Subeta: A Muse in Disguise

The Allure of Virtual Pet Sites

• A walk in the public park, the wind blowing at your naked ears, the gravel building up in those shoes that you should have thrown out long ago, and, from time to time, you see a squirrel quickly jumping over the tree branches that have been losing their leaves quite early this year. You take a deep breath, you exhale and just can't wait to go home - to cover in your favorite blanket. Only then you realize that this home that you are longing for is of cardboard and that path that you have been walking on is of glue, paper and the most beautiful coat of paint. Visiting Subeta is a stroll in a field of splendid dreams that will fade away if you lose your focus. Well, for me at least.

There is something comforting about this site that I fail to put into words. It's not a rush of nostalgia for me, but a severe craving for more. I feel immersed by the artwork and the people, up until a point where it seems to lose itself. Subeta is a very conventional pet site mechanically, as it mirrors many factors of the classical Neopets experience. No wonder, as it was one of the big fan projects of the former titan of the genre. With Neopets' clear lack of adult themes, mindful representation, and variety in tone, Subeta strived to give this other target group a place to thrive. My questions during one year of constant playing experience revolved around the potential browser games had, have, and will have on internet culture, and this is where most of said opportunities are buried deep.

Daily Clicks per Day

The game itself is a simple yet surprisingly unintuitive one. Players are presented with a variety of daily tasks that I will denote as redeems. Click the link, get the thing, rinse and repeat. Every redeem is quite unique as they focus on collectibles such as fruit from an intergalactic tree, a deal from a wanted criminal, or random treasure that you can find in a bathhouse. It's cute, it's fast, and it opens up even more questions. What would I use those items for? Why can I wear them? Should I sell them? I feel like the overall experience is providing me with countless decisions that I still struggle to make.

What would a game be without the fundamental urge to be an underpaid figure of capitalism? Quickly, one might find themselves in the predicament of not having enough of one of the 3 currencies. Here we also encounter the simplest way to earn considerable amounts of so-called sP to buy ... stuff! Visit an NPC, buy them stuff, give it to them, and get stuff back! Item pools vary and are, quite frankly, difficult to keep track of. Rewards can be arbitrary junk, cool junk, or important junk, which I will elaborate on when we talk about the actual pets. The things you don't need can be salvaged into currencies, hoarded, or sold in one of the numerous user shops that serve as a source of income (for most people). If you feel dandy, you can grind up some more tedious tasks or play a bunch of very fun mini-games. Trade junk, buy junk, look at junk, use junk! Well, jolly, so much to do! Yet where. are. the pets..?

Of Potions and Pets

I can't help but sigh when I think about the pets of Subeta. What certainly sparked my interest was the multitude of colors a pet could come in. Users can use potions or various site mechanics to give their plain (yet still gorgeous) pets a new look. Contrary to the whimsical Neopets colors like Fairy, Pastel, Chocolate, or a bunch of problematic shit, Subeta comes through with Nightmare, Bloodred, and Reborn designs for the many species. Not only are most of the designs quite rich, but they are evolving steadily, with occasional redesigns and additions for newer species. What's more is the huge amount of experimental pets that have the most amazing and creative designs far off the conventionally cute and pretty aesthetic, which made me fall in love with what the site was trying to portray. This could be a place to get inspired and DO things. This could leave you thinking about how this poor rat creature ended up with three beautiful heads, or how this blob of limbs could be a complex concept of time and space. Now, what would I do if those designs sparked my interest? Why in the hell would I adopt something that looks like a cow or a porcupine? Well, friend, the answer is a pet page.

Four times a week, a spotlight takes place where some pet is posted in the news. The creature at hand will most likely be very different from a pet that has been adopted out of the box. Fun layouts, more graphics, a bunch of junk, stats, prose, you can find it all here. To me, this is what it is all about. Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about a contest for a spotlight, but the portrayal of creative processes. We are six chapters in, and only now I manage to express what a pet site can be. Aside from a generic gameplay loop of fetch, pet sites could have a very intricate role in shaping the internet. They are frameworks of media that jumpstart self-assigned and reachable goals through multi-medial and creative execution. Every time I think about it, I end up in the world of zines. These are the spaces where lots of web art comes to life nowadays. Here's where individuals get into drawing, designing, writing, and programming. On this basis, I will try to argue the effort each pet site that I will present makes to provide a safer space for minorities, artists, and intersectional identities. I will try to sketch a pet site as a muse for people who want to get inspired or give their ideas home and representation.

