Neopets and the business of gaming Artwork

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Neopets and the business of gaming

February 20, 2025 • RSM Australia • Season 3 • Episode 6

Do you remember Neopets? 🌟 If you spent time online between 1999 and 2005, chances are you had a Neopets account or knew someone who did.

In this episode of talkBIG, we’re exploring the fascinating world of Neopets, the online game that became a cultural phenomenon in the early 2000s. Join host Andrew Sykes as he chats with Peter Xi, a Partner from RSM Australia's Tax Advisory division, and Dominic Law, the new CEO of Neopets.

They’ll dive into the business side of online gaming, discuss the cultural impact Neopets had on a generation, and share some exciting plans for the future of the game! 🎮💖

Whether you grew up with Neopets or you’re simply curious about the gaming industry, this episode offers a fun mix of nostalgia and insights that you won’t want to miss.

Text us your questions!

Thanks for listening! Visit the RSM Australia website to ask the hosts a question.

0:03

Do you remember Neopets?If you're a millennial or you spent a lot of time online between 1999 and 2005, chancesare you either had a Neopet or knew someone who did.For millions, this online browser game was aportal into a world of digital pets, delightful mini games and a rich online economy.Now, 20 years later, Neopets is aiming for cultural revival under the leadership of a newCEO, Dominic Law.Dominic's joining us today.How are you, Dominic?Great, I'm doing great.How are doing, Andrew?Good, terrific mate.Look forward to talking to you a bit about Neopets and where they're headed.Hello everyone and welcome to the RSM Talk Big podcast.I'm your host today, Andrew Sykes.I'm a partner with RSM in the Business Advisory Division and I'll be talking to you aboutbusiness, money and the economy and helping you get ahead.I'm also joined by one of my other partners from our Tax Advisory Division in Sydney,Peter Xi How are you, Peter?Fantastic Andrew and thanks for having me and welcome Dominic.Really, really excited to talk through everything Neopets.It's been a long time since the dial-up days of me accessing my account, but really,really excited to be here.Yeah.So thanks, Pete.So Peter and Dominic, we'll kick it off.So Peter, you head up RSM Australia's sub-sector group focusing on gaming, media andentertainment industry.What made you get involved with that?Yeah, really good question.I think sort of underneath the surface, you know, we're accountants, so, you know, there'squite a few nerds amongst us.So I think in terms of gaming, that's a fairly, you know, natural thing that everyone'sinterested in.For me, it really came up a couple of years ago when the Australian government started tointroduce real government incentives to help accelerate the gaming industry here inAustralia.So we really looked into that.and started speaking to some of the major players here in Australia, including theInteractive Gaming and Entertainment Association.And that's when we realised that Australia already has quite a massive gaming industry asit is, both in terms of players, but also in those that work in the industry.And then RSM International as a whole, we then started to explore, you know, in whichcountries are we already assisting major players?with the day-to-day business.And we realised that in Europe, in the US and in the Asia Pacific, we already have a verybig gaming base in terms of clients.So, you know, I was really, really excited and privileged to get into some of thoseconversations around the world with our RSM partners, you know, around who they currentlyservice and the clients that they currently work with.As a result of that, we decided we would, you know, proactively set up a gaming group herein Australia.in what is truly a global business, isn't it?And I think this podcast demonstrates it.I'm in Canberra, Peter, you're in Sydney and Dominique, I think you're based in Hong Kong.Yep.That's correct.Yeah, and what got you into the game before we get into NeoPets?What got you into the gaming industry, Dominic?Well, I've always been a gamer my whole life and I played Neopets when I was a kid.So I guess I started as a gamer and then got interested in the gaming industry, actuallyjoined the gaming industry around five, six years ago when I was doing more on themanagement, strategy and M &A, initiatives for another gaming company.And that's kind of how I got into gaming.Yeah, cool.So when you were younger, Neopets was how you spent a lot of your time, was it?Yeah, so I started playing Neopets when I was 12, when it was first launched.It was introduced to me by my friends in Canada.So I was born and raised in Canada.I moved back to Hong Kong.And then around that time, like there was like pre-social media and Neopets has been a bigpart of my childhood where I use it to meet people, meet friends around the world.And also we connect with a lot of my childhood friends in Canada.Yeah, that's really cool.So Neopets obviously means something to you.Talk us through how you came to be the CEO of something that was one of your childhoodhobbies.Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a childhood dream coming true.And it's definitely a very interesting journey.So it actually started when I joined this company called NetDragon.And NetDragon is a Chinese gaming company.They're listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange.And when I joined, I'm helping them to actually restructure a lot of their overseasbusiness, trying to do a secondary listing of some of their overseas assets.It's mainly in the education sector, education technology sector.But what's interesting is that they've acquired Jumpstart, which was in 2017.And Jumpstart is actually the holder of Neopets asset and they've been running the Neopetsgame, which they've acquired from Viacom in 2014.So when NetDragon acquired Jumpstart, it's actually part of a larger acquisition and theymainly wanted to focus on the education asset that is merging with the other educationassets that they have.So when I first joined NetDragon and then it spiked my interest, was one of the mainreasons why I joined it was like, wait, why are they holding one of the assets under theportfolio?It Neopets.And to be honest, I played Neopets for like two, three years when I was in middle school.But after that, I thought like Neopets was gone, like most people who played Neopetsduring that time.And then it was very exciting to see that, actually it's still around and it's been aroundfor 20 something years.And it's now owned by a Chinese gaming company and that definitely spiked my interest.And one thing led to another.Around two years ago, we started talking about, so how does it make sense for Neopets?It's been around for 20 something years, but to be honest, there has been mismanagement,there's lack of focus.It's kind of like there hasn't been any updates for more than a decade to the game, butthere's still a very core community that's still playing the game.And a lot of people like myself who has like fond childhood memory.and then we have like strong emotional attachment to this IP.So that's when we came up with a business plan of like, okay, what can we do if we don'tdo anything?Like, I'm not sure if Neopets can survive for much longer.And then the rest of the Jumpstart business has been restructured.So that's kind of when we came up with the idea that we should do a management buyout.So that a team of us coming from a NetDragon background, Neopets background, Jumpstartbackground all came togetherto come up with a business plan to see how we can spin this off and so that we can runindependently to really revive and I'd say like a turnaround strategy for the wholeNeopets classic game, but also Neopets as an IP.Yeah, because there's certainly, so I understand it celebrated, 25 years in November.So there's a strong legacy brand there.Does that excite you trying to revive that legacy brand and bring that back?And do you see there being a direct connection to turning that into a revenue stream, ifwe look at some of the business side of it?Yeah, think, okay, it's very exciting journey.And then it excites me on a daily basis.I'm very excited to go to work every day to make it happen.But on the other hand, it's also very, very challenging, a lot more challenging than, wehave ever imagined, to be honest, like a lot of the low hanging fruits we thought we cankind of get it out of the ballpark really quickly.It just becomes like, there's like so much tech debt.They're just things that we never envisioned.And because of the lack of maintenance and update in the past decade...Managing a 25 year old game is actually no small feat, especially with a very relativelylean team that we're trying to do a turnaround strategy on such a legacy brand.But the excitement actually comes with being able to kind of go through these hurdles andevery challenge we overcome, we can see the results immediately.So it's very exciting that we're able to kind of deliver joy and deliver updates and bugfixes to a very supportive and loyalcommunity.So I think that's that's a very exciting part and it brings us joy every day when we'reable to deliver a message like, okay, we finally fixed that after so many years.We delivered our first plot and then now we're joining hands together to celebrate ourbirthday together.So all these are all the excitements that overshadows all the challenges that we've beenfacing.I can only imagine the sort of legacy tech debt you've got there with a 25 year old site.What sort of advice would you give a tech entrepreneur looking at, say, acquiring an oldersite?I mean, what are the things that you looked at in terms of that?And does that add additional cost burden to your operation?I think it definitely does.But I think I would say to look at other revival of a legacy IP or a legacy game.There are two things that really reinforce our hypothesis originally that why we thinkthis business model would work.So one is actually the most important thing - is the community.So we realised that after 25 years, even with the lack of updates for the past decade,there's still acore group of core users who are still playing Neopets and they've been very supportive ofthe IP and it's become a very strong part or emotional part of their daily lives.And then a lot of our core users log in on a daily basis.And I think that forms the core and the DNA of this game.And with their support, knowing that someone really cares and a big group of them reallycares about this brand and this game.I think that really forms the most important hypothesis of whether this turnaround makessense.And that kind of leads to what I alluded earlier, like every update, every bug fix, haveenough, like we definitely have enough feedback or advice or contribution from thecommunity of what we should do next, what they care about, what they want.So it's not like we're have to do a lot of guessing work to find product market fit, likebuilding a new game.But it's really about, okay, prioritisingstrategically what we want to do.And then also after setting that is more about churning down, churning through the to-dolist that we have.And it's kind of like ever growing lists.And, it's really prioritising and resource shifting to make sure we can deliver and keepour customers and keep our players and keep the brand and keep the whole communityengaged.And I think that's a big part of it.And the reason why we think that there's a huge potential for Neopets is actually not justthe classic game.The classic game is really the core users we've been playing.We've been able to grow MAU (Monthly Active Users) by close to 3x since we took over.So a lot of lapsed users are actually coming back to the game once we deliver these fixesand once we introduce new gaming features, optimising the performance of the site, etcetera.So it's kind of like...live ops and every other game has probably a very modernised way of doing it.It's just that it was never introduced and never done properly at Neopets because of thelack of maintenance.So that's kind of the classic site.And the other part when we're evaluating why this hypothesis, why we believe so much inthis potential is the emotional attachment that we all have with the Neopets characters,the magical Neopia that we've all grown up in.