Animal Jam - Play Wild!

WARNING!!!!!! DO NOT LET ANY CHILD PLAY THIS GAME! As a child myself I've had a terrible experience with this game, it made me cry and feel really sick and yet I felt like I HAD to play it for stupid in-game rewards. It's addictive in a bad way, and the entire game revolves around trading and selling. The community is so toxic, full of bullies and scammers. The community constantly pressures you to be the same as everyone else, through your avatar and what you do within the game (I got constantly bullied for not being the same), and unless you have 'rare' items people disrespect you and vice versa. This game teaches kids to judge people by how much stuff or money they have, and as I said before this game is all centred around trading- it might as well be called 'Animal Capitalist'. In addition to all of this, the games chat filters are SHAMEFUL! Only recently can you say anything about disabilitys and neuro-diversities, and it allows you to say really judgy things, but not some of the weirdest things that I can't understand why they aren't allowed. You're also allowed to say very biased and religious or political things that I don't think are appropriate for a kids game. This games so addictive it took my favourite item gettting scammed for me to realise how bad an impact this game was having on my mental health. No one should play this horrible game. EDIT: I contacted AJ customer support, submitting recorded proof of scamming events (there were some other things related to other incedents I probably should have sent off too but I didn't really trust them) and a request for certain players emails to be banned from AJ. All they came back to me is a note saying 'they will take appropriate action'. I know Wildworks, I know what this means, they literally don't care and are willing to do nothing. In fact all this scamming secures the whole 'rarity system' that is the only thing keeping this horrible mess of a game alive. Oh yeah and there was ANOTHER data breach in which multiple peoples information that you have entrusted to AJ has been stolen because again they don't give a crap, in short customer service is rubbish.

This game looks cute and pretty from the outside, but as a person who has been playing this game for like, 4 months, I can totally describe that this game, is GARBAGE. Taking a kids point of view, this game can be toxic. Most "Jammers" won't really talk to you because this game is centered around "rares" (this will be a point later in this review). But why is it toxic? Wasn't this game supposed to be around roleplaying and having friends? No. It isn't. Yes, this game is around players interacting with others, but unfortunately, in this game, there is something called "artificial scarcity" which is present in a lot of games, not just Animal Jam (Classic or Play Wild). As a "jammer" who trades a lot, I can say that people totally only care about rares. If you're not rare or only have in-store items, people won't care about you. And about the roleplaying thing. Let's say that your kid wanted to be a villain, and there's an item that looks super cool. Unfortunately, if you didn't start playing this game in the BETA STAGE or something like that, most of the cool items are GONE, RARE and super overpriced. I am 4 months into this game and I'm super far from getting my wish item. If you don't want to expose your kid to the selfish side of humans, coming from AJHQ or the players themselves, please don't make your kid play this game. The way that AJHQ makes you addicted to this game (trying to get rares) is not ethical and is toxic, as I have seen a BUNCH of rude people while trading. This can make your child sad. Save your kid from this badly made game. Please

I rate this game as one star because people are so greedy in this game. All people care about is currency, rares, and other useless items. It makes you get so worked up and sad about it even in the tiniest situations. People prefer this game over eating, sleeping, exercising, or spending time with your family and REAL people you know. Players may act kind but later in the game start to grow meaner and greedy. And animal jam doesn't care about customer satisfaction. AJHQ only cares about money. Don't ever play this game and if you are playing it, stop immediately.

