Virtual Pet Community Neopets Unites Against the Metaverse

While much of mainstream media is coming around to integrating non-fungible tokens (NFTs), not all communities suited for it are on board. Virtual pet website, Neopets, faced much controversy and confusion regarding the prospect and launch of its NFT collection and Metaverse — Neopets Metaverse Collection.

Calling themselves "Neoponians," the Neopets community is adamant that NFTs do not invade their nostalgic past time. This past September, the Neopet community stirred up a frenzy after an announcement stating that Neopets would be occupying a metaverse and responded by creating the hashtag #NoNeoNFT to flood social platforms.

The Neopets Metaverse Collection (NMC) NFTs launched on Nov. 12, 2021, and 10,000 unique Neopets Metaverse NFTs will be available to mint. Though the collection is composed of 10,500 NMCs, 500 have been set aside for community giveaways.

Since this collection is on the Solana Network, SOL tokens are needed to purchase these digital pets.

The NMCs price is specified based on a pricing schedule reflected on a pricing tier integrated. The pricing will begin at 1 SOL for the first 250 NMCs sold and increases in price the closer the entire collection gets to selling out.

The NMCs are not the Neopets NFTs, however. Instead, the NMCs get redeemed at a later date whereby each NMC holds 1 Neopets NFT. While having a collection on the blockchain is a step towards the future, Neopets Metaverse Collection has received a lot of backlash.

A majority of the player base in Neopia is not wanting to partake in this launch, and worse, are not even pretending to wish the project any success with its launch. Many have taken to Twitter to criticize it.

The launch began on Nov. 12 at 9 a.m UTC and, unfortunately, many prospective buyers got scammed. The Neopets Metaverse website was not compromised, but a fake Twitter account was created, phishing and reeling in buyers as they announced minting had gone live when it, in fact, had not.

Due to this, many were left confused and quickly lost trust in the project as it seemed more like a "cash-grab" than anything else.

Some of those affected took to Twitter to voice their complaints and the lack of support given from the team and moderators on the Neopets Metaverse discord. As it would turn out, the launch was not as successful as perhaps the team would have hoped.

While it isn't clear just how many were sold, it is clear that the launch did not sell out since the team announced on Twitter that the remaining NMCs will be burned, and congratulations to holders of the "Genesis Neopets Metaverse NFT."

Proclaiming the joy that would be to hold a "genesis" NFT— the first of its kind — the community is more frustrated by the actions of the team behind this project, which is not the same team behind the core site team at Neopets.

The team at Jumpstart, the company that acquired Neopets back in 2014, understands the frustration of their community and has had to reiterate its separation from the Neopets Metaverse team, but has suggested the benefit of opportunities that can drive its brand and products forward into the future.