[It] actually is a big part of a lot of people's childhood.It's [not just] myself.It's actually [the] majority of the team members, they all played Neopets when they'reyoung.So a lot of them are actually still playing to date.So we understand our community.We understand our users.But what's more important is we understand our brand and we really want to really rekindlethis whole magic through building up, through brand building activities, through buildingup our social media presence, rebuilding our licensing and merchandise program.To really reintroduce Neopets to everyone who has loved and enjoyed Neopets in the pastand also bring Neopets to many generations of new users, new players and new users tocome.So it would be fair to say, you're being really careful not to impact on your existingcore users, still provide them a great experience, but open it up to a whole range of newusers or ones to come back to.Yeah, I think that's our business 101 strategy is stay true to our core and the core forNeopets from a brand perspective, from a player perspective has always been the classicgame.So really maintaining that it's definitely the most important part of our business.So Pete, you're a bit younger than me mate, you must have played Neopets at some point.Yeah, absolutely.I think, you know, as Dominic's talked about, for a lot of us in that generation, it was abig part of our lives.It was one of the first times you really went online and interacted with people all overthe world.So for me, know, even looking through at some of the photos of the Neopets, I stillremember my Shoyru for example, you know, it's bringing back lot of those memories.So I suppose...Yeah, a question for Dominic there would be if I were to log back in today, which issomething I'm very interested in doing, what can I expect to have changed from the lasttime I played it, which would have been in the early 2000s to now, so in the last 20years, what would I expect to change if I logged in today?Yeah, so to be honest, it depends on when you last played.So we probably didn't change much.The whole look and feel of Neopets is still very similar to the late 2010s or 2008, 2009,around that era.think everything kind of like just is a time capsule and we kind of basically stoppedthere.So it's like a living historical relic, if you put it that way.But comparing to the early 2000s, there's still some upgrades changing in layouts.We've added like customisationin later in like 2006 or 2008 and things like that.But I would say the look and feel of the site, the characters, most of them are actuallystill the same.And that's the interesting part of how, like we always joke around how we actually keptand maintained the purity of the early internet culture because of the lack of update thatwe had on Neopets.And now it becomes a very unique,nostalgic experience that one could ever have to really experience what early internetgaming looks like.So that's kind of an interesting part for us to get new users to come back and experienceit as well.Yeah, fantastic.I guess my follow up question is in relation to that.So probably around the communication strategy for people like myself that used to play.[You] obviously talked about there are core users that have remained on the platform.And then we've got, you know, younger kids that are coming through now that might get ontoNeopets 2.0.But what's been your, I guess, you talked about social media, what was being your socialmedia and communication strategy to, I guess, remind people like myself who played it inthe early 2000s, what we're missing out.Yeah, so we're definitely trying a lot.It's really focusing on the reactivation aspect of how we get our lapsed users from 20years, 25 years ago to really understand, to just know the fact that, Neopets is actuallystill around.The game is still here.The IP is still here.And then doing a lot of those outreach.And there's a three pillar strategy that we're doing.So one, like really fixing the game.It's helping us spread the word of mouth among the existing players,to their former friends who played together or friends that in their current social cycle,like in their social life knows that, I actually played Neopets in the past as well.Okay, maybe let me log in.So that's has been a big part of how just improving and fixing the game.And because of the ongoing engagement of our existing players, that would naturally havethe word of mouth aspect to get a lot of our lapsed users to come back.And the second part is really the brand building aspect ofof Neopets like on our own social media presence, working, collaborating with otherbrands, doing launching experiences together.For example, it could be a licensing, it could be a merchandise, it could be like offlinecollaboration that we do.For example, we're working with different FNB players to offer kind of like, okay, Neopetscrossover limited edition experiences.So for example...Last [year] we did the ice cream shop with Chun's group in December, and then we did itwith the Yifan tea house, like having Neopets flavoured drinks.And then we're also working with like Boba tea, kind of shops to offer those experiences.So really we're introducing Neopets to a lot more people in the offline setting so thatpeople don't really...They're probably not playing Neopets anymore, but they can pass by CR Merchandise or CRMarketing and they realise, I've played Neopets when I was young.let me see what's going on.And they might not come back to the game, but they will be enjoying Neopets andexperiencing Neopets in different ways that they never had in the past 15 years.So in terms of the last strategy is really doubling down on the licensing and rebuildingthe merchandise program.So really it's likebecause we have such a legacy IP, we're rebuilding the program.