This is a guest post by Tiff on why Poptropica should focus more on their older players. The following is the writer’s opinion only. Enjoy!
Hi, I’m Tiff, and I want to talk about a few things—but most importantly, the idea that Poptropica should gear the game toward older kids.
Despite the fact that Poptropica bills itself as a children’s game, fewer and fewer young kids are interested in Poptropica these days. In fact, if you look at the PHB’s surveys, you’ll find that the majority of players are 13 and up (at least, the majority of who read this fan site are teens and young adults).
If the Creators want to keep Pop going, they’ll need to create content suitable for the audience they have and expand on that, rather than holding onto the past ideal of being suited for kids. They need to grow with their fanbase, so that they’re not left behind by their competitors.
After all, Poptropica is my favorite game, and I really want it to stay. Plus, with an evolving games market, and a growing trend for augmented or virtual reality, I wonder if they can explore that avenue further.
And as we know, Poptropica has been putting a little too much emphasis on Membership. I know they’ve been working on the Islands, and bringing the old ones back, but they really should be available to all players, not just members. This post isn’t necessarily about the paywall, but more on the fact that the Creators seem to only orient their game for a subset of players that they find more valuable—whether that’s members or younger kids—rather than focusing on the majority of who’s already here: the non-members and the older players. I’m here to say, Creators, focus on who your players are now, not who they used to be, and expand from there.
Creators: grow with the game, and grow with the times. We are not kids anymore, we’re teens and young adults. Poptropica’s demographic has changed, so let’s change the game with it. It’s supply and demand: the demand is the older demographic, the little kids who aren’t so little anymore, who’ve grown up with Poptropica and have stuck around for the fun and nostalgia. And the supply is Poptropica, which needs to adapt for this crowd which seems to make up the majority of our community these days.
Let’s be a little less forceful in trying to promote our game to a younger audience, who seem to have already moved on to other things—after all, there’s not much a new player can do on Poptropica these days as they’re locked into a Haxe account with few islands—and perhaps, with careful consideration for the older demographic (and particularly our desire for islands with deep storytelling), Poptropica’s demand may rise again.
Hope you enjoyed this Pop Petition guest post by Tiff! If you did, be sure to check out our other Pop Petition posts on the PHB, as well as our series on the topic of Poptropica and Age.
The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our page on how to Write for the PHB, and share blog posts on the PHC.
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I agree and they should try making any of the islands come back into haxe a little faster.
there is a new video ad for gatlactic hot dogs the prize is a free follower
the follwer is fred the robot.
I agree! While Poptropica is and always has been aimed at a younger audience, so I don’t think we need it to go full Game of Thrones, it should consider its audience rather than the dwindling number of new players. Animal Jam has created a new, similar game called Feral aimed at those 13 and older, and it’s doing very well!
Since the game has been about storytelling up to this point (now its going down the path of obsessing over customization and other surface-level features), a version of Poptropica made for older players could explore the stories and characters further. I mean, we’ve already had a literal people-hunting psychopath! How was Mordred’s mental state affected by 20 isolated years in space? What if Zeus went full megalomaniac and actually got close to destroying most of the world? How do the Greek gods fit into the lore??? Come on, there’s so many things you could explore if you just went a little deeper!
Thank you for listening to my TED talk, heh.
You’re welcome 😉
I honestly do believe they should broaden the audience rather than just shifting it entirely.
BTW, I have a theory that they’re increasing membership items because of their dwindling player base. The more players they have the less need for membership access blocks.
True. Maybe keep original pop but have a more mature spin-off?
And I agree–the push for membership is probably a sign of desperation. Which is sad. If they’re going down, they’re not going down with grace, that’s for sure.
If they were to do that, they’d probably make a “slightly” different version. As in, have a version with more elements to make itself more than just a “more mature” spin-off. Like, add some more RPG elements to it, maybe some more action plat-forming to the mix, you know?