I was browsing through the recently announced nominations for the International Mobile Gaming Awards and found Neopets Mobile, developed as a collaboration between Neopets and IN-FUSIO. I've played Neopets in the past on my PC and found it only mildly compelling (though, admittedly, I'm not the target audience). I found the mini-games boring and the advertising intrusive. However, I always liked the meta-game of having a virtual pet that I could improve in a persistent, multiplayer world. Now, I can play Neopets on my phone and it will connect back to the PC experience. Here are a few of the marketing bullet points for Neopets Mobile (from their site):
* Check on your Neopet anytime, anywhere!
* Earn Neopoints for your account even when you are away from your computer.
* Shop at the Island Market, which includes items not found anywhere else in Neopia!
This is a big deal for cross-platform gaming primarily because of the size of the Neopets community. It will be very interesting to see how many Neopets players take advantage of the mobile component and the different ways they play it.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if most players don't sign up for mobile. First of all, the Neopets player base is very young, and less likely to have the latest cell phone. Also, Neopets is free and ad supported, so the mobile charges may turn players and parents off: "The game is available for a monthly subscription cost of $2.99 and kilobyte usage charges apply whenever it connects to Cingular MEdia Net" (from the press release). I'm surprised they're charging, since the word FREE! appears four times on the Neopets homepage. My guess is that they're charging because that's the business model that carriers have been operating with for mobile games so far and that's how they make the partnership with In-Fusio work. They may have seen ad-supported mobile content as too big a step to coincide with the start of the mobile service.
