Are Virtual Pet Sites Dying?

Neopets: A Virtual Pet Community

The introduction of Neopets in the late 1990's brought on a new era of the web: pet sites. Soon, Neopets copies began popping up everywhere, including Marapets and Power Pets, both competitors in the industry. I've been a long time player of Neopets and the latter, and have always enjoyed both, probably more than I should.

Over the years, the hype seems to have faded, but Neopets remains as the top in the niche, most likely for it's wide selection of flash games, and nostalgic tone. However, new ones are created all the time, which spawned an entire community for developers and players alike.

It seems like the sites' productivity is on a decline; users are becoming more fast-paced, and can recognize the unoriginal content on most pet sites. Even so, it remains a large factor in the [mostly] younger audiences for the stellar art and addictive properties.

However, it seems that the pet sites are changing their focus. While (like in Neopets) they used to be about the caring, feeding, and raising of your pets, they seems to take three different paths for the focus.

The first (that seems the most common) is to be a Human Avatar site. This basically means that they have pets, but have grown to the point of focusing on buying, selling, and trading clothes (which is a prestige sort of thing) for your 'human avatar'. This leads to an entire economy being created over this. This is generally looked down upon by Virtual Pet List, the virtual pet community.

The second is battling, in which your pets, much like Pokemon, battle each other and pre-made characters. This is an interesting take, but still ultimately much like the Neopets' battle dome.

The third, most likely original, is the breeding site, in which you have pets that can breed and create genetic differences in your pets.

All three of these sites have been done before, in great detail. I believe that any pet sites are generally on a downhill slope. While they were fun at the start of internet gaming, I think technology has outgrown that slow-paced kind of gaming. Unless you have an original idea, I wouldn't start one.

What do you think? Are pet sites dying? What's your favorite virtual pet site, and what keeps you coming back? Disagree with anything I've said? Tell us in the comments, and as always, have a so super faboo day!