I am making this thread separate from the Cash Mall thread because of the absolutely dangerous message Neopets is sendint with their recent editorial, which can be found here if you have yet to read it:
http://neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?se...&issue=299
The Neopets Team is irrationally trying to defend their new fiscal-minded positions with half-truths and propaganda trying to make themselves appear in a sympathetic light, claiming that the Neo Cash Mall is needed to allow them to keep their jobs. With Neopets corporate earnings well in the black, the site has NO NEED to continue this venture other than greed, which after reading this article is their clear intention.
With an overflow of complains they were only able to publish a few of the comments, but their generic response rang clear. "We need the money to continue the site, we're not evil, we try to keep your interests at heart." All lies. The community has HEAVILY opposed the changes to pet design, the wearable items, and now the NeoCash shop. Yet the continue, killing the original intent of the site.
Sure, I understand the world revolves around money. I'm an accountant by trade. But these people are sickening in their refusal to add more support to the site and improve conditions, even though their cash flow is increasing drastically. This money flows into the parent company, Viacom, and helps the Neopets community NONE. As evident here:
Quote:And before it gets asked, no, we can't stop making new content (we have deadlines and goals to meet) and we can't just hire new people. (First of all, it costs more money, and secondly, we can't exactly hire a new programmer and say, "This is Neopets. This is how you make a Neopet. Now, recode the pound by Tuesday, please!") We seriously have not forgotten about all we need to get done... in fact, we have nightmares about it. We're working as fast as we can.
Total bull. The purpose of economic expansion is to hire new employees to increase output. They claim to have no money to do this, yet their financial statements say differently. They make the site sound impossible to code, then how do they ever get anything done if they can't easily replace people who quit or might otherwise leave? Another load of tripe.
Neopets has gone totally over the line this time. They have declared war against those of us who don't care about their "pretty, sleak new Neopets" and were here for the Meridell and Kass wars, which as evidenced by the most recent plot, the Battledome is effectively meaningless now! They want us gone and replaces with 12 year old idiots who will blindly spend their parents money for something that requires little staff attention while the corporate fatcats roll around in their profits.
I won't stand for it any longer.
In the most recent editorial I read something that upset me to the greatest degree. It was mostly about the new neocash system. First off they go on about how they need money and they don't make enough which is a lie. They make more then enough. Ask anyone who takes accounting and classes on money in university levels. The lies they try to make people believe are disgusting. They are written in a way to make people "understand" and feel okay with it. It is manipulation, using people to get more money. I was OK with neocash. I didn't agree with it but the way they answered the questions fills me with utter disgust. They act as if they were friends when these responces makes children believe what isn't true. Children thing that TNT want whats good for them, that they are friends. Unfortunatly this is a lie, they just want whats in their pockets and their parents pockets. As I stated before, they do not need this money, thye are already multimillionares. As a kid I used to want to work for neopets. Now as I mature and have a better understanding i know that I could never work for people who manipulate, lie and use people like they do. It is not only wrong but can be hurtful to younger people.
The reason i made a new topic instead of putting this in the Neocash topic is this....
Quote:What's more important? Our (Neopians') happiness and satisfaction or making real-life profit from Neopet users? ~cutie802
While we would like to claim 100% your happiness, it isn't possible. We're sure everyone would love to see all the ads ripped down, no more paying for anything, and not even have sponsor games on the site. Unfortunately, though, Neopets would then go bankrupt and cease to exist, so we HAVE to care about money. We know money puts a lot of stress on relationships (both ours with you all, and those closer to you). How often have you argued or overheard your parents argue about money? We're betting most likely at least once in your life. 
We don't necessarily like certain ads either, but we also need to accept the fact that without money and the company making a profit, Neopets can't exist. So we have to try and balance the two. If we only cared about money and not about our players, we could do a lot worse things than offer optional clothing for a few bucks. So please, before sticking your fingers out and calling us "greedy," think of what it takes to run a business of this magnitude, and understand we have to do what we can to create a balance between profit and player happiness.
This is an excellently formulated question. You can tell that the person who asked the question is a wellread indivdual who understands the difference between money and happiness. This is a person who knows that you can be happy without insane amounts of money unlike TNT.
The reference which TNT made (underlines and italics) is absolutly unnessesary and the most disgusting attempt to earn a childs trust. I did not believe what I read when I saw that. They are trying to make the child feel bad. By feeling bad the child will think "wow TNT understands me". It is a horrible method of manipulation. it is very unnessesary to make children thing of parents fighting over ANYTHING! A child goes onto neopets to escape the real life. To get away from problems and to find enjoyment. Now they go on neopets and they get reminded of what is happening.
TNT has crossed the line with this. Anyone can lookup their income and see that they make more then enough. I don't know how to react to this. This is the farthest I have ever seen TNT go to make people buy from them and to manipulate. All their answers in the editorial are attempts to gain trust. The one I posted above is stepping over the line. They have no business in anything to do with the users families. Many families face difficulties these days. Neopets and internet is a great way to relax, have fun and just escape.
EDIT: Looks like forte and I made threads at the same time
i asked him to merge my post into his thread. This post is not a responce to what forte has typed but my opinion about it as it was originally its own thread.
I think many kids won't even understand it.
Most will just go on and keep enjoying the site for what it is. While I do disagree with whomever wrote the editorial as it is a fairly well worded attempt at gaining trust and justifying the business portion of the site (btw, side note: when the heck did we ever hear about that in the past? never!).
well whatever. i'm definitely not partaking in this neocash thing especially after reading all that.