[Neopets] used to be one of the top selling Happy Meals toys, for example.We used to be one of the best performing plushies in Target.So whether we can build a backup, build our program back up, relaunching some of our keymerchandise.So we're working with great partners on the licensing side.So we launched a tabletop trading card gamewith Upper Deck that was launched last year and that brought in a lot of new users butalso attracting traditional trading card players or trading card players to collect, toget involved with this Neopets IP and also getting a lot of Neopets users who don't playNeopets anymore but they are playing other trading card games to get back into theecosystem.And then we're launching a Plushie, a blind box Plushie line with Fat Mojo and it was likeone of the hot sellersthese past few weeks.So we're doing a lot of these things to really get our lapsed users to know that we'restill around and we have a lot of exciting new products coming up.But all in all, not just keeping the nostalgic style of Neopets, but really modernisingcertain parts of it.The good part of Neopets is like it's always evolving and there's so much customisationthat happens inside the game.So the possibilities is actually limitless, like how we can evolvethe style or add new styles to our core Neopets characters, are ways that we can continueto upgrade our style and have something that's maybe more attractive to new users as well.Yeah.So, Dominic, I think that's really interesting because what we see with some of our bigfranchises, you know, that mix between merchandising, trading card games and the digitalrealm.And you mentioned your plushies.Do you have any of those that we can have a look at?Yeah, sure.I mean, my favourite plushie similar to Peter is also a Shoryu.So this is actually one of the samples that we have received.It's pretty big.We call it a jumbo plushie.And then this is the Shoryu that I really like.And it's always a blue Shoryu.It was my first Neopet since I started playing.And it became maintained and always my favourite.So well, but of course it is also one of our fan favorites So it's not not only because Ilike it and then we make a merch out of it.But it's also one of the most popular Neopets species on our site and then so there's likea jumbo plushie that we did.It's a limited edition.We only produce like 400 of them and then we actually did a pre-order a few months ago andthen it all sold out within days.So it's kind of proved howour community members are really hungry and has been underserved for the past decade.We haven't produced nice quality merchandise for a long time.And then there has been lack of innovation in the IP or lack of maintenance in the IP.But once we're delivering the right product, like quality product, a lot of people arewilling to support us in this way.So it's been a very excitingjourney, of like slowly building back up the whole merchandise program, competing.Well, I would say that competing with a lot of, it's a very crowded space to be honest,and it's dominated by a few big IPs.And for us to have the potential to become an evergreen IP and really compete in this kindof merchandise and IP space is a very exciting journey to say the very least.you find, do you envisage that the offline merchandise being just really supportive of theonline environment?Yeah, it does.It's actually a very interesting flywheel because a lot of our core users would bepurchasing our merch.On one hand, it's because they're collectors and they really like the merchandise itself.On the other hand, there's always a code that can give you interesting items or limitededition items inside the game.So it really creates a flywheel where I might be back for Neopets just because of themerch that I remember.And this is like...the character that I really liked when I was a kid.And then once you get it, there's like a code that you can scan.It's like, maybe I can redeem this item in the game.So that kind of brings people back into the game.But we're also trying, like we also make it interesting for people who wants to collectitems inside the game too.Maybe I should get that merch so it's like more interaction between the merch collectorsor like the collectors inside the game.And then it's also creating kind of like, okay, I love Neopets.I take care of Neopets inside the game, but can I care for my plush in the real world andhaving more holistic interaction with the cute Neopets characters I love the most.And that would create a stronger emotional bonding between our players and the characters.And I think that would reinforce itself and makes the IPkind of become more long lasting and have the potential [to] become evergreen.So how the interaction, online and offline sometimes interact with each other.Yeah, so look, I personally, I find the trading card business absolutely fascinating.Are you planning to expand more into that?And will you have limited releases that are very collectible?You know, different finishes, different limited releases, rare cards that are collectible.Yeah, we definitely have plans for that.Our partner, Upperdack, has been working with us very closely on launching this line foryears already.So we launched our first set last summer, and then we actually launched our firstexpansion pack in December last year.So there has been great momentum for the trading card community to continue