THIS IS AN ESTIMATED 7 MINUTE AND 24 SECOND READ, IF YOU READ AT THE STANDARD 200 WPM. Hey, thanks for reading the review. If you’re thinking about letting your child or younger sibling play Animal Jam (the 3D rendered version available on mobile platforms as well as PC), I ask that you read the full review for an in depth analysis of the game from an insider perspective. Good luck. OVERVIEW Animal Jam (before May 2020, Animal Jam Play Wild) is the remake to the (still up and running through now being downloadable as a desktop app) 2D flash game Animal Jam Classic (before May 2020, Animal Jam). Animal Jam allows the player to purchase animal avatars, items to dress the avatar in, dens (houses) for the avatar, and items to put in said dens with virtual currency (Gems, which are the generic coins, and Sapphires, which are the premium currency.) Animals, clothing items, dens, and den items all rotate in and out of stock, some only being available once, and some rotating seasonally. Players (called Jammers by the game) can go out in their animal avatars to the land of Jamaa, where they can show off their animal avatar and items and invite other Jammers to their den, their own part of Jamaa that can be locked and unlocked, customized, and switched on demand with other dens. Jammers can chat through an automatically filtered (and, I’m 99% sure, also manually moderated) chat system. Chat messages appear above their heads for all in the area to see, but Jammers also have the ability to, after adding each other as Buddies (friends), send each other Jam-a-Grams (mail) privately (which is, in fact, also filtered and moderated; when a JAG is moderated negatively, the other Jammer simply receives “Animal Jam Rocks!”). PARENT DASHBOARD To create a proper Animal Jam account, an aspiring Jammer will need to ask their guardian to create a parent account with their email. It is very possible for the Jammer to create this account themselves. A parent account can access the Parent Dashboard online and in a separate app. In the Parent Dashboard, the user can manage multiple accounts. The user can view membership status, chat mode, change permissions, and view a discipline history that shows every time a Jammer was suspended. Through this Dashboard, a parent can also manually turn off logging into a Jammer’s account for as long as needed with a switch, and even delete Jammer accounts. PURCHASES AND MEMBERSHIPS WildWorks, the company behind Animal Jam, is currently in a bad spot financially. They have been bought out by Nazara Technologies from India, and the game’s updates have been getting worse in quality and more scummy in terms of monetization. The game has offered a membership from the very beginning, though very recently the price has increased slightly (I’m pretty sure due to inflation). The Animal Jam Club Membership, as it is called in full, is a recurring monthly/yearly membership that unlocks all sorts of features to the Jammer. Due to WildWorks’ financial state, every few updates seem to bring new member exclusive content, such as the semi recent ability to equip 2 pets at once instead of one. This same membership can be purchased with 600 of the in-game currency Sapphires. Sapphires are a premium currency that is quite difficult to accumulate early on. 600 is not a price to be scoffed at. (It used to be 400, but the price was increased along with the real money price increase). Other than membership, Jammers can also purchase Sapphires and packs of items for real money. Animal Jam used to have real life merchandise, but it is no longer sold officially, as far as I know. MODERATION When your account is set to free chat through the parent dashboard, the chat is as described above in the overview. Once set to bubble chat, Jammers can only say and see prewritten messages they can choose between. If set to bubble chat, since users of both chat modes are pooled in the same areas, most of the game’s social appeal is lost. Most experienced Jammers will understand if they see another Jammer speak in bubble chat and respond in bubble chat, but bubble chat is severely limiting. Free chat is moderated automatically before messages are sent and also reviewed by moderators later. If a message is deemed not appropriate, the Jammer will not say the message, and will instead be shown personally (no other Jammers can see this) a thought bubble on top of their animal saying something along the lines of “I shouldn’t say this. It could hurt others or get me in trouble.” (I can’t recall what it says exactly). If a Jammer attempts to say a bad word (F***, B****, etc), the Jammer’s account will instantly be suspended for one day (though I’m pretty sure the punishment increases in days the more the Jammer breaks the rules). Jammers can also be given in game warnings that freeze their gameplay and pop up a message on the screen telling them not to say certain types of things, like bullying messages and scamming messages (scamming will be discussed in the TRADING section). Jammers can report other Jammers in game for breaking the rules. Jammers can report others for things like bullying, inappropriate dens, asking for/giving (forgot which) private information, and swearing. I must note that BYPASSING THE MODERATION AND SAYING CERTAIN WORDS IS POSSIBLE IF DONE CLEVERLY, THOUGH THIS IS VERY RARE AND THE INFRINGING JAMMER MIGHT FACE LATER REPERCUSSIONS THROUGH MANUAL MODERATION LATER ON. TRADING Jammers can trade Clothing Items and Den Items in game. The game tries its best to prevent allowing Jammers to scam each other, but Jammers can always lie about the worth of items and try clever tricks that a smart Jammer wouldn’t notice. Tell your child/younger sibling to always do the following to avoid being scammed: 1. Always do trades all at once. Don’t separate trades into multiple trades, as you never know if the other Jammer will just take your things the first trade and not give you your items’ worth the next. 2. Always check the items you’ll get and lose on the confirmation screen. 3. Always know Jammers are not obligated to give you back what you loan them and might keep it for good. Animal Jam will not return items you’ve been scammed out of to you. Items can have worth that might take months for the Jammer to get the items worthy to trade for said rare items. Some items are restricted to Members only. Jammers can also set up shops in their dens called My Shops in which they can sell items for Gems and Sapphires. Non member Jammers miss out on 5% of the revenue from selling items to others. Items in My Shops can be sold for a maximum of 5000 sapphires, if the Jammer chooses to sell them for Sapphires. Some items are worth more than that, meaning Jammers might be obligated to risk being scammed to buy the rarest items. THE COMMUNITY, PLAYER BEHAVIOR, AND OTHER USER GENERATED CONTENT There are multiple offsite unofficial Animal Jam community sites such as the Animal Jam Discord server and the ajplaywild.fandom.com wikipedia site with a forum. Most are not intended for children under the age of 13. These are not endorsed or affiliated with WildWorks. The community is present on YouTube and other social media sites too. Animal Jam has official accounts on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and probably more that announce updates, post promotional funny content, and host giveaways. Animal Jam players, as I’ve observed, are of all ages, from very young, at 7 or 8, to 18 years old. There have been reported incidents of pedophilia on Animal Jam, though I have never personally experienced or observed any pedophila in-game. Jammers of all ages seem to also try to have romantic relationships together. The game does not allow Jammers to do this or speak of this, but it’s always possible anyway. These relationships between goofy animal avatars are just as cringe as they sound; though I must admit I have tried to push myself into some while I was very young. Jammers can draw paintings (called Masterpieces) in the game and export them into a Den Item to show all others for a fee. The Masterpiece will have no art on it besides the Animal Jam logo and a clarification that it is pending manual moderation until it is moderated, after which it will show the art, which the Jammer may hang up on a wall or trade and sell to others. The same system is applied for pixellated 3D den items the Jammers can make (MasterBlocks). Jammers are not allowed to make beds, furniture, and text in MasterBlocks. Jammers can also create musical tracks with an in-game music editor. This music is named with a system that allows the Jammer to pick between a long list of words to put 3 of next to each other. Since this system fundamentally does not allow for profanity and other inappropriate content to be made, it is not moderated. Thank you for your time! It took me a WHILE to write this. :)

