Neopets can be a great site depending on who you are. I started playing it when I was about eight years old and strangely learned many things like HTML (the coding used to create webpages) and marketing skills (helpful for users who want to make 'neopoints', the site's currency-- you can create your own shop and sell virtual items for neopoints). Sadly, as great as it is, it's also very addictive. I was neglecting my schoolwork for quite some time (especially when I got into middle school), and as my elementary school years progressed, I became quite overweight. Last year I kind of lost interest (as the website has lost its magic in some ways-- I think when Viacom bought it, that was to be expected) in the website, and basically quit overnight. I was beginning to DREAM about Neopets and obtaining rare items on the site. Crazy, right? Anyhow, I lost a lot of weight (I'm actually erring on the side of skinny now!!) and my grades are my #1 priority now that I've quit Neopets. Of course, once in a while I'll still log on, but it's not my world. As for safety, that can be good and bad-- Neopets has a good reporting system, and you can block users from contacting you. But some people like to get around the rules and post links to inappropriate websites, so kids have to be pretty dang careful. In all, Neopets is a great website, but it's what you make it-- if you choose to spend hours on it a day and not utilise its reporting system, it's a bad thing. But if you play it in moderation and stay safe, it can be one of the best sites you'll ever play on!

I'm only 12, but I've been playing neopets nearly since it came out, so I started playing it when I was about 5 or 6. Neopets is a great site and teaches kids to care for pets while also teaching them money smarts (the virtual money can be spent wisely so you can become rich with great pets or you can spend it on random junk and become broke). Although you can buy real-life items from the site, you need a credit card and few little kids have their parent's credit card number memorized, so I really isn't a huge issue. Although some of the neopets games have gambling, the gambling ones like the slot machines and keno can only be played if your account says your age is over 18 (and mine does; my sister created it a while back and then gave it to me). I don't know if there is an age restriction on the stock market, but I sure didn't understand it when I was younger, so I pretty much kept away from buying and selling stocks. I doubt many little kids would be interested in it anyways. I say this website has some educational purposes. When I was in third grade, my class would play maths nightmare on the smartboard (before it became updated and hard to click on the bubbles) to study for our mad-minutes (1 minute to complete 100 basic math problems). In school last year (5th grade), my applied tech teacher suggested the game typing terror on there to help with our typing before our test. My mom and I also enjoy playing the word games together like word pyramid, spell or starve, and word poker (the last two are fine for kids, mind you). Neopets, clothing wise, is FINE for children; the worst item they have is 'My sister's frilly skirt', given out by the advent calendar in I believe y8 or so. I've heard countless arguments over that item, but I feel it's fine as long as you don't have a bad mind. Chatting is fairly safe; there are a lot fewer spammers than there use to be, mainly because viacom has decided to start issueing IP bans more often. Also, if you try to curse or post bad things, the neopets filter now automatically blocks the post and doesn't let it go through. Although you can post off-site links, the link is taken down a few seconds afterward and you get a warning sent to you from TNT. Yes, you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world, but basically any chat thing you can do that. TNT has moderaters swarming the boards 24/7. Although some things on neopets are hard to figure out, most people start to understand them not long after starting. There are great, kid-friendly guides all over the internet, too (on-site and off) and it's fun if you have friends that play too so you can find out stuff together. Just the other day, I showed one of my best friends who's been playing neopets for a few months how to earn 30k from just playing a few easy games and also how to use the shop wizard to find low prices on food. I think this game is good for anyone, whether they are 6 or 60. I've found many adults who play neopets (they have their own guilds that they create and create their own boards to find other adults usually) and I know a few little kids in real-life that play neopets. I would suggest this game to anyone who wants a break from real-life and a chance to care for a pet and play games.

There is nothing wrong with the site to me!

This is one of the best online games you can play, I've been playing this game for 6 years and i have never seen 1 thing that would be any harm to a kid, there are some adds for products related to it but they gotta keep the game going somehow, but other then that it's an amazing site.

Great game and very fun but people swear all the time and talk about how thy're drunk or have a hang over

I used to love this site. But take it from me- it's not all that it is claimed to be. Sure there's a lot of fun games and features, but the community message boards are... bad. "Noobs", or new players, are made fun of and looked down upon. Spammers fill the messages with inappropriate spam and such. Players can be just mean to newer players. Another issue is that the staff, aka TNT (The Neopets Team), is well known for its unfairness and harshness. I have seen many many cases where they ban ("freeze") users for reasons that don't seem like a freezable offense. Sometimes there's no reason at all. This isn't just a few cases. My friend and I were going on the roleplaying boards and my friend was frozen for no apparant reason! His message did not involve anything against the rules or anything. But someone ELSE on the thread did post something inappropriate and everyone was either warned or banned. I was lucky not to be frozen, but I was still sent a warning. Neopets also tried to get your money. With a premium service and the new "Neocash" mall and many many ads, they want your money. Neocash is a currency you pay 5, 10, 15, or 20 dollars for so users can get virtual clothes for their neopets. My last point is the scammers. They try to hack into people's accounts to get all of their rare items and pets. Sometimes they post links to websites that steal your cookies and get the information in your internet browser... The servers aren't always safe either. One day there was a glitch or something that made it so anyone could log into any account with any password. Many people were frozen to protect their accounts, including my own, but the accounts weren't given back... and another day, people found a way to duplicate rare items and sent them to random people's accounts, and when TNT found out about this, they froze all of the accounts with the duplicated items on it, including the innocent people who thought they got a free rare item. THe game itself isn't bad, taking care of the pets and stuff, but it isn't the best virtual pet site out there. Most users are more concerned with pet rarity and clothing than its health and hunger. Anyway, as long as you don't go on the boards, accept any gifts, go near the NC mall, or interact with any users in any way, you should be fine, even if interacting with other users is half of the fun.

I've been playing Neopets for three two years now and have had parental consent for about a year. Neopets has hundreds of games, some of which are educational, such as Math's Nightmare and Emperial Exam. After you earn Neopoints (the site's currency) you can deposit them into the Bank and collect interest once daily. It shows an interest rate and everything! There is also a stock market, so it teaches us kids a lot about that. If you are over 13 or have faxed in a Parental Consent form, you can customize your shop, your lookup using HTML coding, access the Neoboards, and use neomail (the on site email system). We CAN wind up posting personal information, but it depends on the parent's rules, and it's monitored by The Neopets Team. It's really fun and I totally recommend it!