Disney Pays to Keep Neopets a Free Site

qruthie

<font color=red>Queen of Big Cups and Big Shoes</f
Joined
Sep 29, 2005
I have been asked to put this in its own thread to make sure it gets noticed. I'll add that I never saw an ad for VMK on this site.

Something that keeps creeping into my mind is Neopets. That site was created by two bored college students. Fast forward 10 years and look what it's become! What happened? They chose to go commercial. They started selling plushies, toys, school accessories, TRADING CARDS (with item codes), and made the site HUGELY successful.

The difference. Neopets chose to be successful. Someone realized it would be and ran with it. Now those founders are crazy rich!

This story is proof if given a chance, anything can be successful! Disney just failed to see that in VMK. Which is a shame.

Speaking of Neopets, a FREE game paid for by advertisements with a pay to play option... I have a premium account there meaning I pay to play just so I don't have to have the sponsor links at the bottom of each page. I got tired of accidentally clicking on links to send flowers to my friends in India. But that's not my real point.

The really sick, probably ironic thing is Disney is a Neopets sponsor. If you go to the Neopets games section, they have a Sponsor Games category. I "watch" the ads in the Adver-Video game for the easy points. I can't tell you how many times I've seen ads for Fairies, the new POTC game and some other thing having to do with characters like Stitch and Simba on some hand held gaming thing. Obviously I don't watch the ads very carefully. :) There also is a "Which character are you most like?" quiz game for the Prince Caspian movie that is another source of easy points. That's Disney too, right?

It's kind of sick that Disney pays to keep Neopets a free game, yet can't be bothered to continue to support VMK. :mad:

Perhaps someone who is more eloquent than I am could point this out to Disney.
 
I have been asked to put this in its own thread to make sure it gets noticed. I'll add that I never saw an ad for VMK on this site.



Speaking of Neopets, a FREE game paid for by advertisements with a pay to play option... I have a premium account there meaning I pay to play just so I don't have to have the sponsor links at the bottom of each page. I got tired of accidentally clicking on links to send flowers to my friends in India. But that's not my real point.

The really sick, probably ironic thing is Disney is a Neopets sponsor. If you go to the Neopets games section, they have a Sponsor Games category. I "watch" the ads in the Adver-Video game for the easy points. I can't tell you how many times I've seen ads for Fairies, the new POTC game and some other thing having to do with characters like Stitch and Simba on some hand held gaming thing. Obviously I don't watch the ads very carefully. :) There also is a "Which character are you most like?" quiz game for the Prince Caspian movie that is another source of easy points. That's Disney too, right?

It's kind of sick that Disney pays to keep Neopets a free game, yet can't be bothered to continue to support VMK. :mad:

Perhaps someone who is more eloquent than I am could point this out to Disney.

you couldn't have said it betta' sista' LOL
 
I would suggest that Disney doesn't pay because they care about Neopets being free but because they want to advertise their products.

Quick research brought me to Wikipedia which cited an interview saying that a "Neopets-affiliated video game producer cited about 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month." (This was in 2005).

Those are some big numbers, so I can imagine why Disney wants their name on these sites. Seems like a good move to me.

Just my opinion...
 
I would suggest that Disney doesn't pay because they care about Neopets being free but because they want to advertise their products.

Quick research brought me to Wikipedia which cited an interview saying that a "Neopets-affiliated video game producer cited about 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month." (This was in 2005).

Those are some big numbers, so I can imagine why Disney wants their name on these sites. Seems like a good move to me.

Just my opinion...

Correct but their sponsorship of the site is part of what keeps the game free to play. Perhaps if they had advertised VMK on that site, we wouldn't need to be petitioning to keep it open today.
 


Correct but their sponsorship of the site is part of what keeps the game free to play. Perhaps if they had advertised VMK on that site, we wouldn't need to be petitioning to keep it open today.

they advertised it for a day thats how a girl that goes to my school knows about VMK
 
just goes to show though, lots of potential growing room for VMK if they will explore it! It can be done. :teacher:
 
I DOUBT the closing of VMK has to do with financial issues..
NEOPETS has too many franchises and ads on the site.. all in which pay a profit for the larger then VMK game.
 


They did advertise VMK when it first opened - they even had a game where you answered questions about a screen shot of VMK to earn neopoints. It didn't last very long though - but most sponsor games have a short lifespan on Neopets.
 
The thing is, VMK wouldn't make that much even if they had ads on their site.. How many times do you visit their site? Probably only once and never again, as you never refresh after loading the game.
 
And yet, to me they both went the same way. I used to be a premium Neopets member, and yes, I did leave after the NeoCash Mall. For those of you unfamiliar, that's wear you can pay real money to buy outfits and backgrounds and items for your pets.
Yes, Neopets was started by two bored college students, but it grew into a money-greedy company.
Let's face it, I consider VMK grew the same way, but realizing that profits weren't adding up they ended it. Although, I do find it a little sketchy that they wouldn't try other advertisments, so maybe there is a legit claim to VMK closing.
 