to not justplay our cards, collect our cards, but also having a...Continued expansion and the way we've designed our trading card game is actually we focusvery much on the playability.So it's not just for collecting for the sake of collecting but the game itself is actuallyvery playable: easy to learn but also has enough depth and collectibility so that you canadd to your strategy on what deck you want to build.But the interesting part is of course we can introduce limited edition cards differentfinisheson some of these cards.And there are secrets that people are trying to chase.There are kind of like a special finish, like extra shiny cards that people can, if youdon't mind, can also showcase some of my collection later if you want.be great.We'd love to, if you could show some of the cards, that'd be great.It'd be good to look at, see what they look like.So yeah, I mean, I haven't been in trading cards, playing trading cards for a long time,but the Neopets cards definitely got me back into it.So I have a whole binder collecting of all these cards.So there's different finishes.[You] can see the special really shiny characters and then there are things like this.That's like, just the cards themselves are very cute, but there's more than 300 cards now,I think.that you can use to collect and also to build your deck.So there's like an infinite amount of potential on how you want to build.And this is just the beginning.And Upper Deck and us have plans to put in more and more expansion packs on probably likeon a biannual basis.Like every six months we'll have a new expansion pack coming out in the market.And then that would continue to expand the player base and getting new players to come inand join in for the fun.Yeah, and the opportunity to, like we've seen in some other, over the last few years insome other playing card games or trading card games is collab with another well-knownbrand.Are you looking to do any of that?Yeah, so we are expanding our collaboration on a different level.So I talked about how we can collab with offline brands to create offline experiences.We can collaborate with other IPs to create limited edition crossover merchandise.So we have recently launched something.So for example, likeworking with other partners to create apparel items.So we're working with Steady Hands on cardigans.We're working with U2s on a special limited edition merch where it introduces U2ssignature eye design onto our Aisha and launch a baby Aisha plush.And then we're also working with many other IPs working on collaboration.So we're launching a lot more on that end because we believe that that's how we canreally reintroduce Neopets to not just our own users, but also users that have like forgotabout us, but they're now become a fan of other IPs, but now they can get back into, thisis like the Neopets that I played and join, like just be part of the ecosystem now.Well, obviously one of the hot topics for anyone in tech is the rapid development ofartificial intelligence across various formats.So Dominic, I guess a question in relation to that is how's AI going to impact Neopetsboth at a technological level and just at a general level and how you guys grow grapplingwith that particular topic.Yeah, I mean, it's definitely always a hot topic for the industry.And I think everyone is trying to figure it out.It's kind of like everyone's talking about it.Everyone says they're doing it, but not everyone really understands that type ofsituation, I would say.But there are a few things that we're following very closely and trying to introduce likeAI into our workflow.For example, is there things that AI can help with our productivity?And I'm sure like at a very general level,it's already helping us on a lot of email drafting, legal documents review, or things likethat.It's definitely very helpful at doing some basic research.AI is definitely very helpful on some of those parts.But when it comes to the content creation, Neopets is not really doing much on that front.We believe in a lot of the creativity within our artists,in generating these items, in-game events for our players and for our users.So we haven't been using AI on the content generation side, but we are exploring whetherwe can use AI on the more coding level side to really help with, okay, can AI really helpus fix a lot of this broken code base that we have, but we just don't have enoughengineers to really go through all 25 years of code base?Can AI be part of that to help?Eventually, I think it definitely makes sense.For now, I think most AI models are not trained on such old programming languages, somaybe it's not as helpful as it could be.For other engineers who're building a new game, using new tech stack and stuff like that,maybe AI can be more helpful.I think there are already AI-generated games.There are a lot of engineers using AI to do 80% of the work.So they focus on bug fixing and checking the code later on.And that greatly helps their productivity.So we're definitely seeing that a lot in the industry.We want to see how we can leverage this technology to improve our productivity so that wecan have a higher throughput, fix more bugs, and introduce more things.Also, for example, apart from bug fixing or upgrading our tech stack, there are certainpart of the game features that has been discontinued on our site.Can AI be part of the tools that we use to reintroduce a lot of these old content that wejust don't have the manpower to really bring it back yet?Maybe those can be areas where we can leverage AI.And so that's kind of more on a tool and productivity level.And on the other hand, can AI bring new ways of like new way of a gaming experience?I think that's an also interesting topic for the gaming industry.Definitely like AI powered, NPC characters are starting to boom everywhere.And but how can that be part of the integral experience of the