I have a feeling the pet site 'world' is dying. I don't hear anyone talk about new or good pet sites anymore, or recommend them to friends. I miss trying out new sites. Everywhere I go there's always the same money issue and, well, seeing as pets sites rely mainly on donations I can see why they're kinda on the side.

yeah i've never been able to find a pet site as good as subeta. i tried a few many years back, but none ever kept my interest very long; i think rescreatu was the one i enjoyed the most (aside from subeta) but even that was very limited in its fun. i just checked it again to see what it was like these days and, wow, everything just looks so... outdated. no other pet site really has the breadth and polish of subeta imo. sad, but i guess it's just less stuff to waste my time with so i suppose it's for the best.

I wonder what I can do to spend time on the net now :P

There's a community called Virtual Pet List. Not sure if you've heard of it. I post on there fairly often as of late. The whole scene is dying because of antiquated design decisions. Subeta is trying to keep up, but it's really hard to stand out when the world is becoming increasingly mobile with thousands of outlets for entertainment.

So, it is declining, but I actually think there's hope for it! The creators just need to think design first. They need to test their products. They need to be ADA compliant and responsive!

I used to lurk Virtual Pet List a lot but never made an account. I actually found a really fun Pokemon rip off game from there that I still play once in a while.

I used to be a member on dozens, and I mean dozens of pet sites. They are definitely dying out and have been for a long time. I still troll on Neo's boards, but other than that Subeta is the only one I keep coming back to. I don't know if this is the same for anybody else, but one of the main reasons I never lost interest in Subeta versus most of the other sites, is that a lot of your money comes from questing rather than having to grind through playing 1000 boring games every day.

Even Virtual Pet List kinda blah nowadays, I believe. Neopets is REALLY going downhill since Viacom passed the torch to JumpStart, but I can't stand to quit the site after years of playing and collecting/drawing pets ;__; I'd play Flight Rising more if the Coliseum would stop making my computer run hot, but I still log on.

I don't know if anyone has heard of it, but there's another site that I found interesting: Sylestia

It has breeding elements based on Mendelian genetics, so carried genes are a possibility. However, pets (Sylesties) have to be the same breed to.... breed. BUT THE BEST THING is that there's a storyline to the site with RPG elements. It's easy to level up and the interface is simple enough--the only issue is that it's incomplete lol

I miss unicreatures/unifaction and the unique world it had, but apparently there were some... issues haha. It's gone now. The movement from web to mobile definitely seems like a factor in general decline, but I think subeta's hanging on because of the community and all the cool features. It's not just a petsite, and while they're the main focus, the diversification helps retain different people, although I have heard the forums are kind of dying.

Also YES. I suck at flash games, and the questing/search system here is so nice, especially compared to Neopets.

Lol I joined subeta looking for a new virtual pets community. I wish it would still be a thing bc its great way to relax/pass time :(

what i love abt things here is how money is not the main point of the game. Makes it way easier to enjoy since u dont have to spend the day chasing after fake currency lmao

I do agree that virtual pet games is becoming old fashioned and a lot of people dont care for it anymore, even forums seem to be dying as a way of communication :( I wish more pet sites would try apps, i wonder if that would start turning things around a bit.

I feel like attention spans are also becoming increasingly short, like people have a harder time focusing on the long-term goals that often make petsites so interesting in the long term. Apps would be nice, sure, but even on virtual pet type apps, I've found that there isn't much -- if any -- focus on community. Even in apps that do allow "clan chats" and the like, nobody really interacts. A good community is really what sets a game like this apart, imo, aside from the quality of art and service.

It kind of sucks that literally every other site I played on has died, with the exception of Neo, which is in its own death throes. I haven't really played there since I joined Subeta, anyway.

Even the other petsites THIS company owned have been set aside, but I feel that in the long run, it's better. It allows us to focus our assets on just one great product.

I only play Subeta and Neopets.

Mostly play Subeta now as it is way much better, Neopets is long dead for me they gone too commercial with their NC and stop making plots and in general game play became impossible and prices inflated. I just have loads of stuff on there that is why keeping my accounts in case decide to get rid of ti all one day.

