How Neopets Paved the Road to the Metaverse

Back in that time, I was raising kids and found Neopets to be excellent! So many good learning experiences and dynamics!

Frankly, I enjoyed doing Neopets with them. My kids got a lot out of the experience and I bought quite a few Neopets.

So... I did a thing:

In that world, there are scratch off lottery tickets. Kids love scratching them off to see what they get too. Those were limited and cost enough money, which one could get by playing games, investing, or trading in other goods, that demand was almost always sky high. Kids would gamble to get Neopoints because that could yield big points much quicker than playing the games.

It was common for people to put their scratch offs in a shop for others to buy. You could get one a day for free too. Sale value ran well above purchase value due to this demand. One could get their freebie, sell it and get most of the top prize value of the card that way, or scratch it and potentially get the max.

Was fascinating to watch. Crowd dynamics quickly found the higher value, more lucky cards and those sold at a premium and sold quick.

But there was more!

The shops allowed the seller to change the price of an item. This change took effect immediately, and was not always seen at the time of purchase, though the system did prompt people, "buy it for xxx Neopoints?"

One day, I listed the scratch cards, and they would almost always sell in minutes when listed below market value. This was true even for a very small amount, as little as a few, or even 1 Neopoint below the trending market value.

Others were looking to get their scratch off fix as cheap as possible.

Then I did pure evil. List card for a nice amount below market value, price commit, then toggle it between that and a much larger value.

1040

104000

1040

10400

1040

104000

You get the idea.

People moving quickly would blow through the prompt and pay out the points. Sometimes a lot of points. They saw the good deal and jumped on it.

Lesson 1: Pay attention to the details

Lesson 2: Don't go wandering around with all your money in your pocket. Banks are there for a reason.

Lesson 3: Gambling can get out of control. Manage it carefully.

Lesson 4: If it seems too good to be true, it is! (Because there are unscrupulous people out there)

At the peak of scratch off card trading frenzy, the kids and I were having a Neopoint contest. First to a million gets whatever they want for a dinner out!

One was trash talking hard, and playing games non stop, buying, selling like crazy, and...

Next morning, I had just shy of that million, the day before being at low 5 figures in last place. Of course the kids wanted to know all about it.

I never told them because of one gut punching PM in my message box:

You are a bad person and I am gonna tell.

And yes, I let one of mine win the contest. Found out oldest daughter was sweet talking boys out of Neopoints too! She had a few sugar daddies at age 10! Good grief! What have I started?

Yeah, I sold a 1K value scratch off for well over 100k Neopoints. Multiple times. (Yes, absolutely terrible, I know) Now, some people got one for a screaming deal too. The scheme would hit about 1 in 3.

Ahhh 90's Internet. Anyway, Neopets was a rich environment with a lot of interaction possible and real time dynamics to keep it moving and interesting.