IM SCARRERD FOR LIFE. This game revoles around Money and Rare items, And the game is constantly Begging you to become a 'member' There is a very unhealthy power dynamic. THIS GAME IS FULL OF HORRIBLE, CRUEL, PEPOLE!! THERE ARE TONS OF SCAMMERS AND HACKERS!! This game is very addictive, I spent YEARS, trying to get one special item, First ,I got scammed. (I still remember The scammers words after i begged for sympathy, they replied: Sypmathy is not a thing i feel, this is just the way I am.)Its been five years. Still cant get over it. FIVE YEARS LATER, I start playing again still after that item. . . I finally get it. Then not more the a few days later someone hacks into my account. Five years, gone. Im locked out of my account. After a lot of struggling I finally get back in. the hacker contacts me, threatening to take more. I AM EMOTIONALLY SCARRED. I will never get over it. I made a new account. . . I should just stop playing this game. But its too late. Im addicted. I play it all the time now. Wasting the precious hours of life I have been granted, glued to a screen for hours and hours a day. This game has cost me many tears. DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME!! SAVE YOURSELF OR YOUR CHILD BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!! Please spend your life doing something worthwhile. THIS GAME HAS SCARRED ME FOR LIFE. Do not play animal jam. Nothing is worth this pain. Dont waste your life and mental health on pixels. (Ps) if you are a scammer or hacker, may you die a slow and painfull death, very very soon. I hate you.

Animal Jam: Play Wild is an awesome game! You'll have tons of fun between trading, going to parties, or just exploring around Jamma. I do miss the National Geographic partnership because after they left the amount of animal facts went down. The chat is moderated and parents can turn it off if they want. There are lots of moments where you get to a point where paying for the in-game currency is almost required if you want cool animals and items. I've heard people saying they've had troubles with strangers, but I have never experienced those myself. As long as you (or your kid) stays safe and careful, they will be fine! Remember, you never know who's behind the screen. Have fun and stay safe while exploring this virtual animal town! :)))

Ive played this game for seven years now, from a younger person's point of view into a teen's point of view. the chat- now the chat is blocking many words and has an auto correct feature, so nothing inappropriate ( ex: even bed, stupid, dumb, etc) which there is a way you can ( through the parent account) set it where your child can only use the pre--made words/sentences, ( ex: Hey, how are you? Yes! Wow! I love your outfit! ).

I think that there is bullying the people with scam lie and mate. WHEN i say mate i mean like giving birth and kissing. Unless very merture i avise you to alest have a parent account

The game is great but requires a premium (so-called membership) which I don't want to pay the membership. Parents and guardians should advise the games, and the audiences should be aware of their accounts and their paid passes, Animal Jam loses the opportunity to guide or help audiences or players aware of bad influencers. Animal Jam is playable and educational about natural creations, but minigames are more addictive than learning about nature in this world.

Terrible. I don't play this game anymore but I had an addiction to it when I was younger and I remember how terrible it was. Its extremly addicting and once u start its hard to stop playing. I spent hundreds of dollars on sapphires (the in game currency) And i definetley regret it. I played hours a day, and had more animal jam friends than I did in real life. Next thing thats terrible about this game is the players. Almost everyone in this game is terrible. The edating is a little funny sometimes but well you dont want your child to be doing the deed on animal jam. Also who knows your daughters animal jam "boyfriend" could be a 50 years old man. And the game is practically centered around trading now, instead of having fun and most players only care about rare items. Players will scam you out of rares and laugh about it. If your older u might be upset but i can only imagine a younger kid getting scammed. Also theres a thing in the game called "masterpieces" where you can draw pictures and get them framed to hang around your house, but I kinda think there bad because wildworks claims that they check the paintings are ok before they allow you to hang them up but thats not true ive seen some weird ones. Also the players are rude and will find anyway they can to get past the moderation system to scream and say bad stuff to you. when i played animal jam I def didnt get into drama like this but i sure have seen some. Lastly, wildworks the company freaking sucks. They dont do anything to make their game safe they couldnt care less. All they care about is money. do research to find out more. Thanks for reading this review, sorry about the spelling mistakes.