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Disney shuts down kid-friendly Club Penguin Island to cut costs
Last year, Disney's kid-friendly online game Club Penguin shut down and the company relaunched it as a mobile app called Club Penguin Island. But now, Kotaku reports, Club Penguin Island is going away as well. Employees at the Kelowna, British Columbia studio behind the game received a notice this week that Club Penguin Island was being shut down and that they were being let go. "For several years now, we have been experiencing increasing global competition," Disney said in a letter to staff. "We have explored many options to improve efficiency and reduce costs. These measures have succeeded to some extent. However, in order to reduce costs further and become more competitive, we find that we must reduce our workforce."
How to get banned from Disney's Club Penguin in under 30 seconds
How do you get banned from Disney's tween-focused Club Penguin social network in under 30 seconds? Hacking. Tool-assisted speedruns have been around since the late '90s, showing off inhuman feats in games like Doom and Super Mario Bros. 3. Folks in the speedrunning community are pretty okay with it too, so long as your runs are clearly labeled as such. YouTube user Kevin Y found a way to capitalize on the zeitgeist and has employed a few scripts to get an account banned from Club Penguin (for swearing in chat) in under 30 seconds -- nine seconds faster than the current unassisted speedrun.
Disney's Club Penguin will relaunch as a mobile app in March
After 11 years online, Disney's kid-friendly social network Club Penguin will shut down at the end of March, to be replaced by a new mobile-only version called Club Penguin Island. The site originally launched in 2005 before Disney bought it up two years later and devoted considerable resources towards making the platform a safe space for kids to play games and chat online. When it launches on March 29th, Club Penguin Island will carry over the same philosophy to a new standalone mobile with an updated look plus new features, games and quests to engage with.
Free for All: Are kids' games valid?
I had the dream again, but this time with a twist. I walked through the store, admiring the shelves and shelves of tiny robots, toy trains and action figures. Cool toys lined every shelf, articulated robots and little army men with swappable guns. Tanks, space marines, huge dragons and all sort of wind-ups tempted me. This time, though, I talked to the store owner about how I frequently have this dream, and that normally I find a section of really cheap toys that I pile up in my arms to buy. He proceeded to show me a stack of those type of toys, clearance toys, and offered me entire armies and model kits for just a few dollars. As usual, I woke up before I can buy them and take them home to adorn my office with. It's a slightly frustrating dream, but always a lot of fun. In the meanwhile, I stopped long ago with collecting toys. They take up too much space, gather too much dust and generally get no use at all. I have replaced these toys, though, and now have a new collection of bright and shinies: kids' free-to-play MMORPGs. I have played every one of them I can get my hands on, sometimes getting pretty high up in the game, and sometimes just exploring or talking with other players. They give me that same feeling that a toy gives you. Yes, adult reader, you know the one I am talking about and surely you too have at least a few toys adorning your office as well?
Rumor: Sony wants a $500 million Club Penguin
Montgomery & Co. virtual online company, Club Penguin, is supposedly in exclusive acquisition talks with Sony for the rumored price of $500 million. One has to wonder where that cash would be coming from, after such reports on Sony's recent financial situations. Nevertheless, if the acquisition is successful, it would allow Sony to cater to a much younger audience. Club Penguin offers games, activities and even kid-friendly chat. We'd imagine Sony would incorporate this into the PlayStation Network or even Home somehow, allowing a haven for young tykes to duke it out in Resistance play silly games and chat with their friends. Club Penguin's incorporation into the PlayStation Network might even convince parents to fork over $600 beans in order to get their kids the PS3 system. Not a bad idea, really. Sony could use more niche markets to increase the PS3 penetration and convince third party developers to start bringing the games.
Playing Dirty: Searching for sex in Club Penguin
Every other week, Bonnie Ruberg contributes Playing Dirty, a column on sex and gender in video games: Sex is everywhere. That's true in real life, that's true on the internet, and that's definitely true in online games. But whether we like it or not, sex doesn't always involve the people we think it should. I'm not just talking about the Second Life-er who tells you she's a twenty-five-year-old woman and turns out to be a forty-five-year-old man. I'm talking about kids. Specifically, I'm talking about sex in online games designed for children. If you came within a fifty-feet radius of Raph Koster at GDC last month, you've probably heard his two cents on the how gaming is being taken over by companies from outside the industry who make games that don't even register on our radar. Koster did mention Korean MMOs, but what he really focused on were kids games. In particular, he pointed the wobbly finger of prediction a virtual world called Club Penguin. With 4.5 millions unique users in December, 2006 alone, Koster claims Club Penguin can rival the largest online games in the world. He seems to be right. My question is, with that many people playing, there must be sex in Club Penguin, right?
