Dear Sifaka World,
Yes, I do understand that you don't have as much money, and we know it's hard. In case you were wondering, money was the reason I quit Club Penguin and Webkinz. (Besides the fact that my Webkinz account expired and Club Penguin stopped loading, as well as being interesting.) All they wanted was money. I suppose that's buisness, but it took the fun out of everything. We had to pay to get the most out of the games, and that sucked. Now, my dog sits upon the carpet, chewing one of my 16 Webkinz. (I also hate things with "z's" at the ed of everything. It's ultra-corny.) My point being, the membership on Sifaka World is better, because it does a few things, and on top of that helps animals. (I think... I didn't really look into that much.) There was one thing, about a year ago, on Sifaka World that I found very interesting though. Two red foxes started calling me a "Bubby Jackson," and insisted that Club Penguin made Sifaka World. Is this what website format leads kids to think? I'm not exactly in any position to be calling anyone a kid, or a child, considering that I'm only 12 myself, but I perfer to say that I'm speaking for kids as a whole, or even just kids with no common sense.
~Transalta
P.S. You may be on our worst list right now, but at least no one voted for you as worst. (Yet) Perhaps you'll be on the best list for customer interaction :) And about that tour, that would be awesome.
Monday, January 4, 2010
A letter to Sifaka World
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7 questions/comments/concerns:
Hi Transalta,
Thanks for the letter. It's fun talking to you. There are only so many 12 year olds that understand Club Penguin, WebKinz AND Sifaka World, know the history a little bit, and can have a meaningful conversation about it =).
Obviously Sifaka World needs money to survive just like Club Penguin and WebKinz, but we're trying very hard to give everyone a fun option that works for them. Some of this hasn't happened yet, but our goal is to make it possible to spend as little as $5 (total, not per month) to get more of whatever you like the most. Maybe less, we'll see. Suppose you like clothes, or decorating your house -- you could just spend a few dollars and really go bonkers on your favorite aspects of the world. But if you just want to play for free, we welcome you too because you help make the site fun, and eventually we think there will be something worth paying a little for.
Basically, we'd rather have 100 people spend $1 than 10 people spend $10, because it's the same amount of money but more people having fun! Of course it's not quite that easy, but that's what we're going for!
Next comment on the format…
On the format of the site... really the format is secondary as far as we are concerned. It's just something people are already familiar with and know how to use. Years ago if we had made Sifaka World, it might have looked more like NeoPets.
To us, it's all about the characters. Sifaka World has personalities and a story that is just beginning. To me, characters like Dr Fizzlesticks, Kintana, Batty, Eggburt, Bonzai & Ned, etc are more interesting than "just penguins" (and it seems, a polar bear and a crab). Meerkat Miners, DJ Snow Leopard, Santa Claws, Chef Holmes... you get the idea. That's not a knock against Club Penguin, just a hoorah for what I like about Sifaka World and why it will keep getting better as we develop all of those characters further. I honestly believe that our characters have the best art and animation out there and the best personalities.
Club Penguin was a pioneer in children's virtual worlds, and I tip my hat to them. So now our mission is to take that format and give kids something new and fun starring a new cast of characters.
Well Brian, I'm very glad that you chose the format of Club Penguin, and not NeoPets. I played neopets, and it was VERY hard to understand. (I've played just about every single virtual word there is to play) I got some "mission" from a "fire fairy" to buy some red socks, and I do NOT know where those are readily available. The Club Penguin style format is easily understood, and it quite convenient. The one thing that always bugs me about all things animated, is mouth movements, leg movements, and arm movements. (Things I could never get right on my own.) If anyone ever perfects these things, they'll have my vote.
Yeah there's a lot going on with NeoPets these days. I'm glad I'm not the only one confused. I think it has a lot to do with taking their early site (started way back in 1999 I believe) and trying to fold in virtual world elements. Back in the day it was nothing but static HTML pages. Kind of like Tamagotchi with mini games and McDonald's ads.
On animation, I hope you'll agree that we've pushed the art quality a bit further than some other sites. With that said, technology (especially in Flash) is still catching up, so there are limits. I see a lot of people with the attitude that kids don't care, or can't tell the difference. Even on WebKinz for example, some of those cats and dogs look truly generic, like, well, a simple drawing of a plush toy. The quality is fine I guess, but it's just less interesting to me. Our aim is to make *characters*, not just animal drawings.
Take a look at your Sifaka World avatar in your profile window and I think you'll see what I mean. They blow up really nice to large sizes because there is so much detail in both the avatar and all of the clothing. It's a shame shrinking them down so small to walk around =/
I love the art style that tamagotchi uses, but yeah, I would perfer it if they let us at least IM people on there. Apparently the only purpose of that site is to get gotchi points. I found a nice site that makes the codes for you, so you don't even have to play the games. I would give tamagotchi a 6/10. It would have been 5, but they change it every so often :)
Woo! BRIAN IS SO COOL! :D My uncle's called Brian. He's also cool. Maybe its a Brian thing..
:)
Becky*
Ahhh tere was a counseler at this camp I went to named Brad, but he looked like a Brian, and ever since, his name has been Brian.
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