such large problems, people would rather "continue staring at their phones".

This is thus why I respectfully disagree with the quoted statement above.

[pinggoki]

Neopets have been a part of my childhood. I could still remember playing some of their minigames and it sucks that they slowly drifted away from the spotlight when at a certain point during my schooling the entirety of my grade level had his own Neopets account. Hearing about this awful news makes me retch even more because they literally threw all their cards away at being relevant again. That being said can't really see why they won't try to cash in on the NFT hype, just not this way.

It's amazing how much outrage and cohesion amongst people that can be created by some barely-known game trying to pull off some sort of NFT scam.  Yet when our governments are screwing us all in the ass with economic policies that are surely going to wreck the countries in which we live, most people shrug and continue staring at their smartphones.

To all the millenials and young folks from the newer generation: if you don't start paying attention to what's really important, you're in for a fucking catastrophe, which is probably coming sooner rather than later.  I wouldn't give a second thought to Neopets, NFTs, or any of those sideshow distractions.  Support real cryptocurrency (like bitcoin) and either get involved in politics directly or make your voice heard to the politicians now in power.  If you don't, you'll regret it, believe me.

As far as this Neopets thing goes, what do you expect?  OP summed up what the conversation probably was like at their headquarters, and the bottom line is that they thought they could exploit people's mania for NFTs, which I think are absolutely ridiculous.  If you paid 1 satoshi for an NFT, you've paid too much.

Thanks for the inspiring message. Although most youth nowadays focus on what's topical and what's in the trend which is why some obscure yet important stuff gets sidelined in favor of useless information. Add to this the fact that the youth's opinion is most of the time undervalued as well, basically because of the bias that they have "lesser experience" than their older counterparts, these play a great role in impeding progress.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

That is equal to saying that we shouldn't waste water on a house fire because the Amazon is ablaze.

It's more like saying if you have the choice between throwing water on a flaming pile of shit or your house that's on fire, you should choose wisely.

While I agree with the fact that the NFT market is at best filled with charlatans, it would be a stretch to say that situations like what happened with Neopets
are "sideshow distractions".

It's not much of a stretch.  People are so caught up in making shitloads of money from frivolous ventures like NFTs that they've lost sight of why such things have become popular: tons of "free" money that isn't free at all--there's a cost to it that we haven't seen yet--and markets that are booming because of rampant speculation.  Everyone is drunk at a party that they think is never going to end, and to use your analogy of a burning house, there's a fire at the party that's starting to block the escape routes....but everyone is so plastered that they're not even aware of the smoke.

As far as the staring at smartphones, well, I see it every day.  We're growing into a world where people prefer staring at screens rather than talk to the person who's next to them.  Nobody is living in the moment, communication skills are being lost, and it's no wonder society has become so fragmented.

Although most youth nowadays focus on what's topical and what's in the trend which is why some obscure yet important stuff gets sidelined in favor of useless information. Add to this the fact that the youth's opinion is most of the time undervalued as well, basically because of the bias that they have "lesser experience" than their older counterparts, these play a great role in impeding progress.

Every young generation has been poo-poo'ed by older generations; that's not unique to millenials or gen Zs, believe me.  The youth today are going to be the leaders of the world when they get older, and I'm just hoping they know how to run it.  They're also going to have one hell of a mess to clean up, courtesy of those "older counterparts".

I've got nothing against Neopets; I'm just not aware of it, and it seems trivial from my perspective.  No offense to the young folks here.  I'm an old fart who's discontent with the way things are run and the way I see the world headed.  Take everything I say with a mountain of salt.

[MNbag]

It's more like saying if you have the choice between throwing water on a flaming pile of shit or your house that's on fire, you should choose wisely.

A flaming shit is still flaming.

Sometimes in order to solve the big problems, you need to take care of the small ones.

It may not always be the solution, but it is one less problem to take care of.

[hatshepsut93]

It's amazing how much outrage and cohesion amongst people that can be created by some barely-known game trying to pull off some sort of NFT scam.  Yet when our governments are screwing us all in the ass with economic policies that are surely going to wreck the countries in which we live, most people shrug and continue staring at their smartphones.

It's not some random people who are angry at this company's NFT, it's the fans of the game, which as the article says isn't barely-known but actually has over 35 million users. This is the same order of magnitude as the number of Bitcoin users. People in general are not interested in economics, or really any other science, until it starts affecting them personally. During covid-19 suddenly everyone became an armchair virologist and epidemologist. So when the countries will, as you say, get wrecked, that's when people start getting angry at government policies.