I am totally shocked. All they have done is tried to trick people, and reassure us. This editorial has sunk to an even lower level than Neo Cash itself!
The only thing that I am going to say about it is though, that I wouldn't be surprised if in the future, they do start selling actual items that you buy with neocash that go into the neopets economy. The we will get the bit about how although they said they wouldn't they had to and how it is perfectly okay... bye bye battledome when that happens.
Oh, and how come they would suddenly need to make this thing now... they never needed it in the past! I would haev thought that their profits would be going up, and not down...
http://www.hoovers.com/viacom/--ID__1430...come.xhtml
Viacom, Neopets parent company, made a gross profit of $5,408,100,000 in 2006. Their net profit after taxes was $1,577,000,000, and they had a 13.9% profit rate.
With numbers like that as a whole, Viacom doesn't even need this little NeoCash thing, they make more than enough money. All they care about is stockholders, not the end-user.
Quote:"We also have NO intention of offering items in the NC Mall that will give players huge game play advantages that so many people are talking about, like Battledome weapons and the like."
Just like you had NO intention of ever charging for anything on the site EVER. They've already clearly stated that just because they've promised something in the past doesnt mean they'll always stick to it- they have said this clearly. Why exactly should we then believe any promises they make afterwards? Perhaps they have no CURRENT intention to charge for beneficial items, but once the NC Mall loses it's novelty appeal they'll need something in there to keep people buying.
Quote:No, Neopoints will never be able to be purchased. The only items we intend to sell will be things that are pretty or have very benign functions (such as a food item that makes your Neopet happy).
Is this not already a contradiction of what they've said? Happiness DOES have a benefit, although a small one- a happy pet won't have the random event of becoming blue. The Happiness food technically provides paid immunity to this event- a paid benefit.
I'm glad I only play Neopets for the plots now, and don't participate when there isnt an event. Though perhaps eventually we'll have to pay to participate in plots too- I can see them selling tickets to "see" the Yooyuball finals, etc.
I lol'd. TNT assures us that:
Editorial Wrote:No, Neopoints will never be able to be purchased.
...and other such garbage to assure us that Neo economy will never be be destroyed. Then they say:
Editorial Wrote:Secondly, as we have said before in the Editorial, we offer the best information we can give at the time. That Editorial was answered almost 6 years ago! Have you ever insisted that you'd honestly NEVER try sushi, or move to a new place, or anything else, only for it to unforeseeably occur down that long road of life? Neopets has grown so large over the years that we honestly have had to do things we never thought we'd do in order to keep the site free to play for everyone.
I thought my disgust for TNT could not get any greater. All that they had already done in the past months with no thought of, and no prior feedback from the users, all in the name of marketing and profiteering. But this, this is completely new territory for them. Manipulate the little kiddies with images of mummy and daddy arguing over money, as a way of justifying stuffing their fat, obscenely lined pockets with what is just slightly removed from ill-gotten lucre. I feel sick....
What can we do? We are a few Neopians. Other than writing continual complaints that will get deleted without being read, how can we fight the overlords? They probably would not care if everyone of us on this forum quit and walked away. They would just recruit more 12 year olds to take our place. I am prepping a response to the editorial, but beyond that...what can we do?
We can't do much to be honest. Possibly just make people aware of what TNT is doing and hope the word spreads. Its not like we can just go on the neoboards and say something. We will get frozen and our thread deleted. yet that is the easiest and most efficient way of doing so..
As we say in the Maple forum, Viacom is teh ebil!
Since Nexon and Viacom are in a commercial agreement, I'm pretty sure that some Nexon workers designed this NC thing, just like the Cash shop in MapleStory. This hasn't started to do a great expansion, yet, in Neopets, since they have a strong prescense on U.S., this editorial is a complete insult to their roots.
Viacom is already rotting in money, it's just another corporative monster.
Hey, guess what everyone. All those scientist are wrong. The world doesn't revolve around the sun, it revolves around ME. Running a website is really easy. My grandmother could probably write all the code that is on neopets and draw all the snazzy images. And it like costs, nothing to upkeep a server that gets as much use as neopets. And I mean, why should someone want to actually make a decent profit for having a creative idea. That's just crazy. We should all become commies and make EVERYTHING free. Because I'm just a poor little kid who doesn't have money to spend, and its not fair that people who have money should be better off than me at life. And anyone who thinks differently is greedy and selfish. Neopets broke my heart today when it did all this, especially because it lied. Neopets has never ever lied to me before today, even about neoschools, and so it came as a total shocker. I can't believe neopets would do such a thing.
Seriously people, stop being so selfish. Stop thinking that just because Neopets is a website, it should be free. Donna and Adam are very generous to make the site basically free to use. They could charge a monthly fee and be well within reason. The fact that everyone complains every time neopets makes a change that increases their monetary provide disgusts me. You claim that Neopets doesn't care about the user anymore, but the user doesn't care about Neopets. Oh, you care about your battle dome weapons, your clothes, your neohome, but the actual employees? You don't care about them. TNT could be using sweatshop labor and you wouldn't care as long as your perfect little Neopets world remained free. Ask yourself. Do you want a pay raise? If your company increased the cost of whatever it sells by a penny, and gave all those profits it made from that penny to you; would you accept? How its TNT any different?