If you grew up in the 90s, you’ve probably had a run-in with Neopets at some point. The browser-based site defies categorization to this day- it was social media before Facebook, letting kids build communities while raising their own virtual animal buddies.

At gamescom asia, Neopets CEO Dominic Law is heralding a renaissance for the iconic 90s IP. Having become independent again earlier this year and with a mobile game on the way, we caught up with Dominic to talk about the path forward for the same site responsible for the boom in HTML-customizable webpages.

So tell us more about the Neopets Renaissance

Dominic: Well, I think it’s very exciting that we’re embarking on this journey. We’re actually calling it a Neopet’s Renaissance. The way I feel is like it’s a big part of my childhood memory as well.

I played Neopets since I was 12 years old and it’s a very interesting way for me to connect with my friends in Canada. I was born and raised in Canada. I moved back to Hong Kong when I was 10 and then actually lost connection with a lot of my friends because back then you only have a landline and IDD is really expensive.

And then one summer I went back, they told me about this game and I started playing and that’s kind of how we bond. And that’s also a game that made me popular in high school because I played it way ahead of my peers in Hong Kong when it started getting popular like 2,3 years down the road. So it’s a very interesting childhood memory for me.

Being able to be part of this team to revitalize this nostalgic IP and bring it back and modernizing the gameplay and also creating new game experiences with Neopets IP, I think it’s very definitely a very exciting journey. We’re just at the beginning of this and there’s a lot of things that we could be doing and it’s been exciting to see the reaction of our fans of our community and also seeing the growth that we’re able to achieve.

Neopets was definitely a product of its time, yet had a lot of features that we’re only seeing mainstream gaming adopt now with a focus on daily logins, etc. What are some steps you guys have taken to kind of modernize the game for newer audiences?

Dominic:  I think it’s very interesting to see that our original Neopets.com game has been kind of a, definitely a pioneer in the gaming industry and introducing gameplay, as you mentioned, probably close to 24 years ago.

And it’s still relevant in today’s time in terms of the gameplay, the intricate economy. A lot of the mini games are still very engaging. What we’re trying to do is to keep the look and feel, the nostalgia value of the original neopets.com game. But in terms of modernizing it, we’re actually building new games that would be tied to this IP, but like having a way to modernize a lot of the game features with current technologies.

For example, we’re building a new flagship game called World of NeoPets. It will be a mobile app game, but staying true to our core with all the main DNA of what Neopets represents.

We are like a fun platform that are very inclusive and also very family friendly. And that’s kind of the that’s the still leveraging on that to build this new experience. But in the new game itself, it will have like like 3D environment, open world environment where you can explore the world of Neopia as a Neopet’s point of view and also having a more multiplayer mode type of mini games that’s more social based.

And a big feature would be kind of how you build up the living quarters for your Neopets. So it’s kind of like the original Neohome concept but modernize with a lot more inspiration or gameplay that we draw from kind of like the success of Animal Crossing and in minigames we are looking at the success of for example Mario Party’s like a lot of these modern game elements that you would expect in a new game you definitely try to use that to revitalize the Neopets IP.

So how do you find the balance between keeping that nostalgia factor for the older audiences but also not alienating the newer audiences?

Dominic: I think I would put it the other way around. How can we attract new audiences without alienating our core users? I think that’s why we, the near term focus and then the core of our IP will s always be the original neopets.com game and keeping the look and feel. And there’s a lot of things that we’re upgrading in terms of the infrastructure so that we can have better kind of like browsing experience.

But I would say the gameplay itself, we’re not really changing it. We’re keeping it as like a historical living relic. So the nostalgic value will always be there.

Lapsed users coming back, they can enjoy the game as it were 20 years, 10 years ago. Players that have been playing for more than 15 years, nothing has changed, but hopefully it will be a faster browser experience and there will be new events and new plots that will continue to introduce into the game. So it’s still an expanding universe, but then you look and feel will be very much staying true to its core.

But for the new game experience, for example, the World of Neopets game that I just mentioned, those would be modernized gameplay. The DNA would be the same, but the game features and the gameplay would be staying true to what existing or new gamers would expect of a modern game.

