[3][4][5] Powell stated that the original goal was to "keep university students entertained, and possibly make some cash from banner advertising".

[6] The site contained popular culture references, such as a Neopet that was simply a picture of entertainer Bruce Forsyth, and another that was a cartoon version of singer Macy Gray.

[7][8] The user base grew by word of mouth and by Christmas 1999, Neopets was logging 600,000 page views daily and sought investors to cover the high cost of running the site.

Later in the month, American businessman Doug Dohring was introduced to the creators of the site and, along with other investors, bought a majority share in January of the following year.

A press release from Neopets in 2001 stated that Neopets.com led in site "stickiness" in May and June, with the average user spending 117 minutes a week.

[17] Viacom, the American conglomerate that owns Nickelodeon, purchased Neopets, Inc. on 20 June 2005 for $160 million and announced plans to focus more on the use of banner ads over the site's existing immersive advertising.

[20][21] 2006 also saw the release of Neopets Mobile, a T-Mobile exclusive premium service which allowed users to visit the new land of Lutari Island.

[27] In February 2008, comScore ranked it as the stickiest kids entertainment site with the average user spending 2 hours and 45 minutes per month.

[28] On 17 June 2008, Viacom formed the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group to "encompass all paid and subscription gaming initiatives across all relevant platforms", including Neopets.

[38] The Neopets team started developing in-universe plots again in 2017 for the first time since the JumpStart acquisition,[31] with the first such event going live in late 2017.

[40] The team prioritized converting popular features, and some parts of the site were left non-functional when Flash support ended.

It was also stated that the site had operated at a loss for over a decade and it announced that Neopets had received $4 million in investment funding in early 2023.

Additional funding from the management buyout is said to equip World of Neopia, Inc. to make "meaningful changes in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance.

[54] Following the transition, it was reported that the site achieved its highest revenue stream in 2023 since 2017 (which was the same year Netdragon acquired Jumpstart), and had tripled its monthly active userbase from 100,000 to 300,000 users by April 2024.

Users can earn Neopoints through various means including playing games and selling items, which can be invested or used to buy various virtual goods and services.

[60] User contributions come in the form of prescreened submissions and readily editable content that is automatically filtered, such as the site's weekly electronic newspaper The Neopian Times.

To comply with COPPA, users under 13 years of age cannot access any of the site's communication features without sending in parental consent via fax.

Australian tabloid television show Today Tonight featured a nine-year-old boy who claimed the site requires one to gamble in order to earn enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet or else it would be sent to the pound.

Prior to the arrival of the NC Mall, it contributed to 60% of the revenue from the site[57] with paying Fortune 1000 companies including Disney, General Mills, and McDonald's.

[7][80] Dohring responded to such criticism stating that of the 40 percent of users twelve and younger, very few were seven or eight years old and that preschoolers were not their target audience.

Susan Linn, another psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood considered the purpose of this site was to keep children in front of advertisements.

[76] Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Adbusters magazine, said the site encouraged kids to spend hours in front of a screen and recruited them to consumerism.

According to reports, the scheme was aimed not at child players' Neopets accounts, but at using the malware to steal the financial data and identities of their parents.

Viacom stated that it was investigating the issue, and that the reports referred to a version of social engineering rather than an "indictment of Neopets security practices".

The data breach exposed Neopets' entire database schema, including usernames, emails and passwords of its 69 million users.

[87] Neopets responded by forcing a password reset for all users on 1 August 2022, causing some players to be locked out as they no longer had access to the e-mail addresses linked to their accounts.

The popularity of Neopets spawned real-world merchandise including clothing, jewelry, stickers, books, cereals, video games and more, sold at mainstream outlets and online retailers.

[89] Neopets, Inc. signed various licensing deals with companies such as Viacom Consumer Products, Thinkway Toys, and Jakks Pacific over the years.

Wizards of the Coast released the Neopets Trading Card Game in September 2003, which was promoted in three of General Mills "Big G" cereals[93] and ten Simon Property Group malls.

[98] On 10 February 2020, Blue Ant Media's Beach House Pictures announced that a Neopets animated television series was in development and was set to air in 2021, though there have been no recent updates.