Adult Neopians

Before I get started, let's perform a little test, shall we?

Do any of the following situations sound familiar to you?

You've wondered how the Nova furniture would look in your family room.

You've considered calling in sick to work so you won't miss the next round of Better Than You.

You find yourself Neomailing someone half your age on how to get the newest avatar.

You tell your kids that they can't play Neopets right now because too much computer time will rot their little minds, wait until they're out of eyesight, then run and feed your pets.

Meerca Chase and Swarm bring back fond memories of similar games on Atari.

You've considered basing your thesis on the psychological addiction to Black Pawkeet Slots.

If you can relate to any of the above situations, then you are one of us. You're one of the not so secluded, but often neglected, Neopian Adults.

Yes, we are out there. We roam the Neopian worlds, we haunt the message boards, we answer your Neomails. And when the inevitable topic of A/S/L comes up and we worriedly confess our ages to you, the reply Neomail most often comes back looking something like this:

"Aren't you a little old for Neopets?"

Sigh. I can't honestly say how many times I have heard this exact line. I'm only blessed with average mathematical intelligence, and yet my counting abilities don't span that high. I sometimes find it funny that after more than two years of playing Neopets, I still hear a comment just like this, or very similar to this, at least once in a three day period. For this reason, I felt it was time to publicly address this comment, and all future related comments.

Yes, adults also play Neopets. Most of us stumbled upon it by accident. I happened to follow a link one fine day and ended up here, and have since neglected the rest of the world wide web. Several of us became intrigued while watching our children play, and others of us taught our children how to play. If you've ever seen the activity pads in stores that say "for ages 9 to 99" on the front cover, that pretty much covers Neopets as well.

You see, for all the reasons the younger generation has for becoming addicted to Neopets, we have just as many, if not more. Looking at things from an adult point of view, Neopets is a place where we can be rich, spend all our Neopoints in a matter of minutes, and earn it all back in a matter of days without ever having to file for bankruptcy. We can play the stock market without fear of losing our house. We can challenge ourselves to complete the newest collection, or get to the top of the scoreboards on our favorite game. We can own a bank account with the words Ultimate Riches in the title. We can gamble on the slot machines without ever having to book a flight in order to gamble.

One of the most common misconceptions I hear around the site often is that Neopets is a children's site. This is one of the main reasons that so many of the younger players feel we don't belong here. Well, let's take care of that rumor right now, shall we? When I hear someone say something like this on the message boards, I usually tell them to go and check the editorial of the Neopian Times issue #50, where this question and answer appeared:

"If this is a little kid's site, then why did you add such a horrible thing to a neocard? (The new, not so nice Neogreeting)

Well actually Neopets isn't a kids site. When we originally thought of the idea we were aiming for 17-25 year olds. Just because a lot of younger people like to play as well, doesn't make it a kids site. Anyway if everything was fluffy and cute it just wouldn't be right, I mean could you imagine a Neopia with no Dr Sloth, no mutants and no Jhudora?!!?"

Now, isn't that interesting? If the target group was people aged 17 to 25, then shouldn't the relevant question be, "Aren't you a little young for Neopets?" Of course, that's no more true than the original question. The most accurate description of Neopets age group these days is All Ages. I have Neofriends who are in the ten year old range, as well as a few who are grandparents. Age isn't the issue in this game, imagination is! But for those of you still unconvinced that we adults are a permanent fixture in Neopia, let's investigate a little further.

Before I joined the guild I'm in now, I was a member in an 18 and over guild, and I was one of the youngest members! The idea was a good one, a place where Neopian addicts could meet other adults sharing the same obsession. It came to my attention not long after that our guild was only one of many. It turns out that adult only guilds run rampant in Neopia, and each has a healthy number of members. Take a look at just a few of the ones I tracked down, for purposes of this little investigation.

No Curfew Guild - 195 members

Addicted Adults - 46 members

The Parent Trap - 98 members

Club 21 - 469 members

I found these after about ten minutes of searching. Just imaging how many adults I would have found hiding in Neopia if I had spent an hour hunting them down! Not only that, but after posting a board in the Help Chat and asking anyone over 18 to post, I had fourteen replies in five minutes. This is on only one board, in the middle of the night. Now consider how many more of us didn't answer that board, were playing games, were shop restocking, were on the trades or auctions, were chatting through Neomail or, well, you get my point.

So from now on when you're wandering the great wide world of Neopia, and you come across one of us, consider all of this information before you reply. Consider that, when our kids go to bed at night, we're silently cheering because it's now our turn to visit Neopia. Consider that there are adults all over the world that are buying Neopets merchandise in stores and claiming it's for our children or our nieces to avoid the curious look we would no doubt receive if we admitted it was for ourselves. Consider that we defend ourselves to our friends when they wonder why we're on a site like Neopets, only to open them up to our obsession and watch them become just as badly addicted as we are!

And to answer the original question of whether or not I'm too old for Neopets, here's your answer. Not by a long shot!