A Junkyard for the Wicked

Now that we've dug a bit deeper, found this little piece of gold, there is an obvious concern. Me boasting about how beautiful and accessible such a pet system is does not change the fact that Subeta itself is struggling to balance those creative, autonomous mechanics well. Frankly, the focus has shifted towards systems more lucrative for obvious reasons to keep the site alive. A key element of the site has been the customization of user avatars with a large amount of junk where people are able to create their very own custom junk, which of course is a profitable system at that. A far more complex endeavor is the combat system, which has sparked controversy recently. I won't be going into detail as it has nothing to do with my point, yet it opens up the question of how all this junk keeps the user base engaged and how it ties in to the world of virtual pet sites.

I feel like you might be sick of me calling every item junk at this point. Honestly, I am quite torn on the definition of items. In some games, there even is a dedicated category that introduces items as trash; nonetheless, I feel like pet sites have a very special relation to that concept. Every Subeta item has at least one purpose and can be classified by type and rarity. The rarity denotes the accessibility of an item, which opens up a bigger discussion that I am not (yet) willing to discuss. Every item has at least one purpose where users will have to decide how they would like to use this item. In an MMORPG context. It is analogous to the concept of soulbound items that can either be equipped and used or traded to other players. Will I consume my item and lose its value on the market? While tempting in design, the execution on Subeta leaves users clueless when one item can be consumed in multiple ways. Items can be read, eaten, played with, worn, used, and/or put into a pet's treasure chest. To put this into perspective, I will present the way I try to classify items personally. Arbitrary junk are items to me that I would not feel any attachment to. Those could be items with no unique interaction, progress, or mechanic tied to it (i.e., furniture, toys, or miscellaneous outliers). Cool junk includes the things that I love and want to include in my gameplay. Items that enable my creativity and make me build narratives, characters, and concepts. Important junk are items that I would like to just delete from the game as they are tied to game progression for various achievements. Unfortunately, this is where most cool junk intersects for me, and it is at this point where potentially bad design habits may arise. We no longer think about how we could use our new item, but we start to consider if we are going for completing artificial achievements or not. If we decide to ditch the progression, the beloved fight against the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) begins and we are confronted with new questions.

Should I read this book to my pet, or should I showcase it on the profile? Should my pet eat this cake, or could my avatar use it in any fun way? The answer is quite simply choice paralysis with newcomers ending up overwhelmed by the abundance of options since the site has been online for over a decade now with items being added constantly. That this concept is monetizable goes without saying, which leads me back to the very first metaphor. The value of pretty items is two-fold. Despite the obvious appeal for the audience to buy, more niche and unique themes lead to niche and unique communities and cliques. This hinders the overall cohesion that a pet site could provide as many beautiful but confusing and contradicting ideas are introduced. This concern has to be weighed carefully when monetizing niche concepts as some of those can indeed be useful and enrich the game world. Additionally, this circumstance is neither restricted to Subeta nor is it bad in any way. This trend is mirrored by zines as those are often centered around various game titles. It should be considered whether the amount of junk should be reduced in favor of more coherent concepts or if smaller user bases should be nurtured and actively inspired. The idea of a junkyard should be contrasted by the involvement of developers and staff, as they have the power to provide narrative elements and guide gameplay.

I have shown you a lot of colors, talked about a lot of stuff that is part of this virtual world that needs to be cleaned up. In my final words, I would like to ask you some more questions about what pet sites like Subeta could be in the future and how the elements we discussed could be altered. My first question goes to the forums, as those have been the main way for a community to express itself. The software used on Subeta is Invision Community and its forum software is IPBoard. Do you feel like this is appropriate for a creative space like this, or should we try to challenge the preconception that forums are good enough as they are? Should we continue to integrate more and more systems into Subeta as Flight Rising did with their breeding and economic system? Should the idea of pet pages and items be further elaborated on to be more intuitive for new players and support creativity? Should a pet site give its users full freedom, or would you be interested in a guided experience for new or returning players?

What would your dream pet site be like?