How Neopets Was Sold to Scientologists

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I had no idea this happened. I played Neopets back when I was in high school and I remember the marketing push they were going for later on that I didn't get to see. I kind of lost interest after a couple of weeks because the games started becoming shills for the latest movies and whatnot.

👍︎︎ 1086 👤︎︎ u/SimonCallahan 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

I could have sworn the origin of the alien neopet (cannot remember the name for the life of me) was rumoured to be a reference or based on Scientology, but I feel like he would have mentioned it if it was.

Definitely was an odd lore inclusion lol

Edit - I think they were called something like Grundos? Haha idk

👍︎︎ 307 👤︎︎ u/Flookerson 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

did this guy seriously just give his phone number to scientologists? I hope it was a burner number...

👍︎︎ 262 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

I always wondered why Neopets hasn't (at least attempted) rebooted yet.

This must be why. They kinda got smothered in being irrelevant and time moved on.

👍︎︎ 117 👤︎︎ u/GaryOaksHotSister 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

I loved Chris when he was part of Videogamer UK it just wasn't the same without him. Then in Eurogamer he just was another voice in a pile.

Now i've just sat here and watched like 5 of these videos...he's good on his own really smooth way of talking and makes me want to listen to him.

👍︎︎ 132 👤︎︎ u/lordsmish 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

How's Neopets doing now? Is it still even around? I should really check up on my old pets again if it is. I keep thinking they'll be dead when I log back in but they always seem to be still kicking. Might be fun for some nostalgia.

👍︎︎ 63 👤︎︎ u/NoProblemsHere 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

Thanks god for Runescape, I played Neopets and moved on to Runescape before the advertising stuff came in.

👍︎︎ 24 👤︎︎ u/vincent118 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

It feels like a site like Neopets wouldn't be nearly as popular nowadays. The internet and what people are entertained by on it has changed completely.

👍︎︎ 24 👤︎︎ u/ThisIsGoobly 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies

[removed]