So I think that’s kind of how we differentiate the old game and the new games. But the interesting part is we will create things that are cross game like assets or like like avatars or some of the collectibles could be cross game some so some of your achievements in the original neopets.com game could be transferred over to the new game.

And that’s kind of how we want to connect the new experiences as an ecosystem, but kind of maintaining that balance between old and new players.

With World of Neopets being in 3D, were there any difficulties translating the old art style?

Dominic: I think the interesting part is like the challenge is not less technical side. It’s more on when it’s 2D, there’s actually a lot of room for imagination from our core users and our people who’ve been playing Neopets for many years.

But when we translate it, then we actually define how it looks in a 3D setting and it might not be what people have imagined and then making sure that we kind of like work alongside with the community getting a lot more advice and being very transparent that actually helps us and guide us to create better 3D models.

So that’s what we’ve been doing, listening to community building with them to create these 3D models. But it’s hard to get it right kind of like at once because eh, there’s just so much imagination back then with the very simple 2D Art but also having a lot of characters.

Alright, so as a Neopets OG, what’s your favorite minigame?

Dominic: So I think my favorite mini game would be Meerca Chase. I think it’s a was introduced a few years later after I started playing. It’s not the one of the it’s not the original mini games I would say, but I remember playing a lot of it because it’s my go to game when I wanna procrastinate from studying for exams and then I can play hours on that just to try to beat my own high score. And okay, that’s definitely the mini game that I played the most.

Speaking of Neopets OGs, Neopets is responsible for getting a lot of people into HTML. How does it feel to have enabled that many young people?

Dominic: I know I think it’s very interesting that we’re we’re very there’s this does this educational element that we’ve inspired a generation of gamers introducing them to the world of internet.

Some of them of course learn HTML to customize their shop to customize their online presence or to express their social identity. But we’ve also inspired a generation of artists, game designers and even kind of how people interact online as a social kind of media context.

And also people who kind of get excited about game economies because of the intricacy of neopets. So we’re very proud that we’re able to achieve that and kind of having a generation defining game that’s so long lasting.

I think our biggest challenge is like, okay, how do we extend that? We’re way ahead of the curve, but we haven’t evolved in the past 10 years. So we’re kind of like a little bit obsolete in data now.

So nostalgia is good, but what can we innovate on to make sure that for the new games that we’re building, we stay ahead of the curve and introducing not just learning from successful games are out there already, but thinking ahead with, okay, what new game features can we bring in? Are there new ways of playing neopets that could be exciting for the next generation and be inspiring for them as well.

So Neopets got some flak a while back for wanting to get into NFTs, but that’s since been walked back. Could you talk a bit about that?

Dominic: I think I think one of the main thing is like we saw the pushback from our community and once we have evaluate a lot more like the whole NFT move, it’s really against our community values and it’s not what they treasure.

And there’s better ways to spend our resources or kind of our time to really bring Neopets back. And a big part of it is actually fixing the infrastructure, making the original game a lot more enjoyable and playable.

I mean, Flash discontinued three years ago and then half of the site became unplayable that’s just unheard of but the beauty is that most of our community actually stuck around and continued engaging with the game in the IP and that’s kind of one of the main factors that we know we need to serve our community right and do the IP justice.

The silver lining of exploring the web 3 side of things did give us inspiration about okay what are the new features and then kind of exploring new things we could do for Neopets but I think the main reason for us to kind of backpedal on that is that there are more a lot more important priorities that we could be focusing on and execute on before we bring into many new things.

Anything else you’d like to share with the audience?

Dominic:  I think I would love if, everyone out there, if you played Neopets in the past, I think it’s definitely a great time to come back and build with us. We probably need the help of the community to give us the right guidance so that we can be on this journey together.

To a lot of people, Neopets marks some of their fondest memories growing up. While we’re probably not going to see another console game any time soon, it’s nice to see the team focusing on what made the original so special- the interconnected experience.

Our thanks to Dominic Law for taking the time to chat with us about such a special part of internet history.