Neopets terminates license with Geekify over troubled RPG development

Geekify Inc. will no longer develop an official Neopets RPG after World of Neopia, which owns the license for the cult browser-based pet game, announced that it had terminated its contract with the US-based pop culture merchandiser. In a March 10 post, The Neopets Team said that during a regular review of licensing partners they had determined “it is in the best interest of the Neopets brand and our community to cease this specific project and ongoing license agreement.”

“We wish the best for Geekify Inc as we both continue to grow and evolve separately,” TNT said.

Neopets and Geekify launched a Kickstarter campaign for the official tabletop RPG in July 2024, eventually earning over $420,000 to develop a book that promised to emulate as much of the 2000s-era experience as possible: minigames, battles, collecting neggs, caring for petpets, and telling original stories in the land of Neopia. Puzzles, quests, jobs, and a purported pacifistic approach would provide further verisimilitude. It was a tall order met with enthusiasm and excitement from longtime fans, even if it was trading in the cheap coin of nostalgia.

Development under Geekify seemed troubled from the start. The decision to adapt Dungeons & Dragons’s fifth edition rules upset and confused some who didn’t understand how a system geared around combat simulation and positioning would translate to a game more interested in collection and cozy tasks than killing rats in a tavern’s basement. D&D is a popular household name, and many licensed games before it made the practical, if cynical decision, to tap the existing playerbase with familiar mechanical structures.

True cracks in the developer’s foundation appeared in February when Geekify released a public beta playtesting document that showed a roughly stapled hodge-podge of new systems, work-in-progress text, and sections from D&D’s sourcebooks copied over wholecloth (some names of items had been adapted to Neopet’s language, while other kept references to WotC’s classes, gods, and settings). A section of advising on sex and intimacy perplexed some readers, while others’ worst fears about a game where deadly combat overshadowed all other aspects seemed vindicated. Given the Neopets RPG was already nearly a year beyond its advertised fulfillment timeline, all of this hinted at a deeply troubled development.

Most alarming was the perks section, which had been completely replaced with one line: “This work has not been paid for by John Taylor of Geekify,” alleging that the CEO was not paying designers and workers. When reached for comment, a Geekify representative told Rascal the following: 

“We had one of our more recent additions to our dev team misunderstanding his contract, and chose to represent that misunderstanding in a very public way. He received payments for work he had done, and before completion milestones even, but thought the terms meant something else, and got upset. Rather than communicate about it, he modified the documents we had just released for the playtest before angrily exiting. We're bummed, and will probably see more aftermath from his choice, but this one developer was paid, and we're confused that he's trying to tell people he wasn't. He was a hard worker, and a good worker, and will be missed, and we tried to get him to stay and figure out where the miscommunication happened. It definitely could have been handled differently and better, but at the end of the day, it was a misunderstanding of contract. 

The work continues, and everything is still moving forward.”

The playtest was removed a week later, but not before dozens of people left suggestions that ranged from genuine feedback to ridicule and shitposting — mostly about Taylor and his inability to pay designers. On February 20, TNT acknowledged the playtest, saying that the document itself and much of the writing within had not been approved by them per the terms of their licensing agreement and that the comment revealed “deeper concerns about the project's overall direction, highlighting that we need to re-examine the quality, direction, delivery, and transparency to ensure Neopet’s essence is being protected.”

TNT said it will implement better processes for supervising licensed games and merchandise production in the future, while admitting that it will need to “explore alternative options” for publishing any RPGs in the future. The company did not offer any timeline to that effect.

What happens with the $400,000 collected during crowdfunding remains an open question. TNT urged backers to contact Geekify regarding refunds on their pledge, which plenty of individuals have already done via comments on Kickstarter page. This may prove tricky, as neither Kickstarter nor Geekify are legally obligated to return money pledged to campaigns. Before hiding message history on Geekify’s official Neopets RPG Discord server, Taylor posted the following: “Hey guys, we’re temporarily muting the server, as it’s currently 2am and people are piling onto the Discord. Neopets has absolutely blindsided us with this announcement after being unresponsive and taking seemingly no active interest in communicating about the project, offering guidance, or clarification at all. We’re assessing next steps, as this leaves everything in the worst possible state for moving forward. We will post an update on the Kickstarter soon.”

Geekify and TNT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.