Notice anything about that picture? Corporations sponsor certain key areas where members inevitably spend lots of time: There’s a McDonalds, a Disney store, a “Cereal Adventure” where kids can go and watch commercials for General Mills cereals, and much more. The secret to Neopets success? It’s darn cute, and it’s a truly perfect venue for hawking products.Ĭonsider this map of the main “market” area in Neopia: How much does this make the company worth?Ĭable and media conglomerate Viacom recently bought Neopets for $160 million (which seems darn low to me, actually, but that’s another story). Neopia has a demographic that would explain why you probably haven’t heard of it too: 80% of Neopians are under 18 and 40% of Neopians are under 13.The average Neopet fan – Neopian in its lingo – spends over six hours per month on the site, making it one of the two or three “stickiest” sites on the entire Internet.The Neopets site gets more than 2.5 billion pageviews per month.Neopets is translated into 10 different languages.Neopets has 25 million members worldwide.Here are some facts about Neopets to whet your own appetite: Gamers would likely categorize Neopets as a “massively multiplayer online role playing game” (MMORPG) but then again, they’d probably all turn up their noses at this rather cloyingly cute and oh-so-Japanese online world. It’s an amazing online world, perfectly designed for younger children who are more interested in cute fun and adventures than the latest “shooter” game. If you haven’t popped over to the Neopets site, you should.