And yet, to me they both went the same way. I used to be a premium Neopets member, and yes, I did leave after the NeoCash Mall. For those of you unfamiliar, that's wear you can pay real money to buy outfits and backgrounds and items for your pets.
Yes, Neopets was started by two bored college students, but it grew into a money-greedy company.
Let's face it, I consider VMK grew the same way, but realizing that profits weren't adding up they ended it. Although, I do find it a little sketchy that they wouldn't try other advertisments, so maybe there is a legit claim to VMK closing.

The difference is the amount of support both games need, VMK needs more programmers where as Neopets needs more monitors. You can guess which game will require more money to operate..

All VMK staff have programming knowledge (or at least I think), Neopets monitors only have typing skills.
 
They did advertise VMK when it first opened - they even had a game where you answered questions about a screen shot of VMK to earn neopoints. It didn't last very long though - but most sponsor games have a short lifespan on Neopets.

That's definitely true. But the Disney I've seen most has been in the Adver-Video "game" where you watch a commercial then click on a randomizer to get some neopoints. I've also see Disney in the banner at the top of Adver-Video while someone else's commercial was running. That probably is included in the cost to have a commercial. The commercials seem to stay around a lot longer than the sponsor games.

I'm pointing out the Neopets advertisements because if Disney had wanted to draw in more VMK players, they could have placed an ad for it there (or on other sites) every so often. AOL would be another place with much more visibility. When I sign on through their web site, I always see advertisements. That to me is the way to promote your game site if your goal is to have a larger user base. It's not clear to me if Disney ever wanted a larger user base for VMK, it's not clear to me if they ever wanted anything for VMK. But it does seem like somebody at some point wanted a larger user base for VMK because the game was intended to be a marketing tool which would lead to more people visiting the Disney theme parks.
 
The thing is, VMK wouldn't make that much even if they had ads on their site.. How many times do you visit their site? Probably only once and never again, as you never refresh after loading the game.

I visit Neopets almost every day and usually more than once per day. You may play the sponsor games as many times as you would like but you may only send in your score for neopoints three times each day. I've been playing the Prince Caspian Personality Quiz every day since it started. Granted, I choose the first answer for all ten questions at this point but I do play it. I even watched the movie trailer. According to the Neopets site, the Prince Caspian Personality Quiz game has been played 57,036 times today.

The Adver-Video part is different. You can watch up to five videos/commercials every day. The videos/commercials you see are randomly chosen. Often times I've seen the same video/commercial five times in a row. After you watch each video/commercial, you click the randomizer to earn neopoints. Then you have to return to the main menu. After you watch five videos/commercials, it says you have watched five videos/commercials and won't display the menu anymore. According to the Neopets site, the Adver-Video Game has been played 43,651 times today.

It's not the case that the ads are only seen once. These are Flash games that are loaded onto your computer when you click the button for playing the game. It's very similar to VMK loading every time you sign on but much less is loaded for each Neopets game.
 
They did advertise VMK when it first opened - they even had a game where you answered questions about a screen shot of VMK to earn neopoints. It didn't last very long though - but most sponsor games have a short lifespan on Neopets.

The game was where I found out about vmk!


Sad NEOPETS ADDED MORE ADDS WHEN VIACOM BOUGHT THEM OUT

Fishy? Why need more adds when you have more money.
 
Perhaps someone who is more eloquent than I am could point this out to Disney.

I need a little more "explaining" as I am NeoPets dumbo and an angle / audience. If you can help me with those, I'll be happy to write something.
Of course anyone else is welcome to have at it if they feel inspired to do so.

(egad, I really need to get some sleep!)
 
A note, I learned about VMK from Neopets... they had a sponsor game for it around the time of the public release.
 
I visit Neopets almost every day and usually more than once per day. You may play the sponsor games as many times as you would like but you may only send in your score for neopoints three times each day. I've been playing the Prince Caspian Personality Quiz every day since it started. Granted, I choose the first answer for all ten questions at this point but I do play it. I even watched the movie trailer. According to the Neopets site, the Prince Caspian Personality Quiz game has been played 57,036 times today.

The Adver-Video part is different. You can watch up to five videos/commercials every day. The videos/commercials you see are randomly chosen. Often times I've seen the same video/commercial five times in a row. After you watch each video/commercial, you click the randomizer to earn neopoints. Then you have to return to the main menu. After you watch five videos/commercials, it says you have watched five videos/commercials and won't display the menu anymore. According to the Neopets site, the Adver-Video Game has been played 43,651 times today.

It's not the case that the ads are only seen once. These are Flash games that are loaded onto your computer when you click the button for playing the game. It's very similar to VMK loading every time you sign on but much less is loaded for each Neopets game.

I never liked neopets, but I do know that their sponsors do more then just make a temporary room like the spell room. These games last more then a year, and they continue to update as the sponsor continues the advertising. Compared to VMK, neopets has a far better profit if you think about it.. Why wouldn't a company keep neopets?

The sad truth, but the company has to think money.
 

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