Galactic Hot Dogs Advertising
I don't mind advertising for one of the products coming from Poptropica's partner site, but there is Galactic Hot Dogs everywhere. Billboards, login prizes, ad buildings, videos popping up in random places sometimes, kiosks, minigames, quests (app), and now it even has its own island. Now, if GHD had a good story with lovable and relatable characters, was suitable for small children, and was easy to understand, then it would be an okay choice to advertise. There is a problem with all of these factors though.
Good story - I don't know about you guys, but I think GHD has a terrible story. Yes, I know, I've only read a few of the publishings, but I know that it isn't that good. Oh, they're trying to win a cooking contest? Why don't we watch a show that has the exact same plotline? Plenty of people agree with me on the fact that watching TV is easier than reading a book. With TV, you can just sit down, flick through channels, find something you like, and sit there for 15-45 minutes, adapting to the storyline, checking out all the visual effects, etc.
Lovable Characters - I don't like Cosmoe that much. He seems to talk about butts a lot. For some reason, I find that disturbing. He also is pretty cruel to animals. In just the first issue, he showed us his friend, Goober. Goober is basically a parasite. He is permanently stuck on Cosmoe's arms, because if he gets off, he will die. Basically, Cosmoe is the only reason he is alive. Goober is also pretty helpful. He can carry stuff as if he was a third hand. He can also transform into other objects. Goober probably helped in the building of the Neon Wiener, Cosmoe's spaceship, as well. How does Cosmoe repay Goober? Using him as a fart dampener. That's right, he crushes this poor, helpless being by sitting on him, farting on him, and forcing him to inhale the fumes through his nostrils and his skin. What a jerk!
Relatable Characters - Have you guys ever been chased by a robot mob for taking (or just transporting) a giant 200-pound hot dog that you needed to win a cooking battle with? Me neither. This is basically all they do in this series, from what I can tell. But that's just me. If you can get something out of it other than that, good for you, but I have a hard time believing that a bunch of 6-year-olds will get anything new out of it.
Suitable for small children - No way. If you have even read the first issue, you would know this is not okay for 9 year olds, much less 6 year olds, one of Poptropica's main age groups. Let me just copy down a paragraph from the very first page of the series.
"Dude, this thing is the size of a freaking Jeep! People are going to love the Mega-Dog!" I exclaim.
Did you guys see that. The size of a freaking Jeep.
Freaking Jeep.
Freaking JEEP ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION
And here's Poptropica, advertising this to a bunch of 6-year-olds. What happens when their parent's asked where they learned that word and the kids say, "Poptropica"? Memberships cancelled, website banned with threat of 2 week grounding. Yep. Maybe some parent's won't mind, but hey, when I was 6, if I said that, I was in deep trouble. Maybe I'm being too tough on Poptropica. They do own GHD in a way. They need a way to advertise it, but maybe it should be on other websites with AdSense instead. Neahhh, Poptropica needs the beat-down every once in a while just like any good franchise.
Easy to understand - No. I don't know if Princess Dagger is a friend or a foe, frankly. I think I've said enough.
Episodic Islands - In 2013, Poptropica was experimenting with a new play layout. This was a pretty good choice except for a few problems.
1: No Islands for about 9 Months
2: They Got Rid of the Daily Pop button.
Now, let's talk about #1, because #2 isn't that big of a problem.
No new quests for 9 months. This is a terrible thing to do. If they released a new island every 3 months and let the new layout construction take a few more months, that's okay with me. Now, I note that they still haven't moved very far in finishing it, as the Inventory for Store Items is still broken and incomplete after 2 years of construction. This is not my main problem with it though. No, I haven't mentioned it yet, believe it or not. My main problem is this. Because they weren't releasing that many islands, they decided to release Episodic islands to get the quests out quicker. With that, they released Survival Island as the first episodic island ever. Survival Island did not have a blimp, because it crashed. This is a great plotline for Survival island, but they should have just released it all as one island. Think about what Cryptids Island would look like if it was released in episodes! YUCK!!!!!! Anyway, not only did Survival Island have no blimp, but it also came out in 5 episodes. Once about every other month. Yes, it took longer to make 7 Episodes (Including 2 from Mission:Atlantis, which, in my opinion, is pretty strange) than it would if they just made 2 full non-episodic islands. Also, the No Blimp thing from Survival island has appeared in the 3 other episodic islands and the latest full island, GHD. THE BLIMP IS POPTROPICAS LOGO, FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, I just HATE that they released in episodes.
Comics - Comics were nice, and the story went very well. Then they waited about 3 or 4 months. Then, they didn't release new comics. They decided to make a comic book. A COMIC BOOK. In the comic book, they introduced 2 new characters to the story, while still keeping Jorge and Oliver in the story. Now here's the problem. Why don't we see those characters in the comics? Also, there are the blog posts. EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY THEY RELEASE A NEW BLOG POST ABOUT THE STUPID BOOK WITH A TERRIBLE STORY ABOUT HOW A GUY WAS MENTALLY ILL AND SABOTAGED EVERYONE TO THEIR DEATH!j
Spam posts - Poptropica has released a ton of blog posts talking about how there's a new page to their stupid book. This worked okay with the comic strip, because they only released a new blog post once a week. Now, with a new post every day about a new page, I would say that the blog in the past month has been 80% Mystery of the Mappz pages.