game?And how can that add additional value for the game experience is something a lot of peoplein the industry is figuring out.We're also kind of exploring on that front, whether, for example, whether a Neopets can bepowered by AI and have more interaction with the pet carer or our players in a differentway and be more kind of like an intelligent companion.Could that be something that happens?I don't know.It could be something that we can explore, but to be honest, we're probably not going tobring that into the classic game.I think the classic game has a very unique way ofhow our players have been interacting with their Neopets.And it's been the same way for the past 20 years.So we're probably not going to shake the boat by introducing all these new elements.But whether AI could be something we explore on for Neopets 2.0 would be somethinginteresting for us to kind of continue to make sure that there will be evolution to theNeopets IP as we figure out what we want to build for the next generation of players.Sothat would kind of like really bring Neopets back at the forefront of technology.Because if you think about it, when Neopets was first introduced, we're basically at thevery forefront of this whole technological evolution.We're the first I would say like MMORPG pet carrying game that existed on the internet ona web-based platform.So that's one of the main reasons why we became so popular and it's just spread virally.Whether we can...do something like that in today's world, leveraging on new technology, I think that wouldbe something that we're constantly exploring.Fantastic.Thanks for sharing.I think, you know, it's a really interesting insight and everything you've said thereresonates with us and a lot of the technology businesses that we work with both in gamingand elsewhere where a lot of people sort of think of AI as you said Dominic, they think ofit as just a blue sky concept and they ask, you know, is AI just going to take over theworld?But really when you break it down, there's really the day to day tool side where it canreally help people today.And then there's probably the other side where, you know, how do you really bring it in?into the future where, you know, there's a lot of ideas being formulated about is AIreally at that point to just click your fingers and then something happens.That's probably not the case.I think that that's quite common in a lot of clients we talk to.On the automation and AI piece, you know, in a platform such as Neopets, bots presumablyAutomation in particular is everywhere.You know, we've got people in the office who have even written scripts to automate deskbooking here to try andbeat other people in the office to booking their desks.For you guys, in terms of people writing automation scripts and other bot relatedactivities, is it a problem and how are you dealing with it?Yeah, I think just like all the popular games out there, like, botting is always a problemfor us and especially for a poorly maintained site for the past decade.So botting problem has existed since many, many years ago.So it is a top priority for us to see how we can fix it.And there are steps that we're taking.So I would say it's a two-step process.On the one hand, we need to improve our security.We need to upgrade our login system, account creation system, so that makes it harder forbotters to create massive number of accounts and hack us or try to create accounts toclaim three items and trading among the accounts and washing away the high value itemsthat they received.So things like that we're definitely working on in upgrading our system.So there has been things that we're doing, for example, likecompletely upgrading our login system, introducing two factor authentication, and alsomaking sure that it's making it harder, for bots to create a lot more accounts.So that's step one.And then step two is like, okay, improving our security and improving how it makes itharder for bots to navigate and create all these automated ways tobuy up stuff or flood event and et cetera.So those are things that we're introducing, of like reCAPTCHA, putting it at the rightplaces, having a more streamlined experience would be part of it.But the bigger way of really tackling this issue is also improvement and changes to ourgameplay.So for example, bots are created on an automated basis.It's really to manipulatepart of the gameplay based on the rules that we've set many, many years ago, and wehaven't been updating those.So really changing the behavior of how normal users will interact with each other orchanging the behavior of how the bots have been interacting or trying to take advantage ofus, we can really make it harder for at least the existing bots to continue to do whatthey're doing.And then also changing the gameplay behavior and make it not worthwhile for botting.So those are things that we're improving on the gameplay.So that involves game design, balancing, and also making sure that it's things that youimprove some bit, like the bots will also improve.But to the point that it doesn't really make sense to create a bot to do certain things,then the botting problem could be fixed on that level.Fantastic.So leading off from that, then I guess one of the things that you've touched on is thewhole wealth economy in the game itself.Obviously, a lot of people play the game for fun, but in terms of that reward mechanism,etc., a lot of people play to accumulate that wealth.In terms of that, again, back to the question of someone like myself, or to re-enter thegame today, right?Obviously, with inflation and that sort of accumulation of wealth in the game, you know,I'd be...far behind in terms of that.What measures have you guys got in place to potentially level that playing field or allowsomeone like me to be able to re-enter the game?Yeah, that's definitely a million dollar question for most game economies.It's how