Pink Poogle Toy Forum

That part made me lol. But the rest of the editorial I was pretty much not amused.



Why the heck did they choose to answer that version of the question? I'm sure others were sent in regarding the changes to the neoboards but they chose to answer the one from the person that doesn't care about their pets anyway? What about color changing REs? What about the fact that it is elitist and a pain in the butt for some people to have to keep their prettiest pet active? I feel like they chose this question in particular to kind of undermine actual complaints about this feature.

The way they talk to the users bothers me, as does the way they generalize everything. I feel like in their case, honesty would be the best policy and would boost user loyalty and trust, which has been lacking in teh recent years. Neocash doesn't really bother me, as I have little interest in customization and whatever goes with that. The minute TNT actually allows use to buy books or any stat changing items will be the day I quit though. But I am going to be optimistic and hope that won't be the case.

And I would also like to echo the sentiment that I miss the pound. Very much, and I wish that they would devote more of their time to fixing that.

"Trust us, we're just as frustrated about it all as you all are."

See, that goes to show it isn't necessarily TNT making all of these decisions. It's most likely the company heads who are pushing them to create all this new content to rake in more revenue. And like they said, they HAVE to make new content and get it all complete BY a certain deadline. Before they didn't really have deadlines. Remember neoschool? Yeah, never happened. Viacom is probably pushing all of this on them like some of you said. I'm sure a lot of staff at Neopets weren't too excited when the company was sold to Viacom, but there was nothing they could do about it. They have to deal with the changes like all of us do. I'm not saying no one has the right to complain, because that's not true. Everyone has the right to complain about anything they want. But honestly complaining about something, and making petitions like some users are doing, are not going to fix anything. They have to do what they have to do, whatever the company heads tell them. A lot of people complained over the NC Mall when all you have to do is not participate. It's not that hard. I think a lot of users on the neoboards are upset about it because they don't have the money to pay for something they want to do. If they didn't really want to use it, then they don't have too and could just ignore it.

Dustin just because TNT says something, it doesn't mean its true. Lying and contol makes money. Money then gives you more control to make more money. Their attitude is to try to relate with us and be friendly so that we can trust them. This editorial was just so full of that, that they have made it painfully obvious and even disgusting. This editorial is filled with contradictions meaning that they lied somewhere along the lines. This is their way of trying to be our friends, by relating to us.

A lot have said that Viacom and TNT are 2 different things. I agree. TNT have a friendly image but it does not mean that they don't try to get more money. TNT is there to sell and promote for Viacom. They work for Viacom. What Viacom does (Like all big companies) is say. "i don't care how you do it, make people buy our crap and make us money". TNT then has too do this. Their tactic is to put on an image kids will like. They act as our friends so that we relate to them and trust them. Then they take our money because we trust them. TNT is doing nothing else but manipulation. To top it off they are manipulating kids which still have frigile and developing minds.

You seem to hate Neopets quite a lot. I have to wonder why you even bother anymore. You are so determined to turn people against them and that doesn't make sense.

Personally, I find the NC Mall a pointless expansion that may end up as a first step towards making the site mostly pay but at least I understand they need to make money. I'm still annoyed at their tactics and may yet quit but at least I'm not trying to turn people against it or railing against their need to make a profit.

I can see both sides of this and I choose to put my feelings right in the middle.

I can't go into specifics like others who have posted here about viacom and the other companies that now 'own' TNT because I don't actually care about them. I care about NEOPETS.

A lot of the negative comments made have been made by the people falling into the trap of mistaking the business aspect and the human aspect. Neopets is run by everyday people trying to do an everyday job - yes they 'might' have been given more cash to advance the site, but more cash means more pressure to perform. WE as users demand more because Neo is now 'rich' and the parent companies demand more profit.

I have never always agreed about all TNT's decisions and I still hate the idea of the Mall, but I choose to believe that TNT don't lie,cheat and steal from us to make their profit.

I am not blind or deaf and I can read between the lines - but TNT are damned if they tell us anything and damned if they don't. Jaded users believe that everything is a lie and loyal supporters think the sun shines out of TNT's collective behinds.

I am in neither of those camps. I come on here and whine when I feel TNT has pushed my buttons and I also come on here to pat them on the back when I feel TNT have exceeded themselves.

