Did we suddenly transport back to 2004?
Neopets, the game that many 2000s kids lost hours to playing, will soon be coming to television.
“Neopets TV show? It’s happening,” the company’s official Twitter account shared on Monday, along with news that it would be collaborating with Beach House Pictures on the project.
Neopets TV show? It’s happening. Read more about our collaboration with Beach House Pictures and what we have planned for this new project! smarturl.it/NPTVShow
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The series, from Beach House and Neopet’s owner JumpStart Games, is the first Neopets animated series based on the online game. Targeted toward children ages eight to 12, the series will develop new stories and characters. The pair is currently seeking co-production and broadcast partners for the project, which is in the early stages of development, as its format and style aren’t finalized.
Launched in 1999, Neopets is an interactive world that allows users to care for their own virtual pets, play games for Neopoints, complete quests for avatars, and engage with other players. Around its peak in the early 2000s, it was estimated that Neopets was netting 2.2 billion page views per month and 25 million members worldwide.
Viacom Network purchased the game in 2005 and expanded the franchise, but gradually the site’s momentum slowed down. In 2014, JumpStart bought the company, and the new series is part of the company’s larger goal to revitalize the brand this year with a reimagined Neopets website, a new mobile game, and licensed merchandise.
“The property is popular across age targets and since the ’90s its fans have identified it as a fun and safe space, and we want to bring that to a new generation of kids,” Beach House’s creative director Donovan Chan told Kidscreen. “It’s rare to come across a property with global reach, which has a great historical DNA, but is also a blank slate for creatives because it doesn’t already have a series.”
The new Neopets series also marks one of Beach House’s only animated series, as the production company is best known for making live-action puppet shows, including Hiccup & Sneeze and Teddies.
We’re all for a Neopets renaissance — after all, scrunchies and All That have both made comebacks. But first things first: we gotta go feed our Korbat. It’s been 16 years.
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