The announcement referred to wanting to "design a game that's more in line with what the community has been asking for", a nod to the backlash from the Neopets community when the company decided to go web3. In September 2021, one of the most popular Neopets fan communities tweeted, "The Neopets community overwhelmingly rejects the new NFT cashgrab project. We're hard pressed finding someone outside of the NFT community that wants this."
Holders of Neopets NFTs seemed somewhat split on the announcement that the NFTs would remain tradable on secondary markets, but would not be incorporated into any game. Some described the project as a "rug", and were disappointed that the NFTs they'd purchased would never be useful in-game. "Once an NFT has no use, the price tends to tank", one person (accurately) remarked. Another commented that they'd always viewed the NFTs as little more than a collectible, and were satisfied with it never going beyond that.