do we curb inflation and how can we make it interesting for new players orreturning players to get back into this.So there are things that we've introduced.We definitely want to make it easier for returning users or having a chance to accumulatewealth.So we've introduced, for example, a daily quest system.Returning users have a chance to go through the daily quest system to get back into thegame and explore different functions of what Neopets has to offer.But on the other hand, doing these quests would give you rewards to items.And there's always a chance of some of the highly valued items being rewarded throughthese quests.And then we're also rotating the quest logs and make sure that the items will be rotated.So that's kind of one way of how we're fixing inflation.And the other hand is we're reintroducing a lot of the old rare items.Historically, the drop rates might be extremely low, adjusting those, and then also havingnew ways for returning users to have a chance to get these items is one way of accumulatedwealth.Because at the end of the day, people want to accumulate neopoints so that they canacquire the items that they want and collect the items that they want.And then so if you're able to get some highly valued items, you can sell it, you can tradeit, and then you can build your own collection.And I think that's the beauty of Neopets.Like there's so many items out there.If you're only chasing for aesthetics, there's probably a lot of low value items that youcan still get and have a lot of fun with customisation and showing off your collection.It could be like not highly priced, but it's just very unique in its waywhen there's humour or when there's way of how you build your collection.So I think there's definitely ways of that, but there are some highly prized items that itjust becomes really hard to get.So some of the bug fixings that we've been doing has also helped with that, becausethere's a lot of random events inside the game where these random events will be givingout really rare items or avatars.Some of those random events has been discontinued for some reason, because of bugs.So we have been fixing some of those.It's reintroducing them.And once those bugs are fixed, then because the expectation that, there will be more interms of supply and more of these rare items will be in circulation, then the astronomicalprices would just have to come down because it's been a discontinued product.And then now it's like, we've fixed some of those.So these are things that we're doing.But on the other hand, when we tailor these fixes to welcome new players and returningplayers,we also make sure we have to balance out that we don't antagonise the super core playerswho's been the wealthiest or like the top 1 % of the players.We want to make sure that there's new goals for them to achieve, like new collectibleitems.The good thing about Neopets is most of these items, they're skins.They're not really gameplay items.So we don't really have to overpower and overpower to create new items.So that's kind of another problem that most other...MMORPG game with fixes, like, okay, you have a more powerful item that trumps everything.But like for us, it's more about the aesthetics, at least for half of the items.So how we can create interesting new items, hard to get, but exotic, and that's verycollectible and create new ways for our collectors to have new goals that they want toachieve.And make it fun for them to continue to engage with the game.So I think that's kind of how we've been trying to balance this problem of fixinginflation, making it easier for returning users to accumulate wealth, but also making surethat the wealthiest also have new goals that they can chase out.So that's a bit of catch up for those older users.So making it, or sorry, for the returning or the new users, it's easier to get a basiclevel, make it easy to get to that basic level, but the rare and the harder stuff, youdon't want to make it too easy because you've got an existing base that's been there.It's a tough problem, isn't it?Yeah, not unlike the real world that we're living in.Yeah, very much.Emulating that.So if we look at that, what's your broader vision and what's the road ahead for Neopets?You've mentioned Neopets 2.0.If we look at that road ahead, is that going to be mobile first and getting a broadermobile-based active in the game?Yeah, I think what's ahead for Neopets can be broken down into three parts.So the classic game, there's still a lot of work for us to continue to improve it, fix it,and introduce new game features.And even with the classic game, we're planning to make it more mobile-friendly in a waythat we can convert more of the web pages to be mobile responsive.I would say for now, less than around 30 % of the pages are mobile-friendly, which is notthat much, to be honest.But there's a lot more that we can do on that front.And then for a mobile app related to [the] classic game, whether there could be a new wayof us having the core pieces of the classic game and become a mobile app that makes iteasier for our players to perform some of the daily tasks or just interacting with theirpets or customising their pets is something that we'd love to work on.But on the other hand, we also have other types of mobile games that we have introduced tothe market.So an integral part of the Neopets experience is playing different mini games toaccumulate wealth or get Neopoints in the past.So now we have introduced bigger games that is living separately as a mobile game.So we have a game called Fairy Fragment.It's a match 3 game and we have Island Building game called Tales of Ticardia.So these are two mobile games that we have launched that has beendeveloped in the past and we [are] making sure we upgrade the art style, having it tied interms of the login and the accounts.And then we've introduced it last year to get to help