Anyone who works for a company that has a parent company breathing down it's neck knows what it feels like to have deadlines and profit margins. I started a new job, we had money thrown at our new store and told to 'do our best'.....now less then 6months later our budget has been cut, along with 1/3 of our staff. We are constantly told to "do more work, in less hours and with less people". Our parent company is Coles/Myer, so I am talking about a multi-million dollar parent.

Neo is like any other company - it has to prove itself everyweek, every month, every year otherwise the money disappears.

I'm not going to be against the Neocash aspect until it actually does affect my gameplay. As they have described it being now, it does not. So frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn.

I still feel badly for TNT.

My basis for this is because I was in a similar position to theirs a while back. I used to work at Disney World, in the entertainment department - characters and shows. If you can't tell, people who worked in that area were almost ALWAYS a lot of fun and very personable (yes, even those people who take the characters away). Since the attitude of the cast was playful, we carried it across into our interactions with the guests - play games, pranks, and assorted silliness. One day, someone had the brainstorm of creating character autographs. All of a sudden, characters couldn't move more than a few feet without someone asking for an autograph. While almost every request was granted, sometimes the characters were in the middle of playing Follow the Leader or dancing around. People would interrupt because they WANTED autographs. Upper management got involved and started selling expensive books and pens in the parks. Some families would spent about $5.50 for a book and $3.95 for a crummy pen. Some families bought more than one of each item. That's a minimum of $10 (tax incl.) per person. Autographs became a HUGE money-maker in the parks. Slowly but surely, upper management stepped in and started stopping characters from actually interacting with people in any way that detracted from autographs. No longer were we free to roam around and play with people - which was the job we signed up for. Instead, meet and greets turned into an assembly line. Wave hello, take the pen, sign the book, turn and pose for a picture, scoot the family along to start the next group. If you didn't do this as fast as possible, you faced a reprimand from management. It became a nightmare - even celebrities such as Cinderella and her Prince had "x"'s of masking tape on the ground telling them where to stand still for a visit. See a sweet baby in a matching gown across the forecourt? Too bad. People want autographs, move away and get punished. Now, you don't need movement skill to work with the characters, just skill with a pen. And no matter what you do, guests walk away just a bit unsatisfied. Wait in line for a long time in the summer heat for that autograph... just to be hurried along because the characters are not there to care, just sign. All in all, its an unsatisfactory visit - the characters and their escorts are bored to tears, fearful for their jobs, and do their best to make people happy. The guests are unsatisfied because they waited in a long line, sometimes through many character "breaks," and were treated kinda poorly. Quantity over quality.

Sorry, I know that was a bit of a rant, but I feel like TNT are in the same position. They *want* to have fun, they *want* us to have fun, they have ideas that we'd all enjoy... but someone higher up on the food chain saw profit potential and sacrificed part of the heart of the company to line their pockets. Everyone below them NEEDS to work to earn a living - if they argue, they don't pay the rent and put food on the table. Jobs aren't infinite, TNT would prefer to keep the ones they have. In order to do that... they have to tow the line.

Whee, a schism! *sits back and tries to decide which side of the argument he's on while sipping a glass of mango lemonade and working on a jigsaw puzzle*

Honestly, I really don't know whether I believe TNT or not, so I'm just going to wait a bit and see what happens, things could get very interesting... I do believe what many of you had said on the topic of the way the editorial addressed some of those questions, though. Hopefully we'll get some real answers real soon.

Seriously people. You guys need to get a grip on life and understand basic economics.

Neopets is a website. Websites cost money to run. Money needs to be raised somehow. There are basically three options:

1) Ads
2) Merchandise
3) Charge users to use site

Now when Neopets was small, the costs were not that big of a deal. When neopets grew and was popular, options one and two helped to cover the costs.(Although most of you rebelled at ads as well) Now neopets is still big, but isn't as popular as it was before. It has several employees, each of whom needs a salary. It has massive server upkeep costs to play. And yes, it has a business behind it that--like any other human--it wants to make money.

And so they need to start doing option three more. If they didn't, Neopets would cease to exist. Now, like many sites out there, they could have given users an actual monetary advantage. Want an H4K? Just give us $50 and its yours. But they didn't. Because they knew that thats wrong and actually goes against what they said previously. But instead they just allowed users willing to support the site the option to dressup their pet for their support. You get no advantage over other user because you do this--you just get a cool looking pet.