👍︎︎ 23 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Nov 29 2018 🗫︎ replies
Captions
- [Chris] Is this the International Association of Scientologists? - [Scientologist] Yeah, yeah, it's the membership organisation. You are at the right place. - Yeah, great, so... (quirky music) Who remembers Neopets? I used to love this site back in the early 2000s. When I wasn't rearranging my MySpace Top 8 or unbuttoning my collar, even though I was a prefect... I know! I spent a lot of time on here. - [Announcer] Are you ready for adventure? Explore Neopia, a world of mysterious lands where anything can happen. - For those who missed the hype, Neopets was a website where you created and then looked after your own virtual pets, like Stephen the Brave here, who is, oh my god, dying of hunger right now. Whoops. Side note, by the way, unlike, say, a Tamagotchi, which is programmed to perish if you don't feed it, a Neopet can't do that, which means, dear viewer, if you, at any point, had a Neopet and have forgotten about it, it's still out there, and it's alive, and it's oh so hungry. Anyway, the site was mostly about two main activities, exploring the world of Neopia or playing one of its many, many Flash games. These can vary in quality pretty drastically, but some weren't half bad, even if they weren't exactly original ideas. Oh, and shout out to Extreme Potato Counter, the game that really is exactly what it sounds like. (upbeat music) Yeah. The site is still up and running today, although very little has changed in more recent years, but at its height, Neopets boasted tens of millions of active users. There was a trading card game from Wizards of the Coast. My dog's had a go on that, hasn't she? Look at that. Little git. There were Happy Meals toys, talk of a movie. Neopets was a huge, huge deal. And for about five of those years, as it was first exploding into popularity, the site was owned and operated by a group belonging to an extremely controversial religious organisation, one that has been widely criticised for both the exploitation of its own members and the harassment of those who speak out against it. I'm talking about the Church of Scientology, founded in the early 1950s by American author L. Ron Hubbard. - But man, man poses a great many problems. - Neopets and Scientology, how did those two things end up getting mixed up together? And what kind of impact did that relationship have on the site itself? To find out answers to those questions, I travelled to London to meet the original creators of Neopets, Adam and Donna Powell. - [Donna] You know, we had no idea existed, and we don't really care about people's religion or political views. It doesn't really interest us, to be honest. Whatever floats your boat, but yeah, it got a little bit interesting. - This story really starts in 1999 in the United States, as the pair originally planned to set up an advertising network in San Jose. They'd been doing something similar back in the UK, and had been approached by a couple of potential investors interested in working together. However, this venture lasted roughly three weeks before the relationship with these new partners ended very dramatically. According to the Powells, there was a huge argument which involved death threats, the police being called, and eventually, the pair just deciding to pack up and move to Miami instead. It was here that the two of them, feeling understandably jaded towards the world of advertising, began work on their side project, the virtual pet website they would call Neopets. Now, the original idea for the site involved the whole thing being built around a 2D top-down adventure game in which you explored a multi-player world with your pet and then encountered others doing the same. Adam and Donna had recruited a third person to work on this while they concentrated on the rest of the site. But the thing is, that central game idea, which sounds incredibly ambitious to me, never actually materialised. In fact, the person they were working with disappeared, and Adam and Donna were left with just the work that they'd done themselves. Screw it, they thought, let's put something out there anyway. On November 15th, 1999, Neopets was officially launched. Some of the earliest pets from that time, designed by Donna, are still in the game today. Scorchio, Chia, Wocky, Uni, those are all hers. The art may have changed in the sense, but those core ideas remain. However, there were some pets from this period which were a little different. For example, these included Macy Grey, as in the singer, Pat Sharp from Funhouse, and my personal favourite, Bruce Forsyth, the television presenter. - To see you! - [Audience] Nice! - [Chris] They were all options as you created your account for the first time as you're starting Neopets. - [Donna] I was either me or Adam, I don't know- - [Adam] Found an image of him on the internet and just stick him in the circle, and he's a pet now. - [Donna] I just, like, drew over him in Flash, basically. - [Adam] We were just probably drunk and doing stupid stuff. - [Donna] Yeah. - It wouldn't be until the Neopets team eventually hired its own in-house lawyer that these pets were removed to protect the site from legal issues. While I say removed, Bruce Forsyth became Bruce the Penguin, a Neopet known for its love of dancing. But back then, things were just quick and exciting. The site was being updated almost every day with things that were often half-finished, and Neopets basically took over Adam and Donna's life. They would work on it throughout the day, go out for dinner and talk about the site, then come home and work on it some more, because, despite their haphazard approach to development, Neopets was proving extremely popular, and this proved to be both a blessing and a curse for its creators. - [Adam] We launched in November, and then, by December, it was getting to the point where they wanted like $6,000 a month to just