In July, MTV Networks’ Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group announced that it would invest $100 million into casual games and virtual worlds. As a result Neopets was transformed to Neostudios, with the goal of developing new worlds, launching the first at the end of 2008 and one more per year. The first world, announced today, is World of Neopia. Neopia builds off of the existing Neopets world and the newly released game Key Quest, but aims to create a deeper, more interactive experience.
“This is a completely new experience, but centered around the Neopets concept and game play,” explained Neopets Senior Vice President & General Manager Kyra Reppen. “World of Neopia will bring what was formerly a page-based static experience into a rich, immersive world. Players can be closer to their Neopet by living its experience, so to speak, as it walks through various lands, goes on various quests, and interacts with other characters in Neopia. “
Key Quest, as well as other games, will be a part of the larger experience, which will also feature quests, customization, mini-games, player-to-player trading, a virtual economy, and user-generated content.
The target audience is tweens between 9 and 14, which makes up the bulk of current Neopets users.
“We foresee our current audience picking right up with this new experience,” said Reppen. “Of course we also hope it attracts new users both young and old. The new graphical experience is also anticipated to be even more accessible to kids while offering older players even more interaction with each other and the world.”
Set to launch some time in the next 12 months, Neopia has a hybrid business model of advertising as well as a “paid layer.” Like Neopets, it will remain Web-based to promote accessibility.
No news yet on what future worlds from Neostudios will look like, but Reppen says they’ll feature both expansions of existing virtual world properties as well as creations of entirely new virtual worlds based on new intellectual property or extensions of other Nickelodeon brands.
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