Morality in Neopets

The only computer game I have ever really played was Neopets when I was in elementary school, so I may have a fuzzy memory when it comes to some aspects of it. Neopets is an online game that was popular when I was a kid. Each person can get new neopets, which they have to take care of and train. They can play other games to earn neopoints and buy or sell things or add to their neohomes.

1. Harm/Care: A huge part of the game when I was still playing was taking care of your neopet. If you did not feed it regularly, it’s hunger points would go down and it would display and image of a sad, crying pet which would automatically cause the viewer to feel terrible and guilty. You could also go to a fountain and heal your pet. There was also a battling arena called the Battledome, but I never played it. However, neopets would battle each other using different attacks and weapons. They could gain skill levels and become stronger when they beat the other pet.

2. Fairness/Reciprocity: One of the main goals for players in the game was to earn neopoints. This could be earned by selling items in a store, or playing games. There was a huge selection of different games you could play, and your score would total to a ratio of neopoints you earn. This was a very fair method of gaining money. However, every so often random events could happen, for instance, a ghost could come steal your items or money, or you would simply stumble upon a great item to use or sell. The unfortunate random events often angered people, which somehow made them want to play more since they wanted to get it all back.

3.Loyalty/In-group: When I played, there were no groups within the game.  Your loyalty was towards your pet, keeping it happy (by playing games, reading books, giving new toys) and fed well. There was also a feature of the game that allowed you to go on quests for faeries, and you would have to stay loyal to faeries who had enemy faeries or they would not give you anymore quests.

4. Authority/Respect: In neopets, the player has to respect the rules of the game. If the players do something wrong, the moderators/admins who would email the players and either give a warning or cancel their account.

5.Purity/Sanctity: This game is all about taking care of pets so it is mostly pure. However, as always there are overzealous players create accounts just to aid their other accounts somehow or try to earn neopoints in whatever way possible. This was the only time the game was corrupt, which was due to the players themselves.

 

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