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“At first, back the first time I joined two years ago,...”

written by misscamflynn on 17/12/2007

Good Points
It teaches sort-of responsibility with money. You have to SAVE your money for the important things (well, important to you).

Bad Points
But what's worst is their new clothing options. They want you to pay REAL LIFE money for virtual clothes. It's a great site, but that's just way overboard.

General Comments
At first, back the first time I joined two years ago, I was blindly addicted. Of course, then I was a confused child with no real life friends. It can be a good vent for people who really don't have anything else to do. But it is also good for me now, since I've gone back to it after two years away. Now it's more interesting, because I have real life friends to keep me from getting addicted. As an addiction, it gets boring, but with a clear head it can actually be a fun site.
When I started looking around the site, I saw how great it can be for kids at times. Like teaching them to handle a money to get what they need (or want) for their pets, which is another thing. Responsibility for taking care of said pets (which actually helped me, believe it or not, be more responsible later ((ie now))). They need to feed them and keep them happy, and if they want they get to train them for the battle dome and paint them and read them books (another point: it encourages reading by offering an award for those who read the most books).
And, something I only realized recently by adopting my Ogrin, it teaches choice (my choice in picking a not-so-popular pet). How? Well, you choose what pet you want, what to name that pet, and you chose which games to play and you choose everything. People wonder how others make dumb decisions, and it starts with simple decisions when people are young. Me and my older brother were growing up exactly the same. I was going to be just like him. But now...well, I see how much could have helped him. Teaching him to make smarter choices with money and all that. Choices, even small virtual ones, help everyone. Small grows to big, right?
Ok, that's enough of my philosophical talk. I am a teenager, and that definitely isn't how teens talk. This is how we talk: That sucks. What sucks? The paying of real money for something stupid like virtual clothes. Now that is just beyond anything neopets is worth. They have clothes on the site that you can buy with virtual money, which is what any of those things are worth. So I don't see why neo has to go and attack everyone's pocket books. And people are buying into it too. My best friend asked for a neopets card for Christmas. I couldn't believe it. This is a site that I learned some important life lessons from...and they go corrupt.
The site still has lessons, but they need to clean up their act. More and more, they are aiming at parents. This started out for kids to learn, sort of. It probably started out as just fun, but it was built like the real world with a speck of fantasy. Which can teach kids a lot, believe it or not. And it's a stress reliever for adults and teens, something simple and childish. But now they're trying to get in on our money...that's just wrong.
Still, I think the good can out-weigh their stupid decisions. Just so long as they don't keep making decisions like this one.