Project Staff: Laura Robinson, Heather Horst and Mimi Ito
RA: Lou-Anthony Limon

The Neopets Questionnaire Study is currently in progress! Click Here to take survey. Read more about it or contact us at neopets@berkeley.edu.

Research Goals

This project is designed to understand practices and participation of young people using the online gaming site, Neopets.com. With 337,915,510,000 page views, Neopets.com is one of the largest kids’ websites on the Internet and therefore represents an important genre of online engagement. Unlike more fantasy oriented games where there is one goal or quest, Neopets is a particularly flexible site. Alongside playing hundreds of simple games and role-playing in Battledome and Neoquest, youth participation on Neopets can range from authoring relatively simple web pages, engaging in online auctions, talking or ‘chatting’ with other users, writing stories, creating collections of specialized items galleries or simply gain access hundreds of games. Given this diversity, one of the main aims of our project is to understand what activities youth engage in and the salience of Neopets.com in their lives more generally.

Site Description

Neopets (see www.neopets.com) is a virtual pet game where you care for a virtual pet which players may select from 53 Neopet species. The most popular pets are Shoyrus and Kougras (see http://www.neopets.com/topneopets.phtml), which are bat-like and tiger-like respectively. Caring for a virtual pet involves keeping the pet happy and satiated, increasing its strength and skills by earning Neopoints. Neopoints can be used to purchase food, carry out exchanges, buy pets and toys for your pet, build and decorate houses, acquire equipment to compete with other characters or play in the Battledome. These activities are often located in a variety of ‘worlds’ located in ‘Neopia’ where players and participants can explore the facets of the Neopets site.

Neopets.com was launched on November 15, 1999 by a team of creators in the UK (Adam Powell and Donna Williams). Shortly thereafter Doug Dohring bought the site and maintained ownership until June 20, 2005 when Neopets, Inc. was purchased by Viacom, a Glendale, California based company. Dough Dohring continues to be the CEO and Chairman of Neopets, Inc. and Adam Powell and Donna Williams still guide the development of the PHP games and content of the site which changes on a regular basis. In addition, Neopets has been developing merchandise, such as “plushies” (stuffed animals resembling specific species of Neopets), Neopets magazine, video games, screen savers and, most recently, breakfast cereal.

Although use of the website is free, players have the option of paying $5 monthly to upgrade their subscription which gives players access to few ads and special services. As of February 28th, 2005, there are 168,277,182 pets which are owned by 114,658,610 accounts, which is an average of 1.468 virtual pets per owner. What remains unclear from these raw numbers is the extent to which parents and children, siblings or other family members may share accounts and/or pets. In addition, Neopets, Jr. is designed specifically for kids under the age of 8 and, among other things, does not allow kids to communicate with other players online. The average age of a Neopets player is 15, which suggests a prominent adult presence on the site as does a range of adult oriented guilds.

Methodology and Research Questions
The research will use an inductive approach in order to privilege participants’ understanding of the Neopet site and their own participation in it. The following questions will orient the inquiry:

(1) What and how do kids learn through their engagement with Neopets? For example, when they engage others in the Battledome, how are participants learning to manage emotions such as fear or anticipation?

(2) How do kids organize and mobilize social networks through Neopets? For example, when participants engage in online chat with other Neopet owners what do they discuss? How do participants self-select membership in the variety of chat boards open to them? In so doing, what distinctive subcultural networks emerge?

(3) What kinds of cultural products and knowledge are kids creating through Neopets? For example, when participants engage in activities such as playing the Neopet stock market or becoming small business owners on the site, what economic skill sets are they learning and recreating?

(4) How are kids developing reputation, leadership, and other social identities through participation in Neopets? For example, how do participants understand the multiple competitive venues in the site such as the Neopian Beauty Expo and Flash Game competition, as well as the Pet and Site Spotlight contests?

Method I: Ethnographic Participant Observation
We have developed a two-pronged strategy for addressing these questions on Neopets.com and with Neopets participants. The first method involves ongoing ethnographic participation in the world of Neopets by playing games, earning Neopoints, participating in guilds, chat rooms and visiting Neopets related websites. Through ongoing engagement with the site and its users, we are experiencing first hand what it means to be a member of the Neopet community.

Through this immersion in the Neopet community, over the past months we have developed strategies to earn points through experimentation as well as with the suggestions of other Neopets players (online and offline). Significantly, we have learned that the Neopet community is not a bounded entity. While Neopets has a ‘help’ page and many of the questions concerning specific topics (‘Spotlights’, Neoquest, Battledome, etc.) can be sent to discussions on Neoboards which are created and led by other players, the main sources of information for playing particular games and earning Neopoints are located on websites outside of Neopets.com. Most of the Neopets related websites revolve around information such as daily links which are places where you can go to earn quick, simple Neopoints on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. In addition, there are fan fiction sites emerging around particular Neopets players and characters, recipes for combining ingredients to make gourmet foods as well as ‘knowledge sites’ where information and experiences concerning Neopets are gathered and shared.

Method II: Online Questionnaires and Interviews
Spending months in the field is allowing us to develop a rich understanding of the Neopet community both in the official Neopet site and associated venues. In so doing, we are gathering ethnographic data that will allow us to provide ‘thick description’ of quotidian Neopet practices. Further, as our fieldwork is expanding into the network of associated with the Neopet community, we are finding that while many users make the choice to employ the Neopets site as a basis for individual pet care activities, an important cadre of prominent players is largely responsible for the public vision of the Neopet site. Once we reach saturation in our ethnographic inquiry, we will begin the second phase of the research. Based on our ethnographic observation, as well as pilot interviews conducted over IM, we will develop an online questionnaire that we will administer to all of the Spotlight or Trophy winners in a given time interval. Analysis of the data will allow us to hone our observations by culling targeted data from those Neopet members most invested in the site. In so doing, our work will produce a rich tapestry of findings that shed light on the ways invested Neopet users make meaning of their activities, as well as the emotional gratification or other incentives they experience from their engagement in the site.