Under the Radar: Will Neopets see its heyday again after a management buyout?

You might have played Tamagotchi before, but for some of us who grew up in the early 2000s, we went for Neopets. Founded in 1999, Neopets is an immersive, web-based pet game where we raise our virtual pets, collect free items under the Money Tree, and of course, haggle for goods with virtual shopkeepers and get chased off for making an unreasonable bargain. The online game was a hit back then. According to Mashable, the game saw 25 million users at its peak. A lot has changed since, and Mashable said the firm saw daily active users worldwide shrunk to just 100,000 by 2017. Some of the mini-games on the website have also become unplayable after the discontinuation of the Adobe Flash Software in 2020. Internally, the firm has also seen multiple changes to its ownership, from being owned by Viacom, the parent company of Nickelodeon, in 2005, to JumpStart Games in 2014, and thereafter by NetDragon after it acquired JumpStart Games. And when JumpStart Games closed this June, the firm became independent after an undisclosed management buyout deal. Its new management now wants to change things up by restoring minigames and doubling down on the use of intellectual property in merchandise. It wants to bring lapsed players back into Neopia, and capitalise on the nostalgia former users had for Neopets. But how sustainable is nostalgia as a value proposition, and will it be heyday again for Neopets? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Dominic Law, CEO, Neopets. Download the podcast here: https://www.moneyfm893.sg/guest/dominic-law-neopets/ For more, tune in to #TheEveningRunway with Elliott Danker, Timothy Go and Chua Tian Tian every weekday from 4pm-7pm. Tune in to MONEY FM 89.3 via the Awedio app today! Available on the App Store, Google Play and more. -- Connect with Us! Telegram: MONEY FM 89.3 Facebook: MONEY FM 89.3 LinkedIn: MONEY FM 89.3 Instagram: @moneyfm893 TikTok: @moneyfm893 X: @moneyfm893 Threads: @moneyfm893 -- Contact us: MONEY FM 89.3 Headquarters: +65 6319 1900 Live Studio: +65 6691 1893 SMS/WhatsApp MONEY FM 89.3: +65 8855 0893 Mailing Address: SPH Media Limited 1000 Toa Payoh North News Centre Singapore 318994