run the service. - [Chris] Wow, how many people would that be for, then? - [Adam] Oh, I mean, so I know we had, we had 100,000 pages a day in the start of December. Then, like, we went home for Christmas and it crashed. There was nothing, there was no down page. It was just literally can't connect to the server. That was it. - I think it's really worth trying to imagine what this must have felt like for the pair of them, because it helps explain what comes next. So, picture this, you've just moved to America at a young age, and you've had an awful time of it so far. The advertising industry which you thought you wanted to be involved with, it's not working out. You want out of that industry, and somehow, impossibly, your passion project, the thing you dream about when you go to sleep at night, is proving to be extremely popular. You're not making any money from it just yet, but that's surely just a matter of time with this many players. And right then, just as everything seems to be going so well, it crashes and you can't afford to keep it going. Desperate for help, in that moment, you're introduced by a friend to a possible investor. - [Adam] These were the Scientologists. - [Donna] We didn't know. It's not something that pops up in conversation. - [Adam] I'd never heard of it, really. - [Chris] And so, as the year 2000 begins, a deal is struck in which Doug Dohring and a group of investors purchase majority shares in this new company called Neopets Incorporated, leaving Adam and Donna with 18% between them. Was it the right decision, do you think? - [Adam] No, god, no. - [Donna] No, the right decision, we weren't aware. We were totally and utterly naive. The right decision would probably have been for us to go to a VC firm in Silicon Valley. - [Chris] Right. - [Adam] Or anything. - [Donna] Find anyone that has any experience of running games. - I think we need to take a break from Neopets here to talk about who Doug Dohring actually is. I did request an interview with him for this piece, but that was graciously declined. Now, anecdotally, as I've been researching the story, I've been told or I've read at numerous points that Doug Dohring and his wife are two of the top donors to the Church of Scientology ever. That's been somewhat difficult to verify. What I have found, however, is this, a photograph from a gala that happened last year, weirdly enough, not too far away from here, in East Grinstead, and this is the two of them receiving something called the Patron Excalibur award, which looks like an impressive trophy, right? But what is it for? What did they do to receive that honour? Well, to find out, I'm gonna try something a little unusual here and give the Church of Scientology a call, or at least the local subset of the church that's based in East Grinstead. So, let's see how that goes. (phone rings) Is this the International Association of Scientologists? - [Scientologist] Yeah, yeah. it's the membership organisation. You are at the right place. - [Chris] Yeah, great, so, I'm working on a story about a man called Doug Dohring, and I saw that recently he attended an awards evening at Saint Hill and received an award. - [Scientologist] Uh-huh. - [Chris] It was the- - [Scientologist] Yeah. You know, I don't have this type of data. - [Chris] So, he received something called the Patron Excalibur award. I was wondering if you could tell me what that award was for. - [Scientologist] He is not from here at all, so I wouldn't be able to tell you. He is, like, from America. - [Chris] Yeah, but I believe the award night happened at Saint Hill, is that right? - [Scientologist] Yeah, I, myself, didn't attend this year, but, yes, there is always one here. - [Chris] Could you tell me what the Patron Excalibur award is? I just sort of wanted to know why he was presented with it. - [Scientologist] Because he gave a certain, you know, he supported the Association, so that's why he got that. - [Chris] Right, okay. - [Scientologist] But I wouldn't, I need to give you, like, the person that can, you know, I'm just not the right person. So, I would have to give you the right person to answer these questions. - [Chris] Okay. - [Scientologist] Can that person get back to you? Because they're in America, you know, so they're not, they're sleeping right now. - [Chris] Yeah, sure, would you like my number? - [Scientologist] Yes, please. Okay, good. Yeah, so I will let them know to give you a call and have the data that I can't give all prepared. - [Chris] Okay, well, thank you very much. - [Scientologist] You are welcome. - Goodbye. I guess I'll let you know if I receive a call back in the next few days. I did not receive a call back from the International Association of Scientologists, but I did, however, find a copy of this, this membership brochure from 2006. Now, this brochure explains that here at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, once a year, a series of awards are presented to those who reached a certain level of donation. Interestingly, when this was made available, the Patron Excalibur award was yet to exist. And that tells us something interesting. It tells us that the award Doug Dohring and his wife received is likely to be of a higher level than any of the awards advertised in here, suggesting they've donated significantly more than the $10 million required for a Patron Laureate. In fact, the general consensus online seems to be that a Patron Excalibur is probably somewhere around the $20 million mark. - [Man] Can I ask you a question? - Oh, yeah. - [Man] Who are you? - Oh, okay. (traffic drowns out conversation) And so, there we are, the majority shareholder of Neopets in 2000 was indeed a Scientologist, and not just a casual member of the church, but someone that's donated millions upon millions of dollars over his lifetime. But what did that mean for the site itself? Did Scientology ever have a genuine impact on Neopets? I asked Adam and Donna