Feel free to add me as i still log in to do dailies and collect interest from the bank.

I never heard of any other pet sites, but with so many online and console/phone games out its tougher for pet sites to make it on the market.

There was a period of time in which new petsites rose and fell like the tide. I couldn't even begin to count them all. There were topsite lists of petsites that were pages and pages long. Entire websites sprung up to list and review them all. It was probably the golden age of petsites, and it got a little overwhelming, to be honest.

Aside from Neo, I think the only one I really got into aside from Subeta and its sister site, Neurogalaxy, was (embarrassingly enough) Ponystars. But man, I signed up for a TON that only kept my interest for a day or two.

I only ever played here, neo, gaiaonline and tinierme before.. but well as you all know neo is downhill, gaiaonline is all about cash and tinierme has shut down long time ago and while I played, I've always been partial to Subeta. I wish it'd be a thing again. I hope Subeta never goes away. I wouldn't know what to do with my free time otherwise.

I find it good to try out some other pet sites whenenver I get bored of subeta, because they'd actually remind me how subeta is still the right site for me. But yep, it seems the entire traditional pet site industry is going downhill, and the breeding sites are taking over (I hate breeding sites with a burning passion BTW).

I've never tried breeding sites. I don't have the patience for it I think.

It also helps how visible the admins here are. And I mean like you can talk to them and all.

Totally! Sites like neo have horrible admins. Though some smaller pet sites do have decent admin transparency (but I've also seen dictatorship on smaller sites).

I've tried a few breeding sites, and I was even active on one of them for a year or so. But I ended up not having anything to work on besides collecting pets, which gets pretty boring and repetitive once you reached a certain amount of pets there. Also a part of me just hate the concept of breeding even though they are just pixels xD lol...

What I love about subeta is that, depending on what you like to focus on, subeta can seem like a pet site, or it won't seem like one. What I mean is, you can enjoy other parts of subeta like forums (social) or the human avatar (dress-up doll) and you never have to do anything with your pet. But if you like the pet aspect there is still plenty to do and focus on as well. Does anyone know what I mean? There seems like a steady stream of content in all aspects. Subeta is the only petsite I actively play on and it's my favourite.

Speaking of Neopets, my Neopets account got frozen today, lol. Whatever, I haven't logged on in over a year. Here's to 14 years of a rarely active account.

I still belong to several pet sites. Right now, I go on Flight Rising, Subeta (where I'm most active), Furry Paws, Eldemore, Sylestia, FelisFire, and Chicken Smoothie, along with a few others that I visit sporadically. I also play a pokemon ripoff, and joined a newer pet site called FurVilla that just left beta testing. Subeta though... Subeta is what Neopets should have been, and it's my personal favorite. It's basically the Golden Age of Neopets with better art, better forums, better items, and better everything else.

And yeah, I agree that the virtual pet site is in decline due to this being the age of mobile. There just aren't a lot of mobile options for virtual pets, and nobody's really thought up a suitable setup for a mobile version of their pet site. That said, there are still plenty of fairly active pet sites to be found, and Virtual Pet List is good for finding them.

Yes I love Sylestia! I'm surprised to see people don't like breeding sites, it's so engaging to match different traits and kind of explore genetics. I believe Sylestia's breeding platform is based on Mendelian inheritance, so Its pretty exciting to play around with. My favorite pet site is Ibbits.com it's been around forever, and has gone in and out of hiatus, but has a very small but loyal community. The creator brought it back a few years ago, and has interesting and unique plans for the site, but it's still in very early stages of development, so there's not much to do yet.

ooh, don't hear Ibbits mentioned too often. I haven't logged in since Halloween; I should really do that, it's very charming and pretty unique as far as mechanics and presentation go!

But I do agree -- petsites are a dying breed anymore, especially old-world petsites like Neopets and Subeta. Breeding sims (Wajas, FR) and collectible sites (Aywas, dragcave) usually stick around longer -- but even they can have a rough go of it, and it honestly gets me down sometimes.

