Back in 2007, Neopets began converting Neopets owned by players into a new art style. However, some players chose to keep the original art of their pets, resulting in a small number of "unconverted" Neopets still being in circulation. After Neopets, then owned by Viacom, implemented secure trading between players, a black market featuring these rare pets cropped up.

Neopets is the infamous create-a-pet website where players are free to create as many pets from scratch as they'd like and paint them with a number of colorful brushes, such as ones that give fairy wings and adorable pastel colors, or others that dress them in pirate garb. Back in the old days, before Adobe ended the support of Flash Player in 2020, Neopets had a different art style and a lot less features that now allow players to interact with their pets. These are referred to as "unconverted" Neopets, which are considered valuable on the black market, especially those that were painted with attractive paintbrushes.

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Not unlike how Animal Crossing: New Horizons players sell the most desirable villagers for real cash, a black market driven by the demands of the community began, supported by a user-determined ten-tier system that ranks the value of each Neopet. On the black market, players can spend real money and sometimes even crypto-currencies to purchase the rarest ones. Sometimes, these Neopets have even been obtained by illegal means, according to Polygon.

Especially in the niche community, Neopets is known for having poor account security, which has resulted in some players getting unconverted Neopets snagged from their accounts and sold on the black market. Sometimes, these unconverted pets can sell for hundreds of dollars depending on where they fall on that tier list.

Neopets is playable in web browsers.

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Source: Polygon