about the moment they first realised who they were in business with. - [Donna] I think it was like the interview questions. Wasn't it? - [Adam] Yeah, there was some weirdness, because every time an interview came in, they had to do this personality test thing. It was copyrighted L. Ron Hubbard at the bottom. So, we started probably not Googling in the day, but like Alta Vista or Lycosing to find out more information. And then we found this kind of Scientology website, and we're like, oh, Doug Dohring, okay, he's a Scientologist. Then we found every single member of staff they had, all Scientologists. - [Chris] Right. - [Adam] So we're like, hm, that's a bit weird. I think, then we started sort of reading more about it, and we're like, oh my god, what have we done? - To begin with, I'm told, Adam and Donna remained almost entirely in charge of the site's creative direction, although Dohring and his board would become more involved as they pushed for something called immersive advertising, a term they would go on to trademark. Unlike the advertising you may have watched before this video, although, looking at our stats, you probably didn't, immersive advertising was meant to blur the distinction between a site's content and the advertisement itself. Players would suddenly find themselves visiting the in-game Disney Theatre with their Neopet before heading over to the McDonald's shop for a spot of lunch. And critics argued that this was an unethical way of advertising products, particularly so when the average age of the player base was so low. But it feels a bit of a stretch to blame that form of advertising on Scientology, doesn't it? I guess we have to point the finger at, I don't know, capitalism there? But that's not to say there was not some internal conflict over the years. - [Donna] There was one, there was one situation, but it never saw the light of day, 'cause we killed that with fire. - [Adam] So, they brought over this lady called Janine or something, I can't remember her name, and she was a Scientologist. Her job, she was brought in as head of education or learning. - [Donna] Yeah, education, yeah. - [Adam] At Neopets, and her job was basically to use L. Rob Hubbard's educational thing and put it on the site and basically teach kids about Scientology. And we went ape shit. - This idea never reached the site, but I was told about one obscure reference to Scientology, which you can still find on Neopets today. Following the acquisition in 2000, the Neopets office was based out of California, and it wouldn't be all that uncommon to be sat there, working at your desk, and to glance up and see someone from the board giving a tour. This might include the odd celebrity face, like actress, Kelly Preston, who made a couple of appearances over the years, but apparently, there was a group of three Scientologists that made a real lasting impression on the team. - [Adam] I remember, once, these three, like three people came in and they weren't really introduced, and they just looked evil, you know, like the bad guys in "Superman 2", you know? So we actually, we started making characters on the site about these random people coming around the office. The Three. - The Three. - [Adam] It was just like, and the artists were in on the joke as well. They were like, you know those guys who came in? Those are gonna be bad guys now. - That's wonderful. In June 2005, Neopets was acquired once again. Dohring and the board of investors agreed to sell their company to Viacom for $160 million, and here ended the link between the site and the Church of Scientology. This was also a goodbye for Adam and Donna, who sold their shares, too, and then moved on to new projects. But this wasn't the last the pair would hear from the church, it turned out. Shortly after the sale, both Adam and Donna were invited to visit the Los Angeles Scientology Celebrity Centre. Here, they were introduced to Nancy Cartwright, who you might know better as the voice of Bart Simpson, and then offered a full tour of the centre and its facilities. - [Donna] This was after the sale. They didn't do anything while we were working there. - [Adam] As soon as we had the money, they were like, let's get 'em. They were trying to take us to L. Ron Hubbard's office, and we're like, no, we gotta go, and just ran to the car instead. - [Chris] Is that like, is there a procedure to try and introduce you to that? - [Adam] I think so. - [Donna] Yeah, I think we got the, you've got money, this is the way, 'cause they took us to some fancy dinner there. To say we freaked out, might be an understatement. - [Announcer] The office in honour of the man himself. It stands as a permanent representation that this church is committed to upholding his legacy for the benefit of the millions who live and work here. (upbeat music) And that's the new Church of Scientology of Los Angeles. - And that's the story of how Neopets ended up being run by Scientologists for a good five years. This one, by the way, (Neopet sings) okay, we're turning you off now, this one's called Kacheek, and it's a sort of mouse type Pokemon. Did I say Pokemon? I meant Neopet, with glowing red cheeks, and often comes in yellow. I'm not sure where the idea came from. I'm gonna put him over there before I get myself in trouble. Yes, thank you for watching this video, and thank you so much if you're a Patron of People Make Games. We can not make this stuff without you, so, yeah, we really appreciate it, and we'll see you next time. Goodbye. (spooky music)
Info
Channel: People Make Games
Views: 745,073
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Neopets, Scientology, Scientologists, Neopets Scientology, Neopets Scientologists, Doug Dohring, Neopets Doug Dohring, Neopets creators, People Make Games, Chris Bratt
Id: rI5cu3G5oXk
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)
Published: Thu Nov 29 2018
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