Anyone who doesn't actually support neopets in their move here is CHILDISH and SELFISH. You think that the world revolves around you, and that just because something is on the internet is should be free. Webmasters everywhere should sacrifice their hard earned dollars, time, and effort into providing a free world for YOU to amuse yourself in. You don't see a free amusement park. You don't see a free baseball game. A forum like this could be compared to a backyard party. It costs some to throw the party. But the cost is small enough and our host is awesome enough( ) that it is reasonable for it to be free. But Neopets is like an amusement park. It cannot run and yet be free at the same time. I am very surprised that they actually manage the level of freeness that they do. So take a couple of deep breaths, come to your senses, and realize that money to dressup your neopet is better than no neopets at all?

Adam and Donna have provided a service for us, and its selfish to expect that service to be totally free. Instead, we should be thanking them for the time and effort they have made creating the world we enjoy.

Yeah, TNT said that they wouldn't do this. But they also said Neoschools were coming out in a month like five years ago. Going back on what they have said is the norm with neopets and shouldn't surprise anyone. So if its the whole "neopets lied to me" thing that is bugging you, you should've quit a long time ago. And if the whole "pay to play" thing that is bugging you, read what I just said and GROW UP.

My thoughts exactly.

I understand where whoever wrote the editorial is coming from, though, because my last job was like this. I worked for one of the biggest chain stores in Canada (a department store). You can bet that chain makes a TON of money... but our store was always telling us they didn't have enough money in the budget to give us more hours, give us raises, or hire new people to help lessen our horrible workload. That could have been crap, but we couldn't blame our supervisors for it or even the store manager -- it's head office making the money decisions, and our supervisors had to go along with it and make do with the funds they were given. It isn't always even as simple as two groups, like Viacom and TNT -- even TNT itself has a hierarchy, with artists and coders lower on the totem pole than the management. The "grunt workers" (who probably work harder than anyone else for the least recognition, because that's how it always is) really do have to either suck it up and do what's asked of them or do what I did and quit. You can fight back a little, win some small victories, but there's no way anyone at TNT could stop Viacom from instituting things like this mall, just like we couldn't force our supervisors to hire more shelf-stockers.

(Also, obviously my store makes a profit, but there's no doubt in my mind that if they were simply breaking even, or even making a profit but not a big enough one for head office's liking, the store would be shut down. It's the same thing here -- if Viacom invests over a hundred million into a company, they don't want just that money back -- they want a heck of a lot more.)

I didn't like the editorial's tone much either -- like others have said, it seemed to have been written for little kids -- but I could tell how frustrated whoever wrote it was. That person couldn't come out and say, "Look, we're on your side; we think this sucks, but it's what we have to do, and you have no idea how much we've fought against certain aspects of it." But you can tell they wanted to.

I'm not terribly upset about the mall itself. I can just ignore it because I don't want it. (shapu summed up my feelings very well on page one)

The thing that concerns me the most is this:

They seem to be quite clearly saying "yeah, neopets is still free right now, but very likely in the future it won't be free anymore, or be effectively not free, because all the good content you will have to pay for."

It will be a sad day when finally it is no longer any fun to play neopets without paying. I will of course quit then. But I don't want to have to stop playing neopets. The only question is when that will be, how much longer can I enjoy this game.

For now at least, TNT and their evasive patronizing answers can bite me, I'm still having fun without giving them a cent.

Anyone who wants to quit with neopets is no longer actually free to play should start quitting now. Because its bound to happen eventually and you should start expecting it. Its still totally within TNTs rights to charge to play, or give bonuses to those who play--so expect it to happen in the not-so-distant future.

Neopets is not a rinky-dink company. They get endorsements from major motion pictures, top brand names *cough*Post*cough* , and even broadway musicals. When I look at it that way, thier excuses seem a bit lame.

I am happy that they addressed member complaints, but I feel sad for them. They are doomed to fail. Before, I would have supported them and purchased. Now, I really don't care to. I don't know, personally, of anybody who would pay for something that expires and is that .. lame.

Especially when I play an alternative that has much more satisfying results.