I think a lot of people really had their first online friendships through petsites back in the early days of the net -- Neopets, usually. I met my entire friend group back on my old home website; I wouldn't be the person I am without having been part of the petsite circuit, honestly. I remember when there was even like, a virtual petsite generator thing -- does anyone else remember that? You name your site, it comes with pre-made pets and maps and it was awful because no one ever really did too much with it, but everyone and their mother gave it a shot back in the 00's. And the Virtual Pet List (but not VPL-affiliated) Graveyard that listed dead sites used to be a very short list, too...

I remember when terrible flash games let you have any pet you could want, when breeding sims were new, when Neopets toys came in Happy Meals and when Subeta briefly was trolled offline. When you could pull up an alphabetized list of all the virtual pet sites out there (run by... one person... way back in the day) and just join site after site to see if one fit. There were so many weird little sites... I remember being really sad that Nutrinopets was offline in prep for a relaunch because I loved their art and wanted to join real bad -- when they finally came back I lost interest! I remember when Wajas was close for beta, too, come to think of it... I'm old.

It's not to say that new petsites don't get made, of course -- Furvila's a thing, an old horse breeding sim recently came back from the dead to much fanfare last I heard -- but most of them don't stick around for long (my cousin is still dying to know whatever happened to BooPets, they were really invested in it and I was considering joining it when it up and vanished from the internet overnight.) This is one HELL of an industry to try and do anything with, even if you have a brilliant idea.

It's an industry where very, very few make enough to sustain themselves. Subeta, FR, and Aywas are the only ones I know off the top of my head -- I'm not as involved in things as I used to be anymore, I used to be able to rattle off a far more detailed list. I know a lot of old sites are struggling if they haven't folded already, though, and that genuinely hurts my heart. The folks who keep their sites alive usually do it purely for the love of it, because making money in this industry, even enough to be self sustainable, is like trying to get blood from a stone. You can say the same of most people who work in the petsite world -- it's less common than it used to be, at least I'm relatively sure it is, but you can bet that a lot of smaller sites have unpaid staff working solely because they love that site in particular and want to see it grow -- and that was kinda the norm in the past. Wild to think about, I know. (But I'm digressing here.)

But -- Subeta, FR, Aywas, and the like do show that it's possible to survive despite the hard times for petsites in general, and despite the encroaching spectre of mobile (full disclosure: I'm biased and loathe any and all mobile content) nonsense crowding out people's free time -- and the much more pressing spectre of people's budgets having shrunk a hell of a lot over the last decade. (Disposable income is hard to come by at the best of times; sometimes you can want to support something enough that it makes your chest ache, but it doesn't put money in your wallet to do it with at the end of the month.)

I don't think it will ever fully die out, not really. Forums still persist in this day and age, after all: we've all found ourselves in weirdly specific corners of the internet trying to google a specific topic before, and petsites are a bit like that. They'll change and grow, and even the mightiest of us will fall (R.I.P. Neopets, sincerely) -- but they'll stick around despite those changes, in some form, at least until this generation passes out of the net entirely.

Because in the end, they still manage to draw people in. People who play, people who code, people who draw, and people who don't mind the hell of managing the backend, even on their own dime -- they're drawn into this wonderfully creative, engaging little world of caring for virtual creatures and the communities that spring up around that central concept. And so they'll stick around, as long as we do.

And at the end of the day, that's a bit of a comforting though, even when things look bleak.

Subeta is the only good petsite that I know.I used to play Neopets when I was a kid but stopped because I kept getting my account suspending for things I didn't do.

I recently tried playing Furvilla, but that site is awful.I was a beta tester for the site and you can tell it came out of beta way too soon.There's nothing to do on there besides talk to people(which I prefer not to do because the community can get pretty hostile for the pettiest reasons), the staff barely communicate with the users and the devs don't seem to think about the consequences of a lot of their updates before they implement them.You also have to pay real money to get more space in your inventory and storage, and you need a lot of space for that game.The site has a lot of potential but I wouldn't dare recommend playing it in it's current state.

On the bright side having such a bad experience with Furvilla made me want to play Subeta again after being gone for 3 years.I wish there were more good petsites out there but most of them have either gone down hill or weren't very good to begin with.I tried playing Chicken Smoothie, Aywas and Neurogalaxy years ago but none of them held my attention.