Goatlings Shutdown

[bignoodleeee]

any other goatlings players here? site's shutting down soon. make sure to archive everything you can so it doesn't become lost media. currently archiving the website via httrack. sucks to see such a cute site go. i'd been playing since around 2017-2018 so i guess that would make me a hardcore player? i'll miss all the cool contests they had every month for art, and the DAG(design a goat) contests, even if they did turn out to be rigged in the end. for those of you unfamiliar with the site, registration is shut down, so the dumpster fire is locked behind closed doors. i'll leave a little goat for you to look at, though. (another thing that sucks about the goatlings shutdown - i can't find who made what, and the forums are completely deleted so i can't comb through and figure it out)

[ValyceNegative]

The assets you posted are beautiful! This is the first time I hear about Goatlings, but I really like petsites (terrible player, I just love to peruse the art xD) and it's always sad to hear one disappearing, let alone without leaving archives. I know a couple more long lasting ones, but a run from 2017 to 2025 is pretty good for petsites.

What caused the shutdown? Drama? Staff lost interest? Lack of funds to keep servers up?

[boreal_cryptid]

just recently found this Goatlings shrine by Aid. it has CSS template that looks like the original website too! and some archives.

i hope it'll help at least a little... 

[fairyrune]

i remember goatlings from years ago! i never played myself, but it has such adorable art. i'm so sad about it shutting down. maybe someone will take up the mantle?

it's nice to see someone making a shrine for it, too. how cute!

i'd been playing since around 2017-2018 so i guess that would make me a hardcore player?

do you have any more goats you want to share? i'd love to see them. maybe this can be a thread for posting your favourites. as i never played i'm not sure what you do there - was there something specific you really liked about the site?

[arcus]

I haven't heard about Goatlings in years. I never got around to playing it, but the art was really nice. I'm sad to see it go.

What caused the shutdown? Drama? Staff lost interest? Lack of funds to keep servers up?

Leaking of personal information and harassment, according to the news post.

Due to blatant harassment of members and staff, and continued inappropriate behavior, we as the new Admins of Goatlings.com have decided to move on from this endeavor. We had hoped to revive Goatlings.com and improve playability, but certain members have made that an impossible task. Due to threats of continued harassment and hacking* into the website to steal personal member information, Goatlings.com will be officially closed by the end of the year.

*Hacking refers to former moderators leaking emails, ips, and birthdays of staff and members. This information was not allowed to be accessible. To improve security, former moderator access points have been renamed, moved, and reset again.

Goatlings.com will temporarily reopen on December 23rd 2025 for members to take screen shots of their Goatlings, and to preserve any memories and contacts they would like to keep, and will remain open up until December 31st, as long as it is safe to do so. Access to some parts of the site will be blocked to prevent malicious activity.

Diamond Dust purchases from December 2025 have been refunded.

Site code will not be sold or passed on to other parties. Some item assets may be repurposed on other virtual pet websites. More information will be available later.

100% of personal information (such as emails, ips, and birthdays) will be removed and will not be traceable when the site is officially closed.

Thank you to everyone who made this site a special and welcoming place.

https://archive.is/SG9ZP

There's seemingly more to it: The founder of the site, and past staff, stepped down on the 15th.

[ValyceNegative]

Oof that's harsh and by the sound of it this issue seemed to be repeated as well. I was more active on Neopets years back and I remember episodes of sensitive info leaking with users getting consequently banned, but nothing worth losing the site completely. This Goatlings staff harassment sounds more like people actually wanting to see the petsite go for good :/

[serenefork]

Seeing that the shutdown announcement happened less than 10 days after the staff change announcement is a little wild. Hope everything turns out well and everyone is able to save what they want.

[Corrupted Unicorn]

Well ain't that a shame. 

Played Goatlings when it first began, and then as one-offs. I really liked the early Goatlings, but the later ones felt less like something like a Neopet's color and more like I was adopting someone else's OC  Aside from that, the art was very cute, especially the item art.

Never got involved in the drama. I just played quietly and got whatever I could afford with the basic, non-premium features.

Would love to visit my account again, but apparently I need to recover my e-mail and I don't remember anymore 

[thunderzizi]

WHAT... i only played for like a month a few years ago but i'm sad to see it go so suddenly... here's my animals i suppose...

5 goats in a row

"So Cool Animal"
"Ponkapo"
"Cool Ceiling"
"Carbonated Soda"
"Mama Panda"
and "Openness"

[close]

[bignoodleeee]

The assets you posted are beautiful! This is the first time I hear about Goatlings, but I really like petsites (terrible player, I just love to peruse the art xD) and it's always sad to hear one disappearing, let alone without leaving archives. I know a couple more long lasting ones, but a run from 2017 to 2025 is pretty good for petsites.

What caused the shutdown? Drama? Staff lost interest? Lack of funds to keep servers up?

lots of internal issues. underpaid/overworked staff and difficulty reaching site owner, site owner using site money to buy a vtubing model, ect. things were bad for a while. i'm surprised the site even lasted this long.

do you have any more goats you want to share? i'd love to see them. maybe this can be a thread for posting your favourites. as i never played i'm not sure what you do there - was there something specific you really liked about the site?

of course! there's too many cute designs to be lost to time. a lot of the later ones tended to be too overcomplicated for such a small image though, unfortunately. spoilering images to save people from scrolling forever lol. if anyone's intersted in seeing items too i can post some of my favorites. some of them might be in different resolutions because not everything was released with a highres version, and some might repeat simply because i forgor i alraeyd put it there.

Spoiler

[close]

[ValyceNegative]

Replying to the goat gallery just posted: oh gosh the scene one <3 and the punk one too! And the kidcore! Aaaaaa

There's a few of them that feel a bit too "gatcha game" for my tastes but I really like the simpler designs. Nevertheless I think they're all very well made, hoping the artists of all these will find a more stable (and better paid!) project soon, they have talent!

[bignoodleeee]

well, it happened. site's closed, folks! it's sad to see it go, since it had such a sweet community full of artists and collectors. you can read some more about the EOS here(but view oopergate at your own risk, lol).