Missing Shark Boy - In the past year, Poptropica has almost completely removed Shark Boy from existence. He used to be their mascot. Now they use Dr. Hare as a main character. Dr Hare is a mentally insane scientist. Most of the time, they are only villains, not helpful character. Shark Boy has been replaced by Dr. Hare at his position of holding a pencil on the Daily Pop Sneak Peeks. Almost all of Shark Boy's old posts on the Poptropica Creator's Blog have been replaced by posts identical, but by Dr Hare. They have removed all Shark Boy figures from their toy page. Shark Boy is my favorite character, and they replaced him with an insane bozo who think's he's a pink rabbit. How stupid.
See what I mean?
Until next time, Poptropica or not, this is Storm signing off.
Suitable for small children - No way. If you have even read the first issue, you would know this is not okay for 9 year olds, much less 6 year olds, one of Poptropica's main age groups. Let me just copy down a paragraph from the very first page of the series.
"Dude, this thing is the size of a freaking Jeep! People are going to love the Mega-Dog!" I exclaim.
Did you guys see that. The size of a freaking Jeep.
Freaking Jeep.
Freaking JEEP ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION
And here's Poptropica, advertising this to a bunch of 6-year-olds. What happens when their parent's asked where they learned that word and the kids say, "Poptropica"? Memberships cancelled, website banned with threat of 2 week grounding. Yep. Maybe some parent's won't mind, but hey, when I was 6, if I said that, I was in deep trouble. Maybe I'm being too tough on Poptropica. They do own GHD in a way. They need a way to advertise it, but maybe it should be on other websites with AdSense instead. Neahhh, Poptropica needs the beat-down every once in a while just like any good franchise.
Easy to understand - No. I don't know if Princess Dagger is a friend or a foe, frankly. I think I've said enough.
Episodic Islands - In 2013, Poptropica was experimenting with a new play layout. This was a pretty good choice except for a few problems.
1: No Islands for about 9 Months
2: They Got Rid of the Daily Pop button.
Now, let's talk about #1, because #2 isn't that big of a problem.
No new quests for 9 months. This is a terrible thing to do. If they released a new island every 3 months and let the new layout construction take a few more months, that's okay with me. Now, I note that they still haven't moved very far in finishing it, as the Inventory for Store Items is still broken and incomplete after 2 years of construction. This is not my main problem with it though. No, I haven't mentioned it yet, believe it or not. My main problem is this. Because they weren't releasing that many islands, they decided to release Episodic islands to get the quests out quicker. With that, they released Survival Island as the first episodic island ever. Survival Island did not have a blimp, because it crashed. This is a great plotline for Survival island, but they should have just released it all as one island. Think about what Cryptids Island would look like if it was released in episodes! YUCK!!!!!! Anyway, not only did Survival Island have no blimp, but it also came out in 5 episodes. Once about every other month. Yes, it took longer to make 7 Episodes (Including 2 from Mission:Atlantis, which, in my opinion, is pretty strange) than it would if they just made 2 full non-episodic islands. Also, the No Blimp thing from Survival island has appeared in the 3 other episodic islands and the latest full island, GHD. THE BLIMP IS POPTROPICAS LOGO, FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, I just HATE that they released in episodes.
Comics - Comics were nice, and the story went very well. Then they waited about 3 or 4 months. Then, they didn't release new comics. They decided to make a comic book. A COMIC BOOK. In the comic book, they introduced 2 new characters to the story, while still keeping Jorge and Oliver in the story. Now here's the problem. Why don't we see those characters in the comics? Also, there are the blog posts. EVERY SINGLE WEEKDAY THEY RELEASE A NEW BLOG POST ABOUT THE STUPID BOOK WITH A TERRIBLE STORY ABOUT HOW A GUY WAS MENTALLY ILL AND SABOTAGED EVERYONE TO THEIR DEATH!j
Spam posts - Poptropica has released a ton of blog posts talking about how there's a new page to their stupid book. This worked okay with the comic strip, because they only released a new blog post once a week. Now, with a new post every day about a new page, I would say that the blog in the past month has been 80% Mystery of the Mappz pages.
Missing Shark Boy - In the past year, Poptropica has almost completely removed Shark Boy from existence. He used to be their mascot. Now they use Dr. Hare as a main character. Dr Hare is a mentally insane scientist. Most of the time, they are only villains, not helpful character. Shark Boy has been replaced by Dr. Hare at his position of holding a pencil on the Daily Pop Sneak Peeks. Almost all of Shark Boy's old posts on the Poptropica Creator's Blog have been replaced by posts identical, but by Dr Hare. They have removed all Shark Boy figures from their toy page. Shark Boy is my favorite character, and they replaced him with an insane bozo who think's he's a pink rabbit. How stupid.
See what I mean?
Until next time, Poptropica or not, this is Storm signing off.
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