to really attract some of our userswho are more mobile friendly and mobile first to get back into the space, but alsoallowing our classic game users to have new ways of making, accumulating wealth and alsoenjoying Neopets in a more modernised way.So think that's kind of the second part where there's more mobile experiences that we'reoffering.And the longer term strategy is definitely to, what can Neopets build in terms of Neopets2.0 and in this day and age, what can we further invest in to really bring a newmodernised experience of Neopets that would be attractive for the new generations ofplayers.So what I've been saying in the first two part has been still targeting mostly our lapseduser base.At our peak, we have 150 million registered user base.So there's a lot of re-activation to be done and getting them back to the ecosystem.But what we are building next should be attracting the many, many more, millions of usersthat are gamers, that will be gamers and to get back into, to start playing Neopets in thefuture would be kind of our ultimate goal.And my goal is to really build an IP, build a game that we can live on for many, many more25 years to come.Yeah, that's a fantastic goal.You mentioned at the start of our discussion that, you know, the platform's gone throughseveral owners and not probably all have been as passionate as you.And from what we see, your honesty and communications resonating with the fans.Do you have a strategy to open that outreach a bit more, you know, a Q &A with Dominique,send the CEO some questions.What's your views on communicating more with the community?Yeah, so we have been trying to do doing more and more on that front.So there are a few things that we are doing and we're continuing to optimise theexperience.For example, we have a monthly section with our community.We call it a live section.It's kind of like a live podcast style.And then part of that, there's always an AMA section where users can, like players canraise questions and ask us.But whether we can open that up more, used to be like a full hour and then now my AMAsessions are more like 10-15 minutes and then we collect the questions ahead in the gameand in the Neo boards and kind of answer the top most asked questions.So there are things that we're doing like that, but we're continuing to optimise thestructure to see how we can get more fans to participate and more of our community membersto ask better questions, but there's only limited time.So there's so many questions that we can answer.So we're trying to optimize the Q &A experience.On the other hand, we have a community ambassador program where we've recruited passionatecommunity members who are very knowledgeable of the IP or knowledgeable in differentaspect of the gaming business or the art aspect of Neopets.And they help give us feedback and collect feedback from the community to really act asthe bridge between the company and the community to really help uschannel through the suggestions, the frustration and everything in between to help us makebetter business decisions.And we can also have like a better sounding board of the activities that we want to do,programs that we want to introduce.So that's also been around for almost a year already.And then we're also continuing to making upgrades to the Community Ambassador Program.Like how often do we take meetings?How do we update each other?Improving the process so that we can improve the throughput and have better efficiency intaking care of all these requests that we're getting in.So we're doing things like that.And then we're also trying to, like more recently, we're trying to involve the communityand really work with us more closer to celebrate everything Neopets.For example, for the 25th anniversary, we actually...recruited a lot of community hosts to help us to together to celebrate our birthday overthe course of two, three weekends.And ended up we have like more than 300 hosts applying to become a local host to host somemeetups, similar to how Pokemon Go help have a lot of local meetups.That's kind of where we drew the inspiration.And then ended up we're selected I think 40, 41 events that happened around the world.in 13 countries and 41 cities, and then ended up having more than like 5,000 peopleattending our events in person over the course of two, three weekends.And then some of the hosts also did a live podcast for 24 hours and we have anotherthousands of fans joining in to just celebrate everything Neopets.So yeah, so those are the things that we've been doing trying to be more transparent.Community is our core and that's a big part of what the Neopets experience has always beenabout.So we're definitely working very closely with them, trying to deliver what they expect andcontinue to engage them to make sure Neopets will be a very community-driven IP since thevery beginning and continue that for the many, many years to come.Yeah, that's fantastic, Dominic.And look, it really does sound like you're as much a custodian of the community as the CEOof the company.So I'd like to thank you for your time today.You've given us some really great insights into what it takes to revive a legacy brand,the complexities of dealing with a multifaceted online, offline business and maintainingthat community.It's been really good.I'd encourage everybody who's listening to this, you've got an old Neopets account, get onthere and jump in and try and revive it or log in and give it a go and see what it's like.I'd like to thank Dominic for joining us today.And I'd like to thank all of you for listening to talkBIG today.I've been your host, Andrew Sykes.I've been joined by Peter Xi, a Partner at RSM and Dominic Law, CEO of Neopets.If you found this episode helpful,please subscribe and if you can, leave us a review.Thanks and we'll talk to you next time.Thank you.

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