Jan 31, 2017  Club Penguin, the Disney-owned social network for kids, announced this morning it’s shutting down. In its place, the company will launch a new product for mobile, Club Penguin Island. Top 10 Worst Things Ever Happened In Club Penguin. Also the fact Disney is now trying to get Club Penguin Rewritten shut down as it's more popular than Club Penguin Island shows how much this new mobile game has failed. This game banned me for no reason more than once.

Massively multiplayer online gameClub PenguinNew Horizon InteractiveRocketSnail GamesTypeLaunch dateOctober 24, 2005 ( 2005-10-24)DiscontinuedMarch 30, 2017 ( 2017-03-30)StatusDiscontinued in favor of (March 30, 2017 ( 2017-03-30))(Club Penguin was a (MMO), involving a that contained a range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive (now known as Disney Canada Inc.). Players used cartoon penguin- and played in a winter-set virtual world.

After, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005, and expanded into a large, such that by late 2007, it was claimed Club Penguin had over 30 million user accounts. In July 2013, Club Penguin had over 200 million registered user accounts.While free memberships were available, revenue was predominantly raised through paid memberships, which allowed players to access a range of additional features, such as the ability to purchase virtual clothing, furniture, and in-game pets called 'puffles' for their penguins through the usage of in-game.

The success of Club Penguin led to New Horizon being purchased by in August 2007 for the sum of 350 million dollars, with an additional 350 million dollars in bonuses should specific targets be met by 2009.The game was specifically designed for children aged 6 to 14 (however, users of any age were allowed to play Club Penguin). Thus, a major focus of the developers was on child safety, with a number of features having been introduced to the game to facilitate this.

These features included offering an 'Ultimate Safe Chat' mode, whereby users selected their comments from a menu; that prevented swearing and the revelation of personal information; and who patrolled the game.On January 30, 2017, it was announced that the game would be discontinued on March 29, 2017. Club Penguin later shut down its servers on March 30, 2017 at 12:01 AM. The game was replaced by a successor, titled (which itself was discontinued the following year). Since being shut down, the original game has been hosted and recreated on a number of using files from the game's old website. This message was provided by Aunt Arctic (a proxy for Club Penguin developers) in the last issue of the in-universe newspaper The Penguin Times. It nostalgically looks back on the game's 12-year history, comments on how far the community has grown, and has an optimistic view on the future for its members.In April 2015, it was revealed that Disney Interactive had 28 members of Club Penguin's Kelowna headquarters due to the game's declining popularity. The company's UK office in Brighton was shut down around April 17, 2015.

Some employees in the office were also let go. Disney Interactive replied to Castanet on the layoffs: 'Disney Interactive continually looks to find ways to create efficiencies and streamline our operations. As part of this ongoing process, we are consolidating a small number of teams and are undergoing a targeted reduction in workforce.' On September 2, 2015, Club Penguin closed down the and versions of the site. A spin-off mobile app, Puffle Wild, was removed from the and the same day in order to allow Disney Interactive to focus on Club Penguin.

On January 11, 2016, the Sled Racer and SoundStudio apps (the former being an original game and the latter being a of a game on the website) followed suit. With the closure of Disney Interactive in 2015, Club Penguin side-projects wound down to allow a streamlined effort to focus on the core Club Penguin experience; this involved the layoffs of 30 Disney Studios Canada staff.On January 30, 2017, Club Penguin announced that the current game would be discontinued on March 29, 2017, to make way for its successor,. Membership payments for the original game were no longer accepted as of January 31, 2017, with paid members slated to receive emails about membership and refunds.It became popular in the final weeks of Club Penguin to attempt to see how fast users could get banned from the site; the fastest records were.Days before the shut down, Club Penguin announced that on the final day of the game's operation, all users would be given a free membership until the servers were disconnected.On March 30, 2017, at 12:01:39 AM (7:01:39 AM UTC), Club Penguin's servers were officially shut down.

Design Business modelPrior to being purchased by Disney, Club Penguin was almost entirely dependent on membership fees to produce a revenue stream. The vast majority of users (90% according to ) chose not to pay, instead taking advantage of the free play on offer.

Those who chose to pay did so because full (paid) membership was required to access all of the services, such as the ability to purchase virtual clothes for the penguins and buy decorations for igloos, and because peer pressure created a ',' separating paid from unpaid members. Advertising, both and on-site, was not incorporated into the system, although some competitors chose to employ it, including:, which used corporate sponsorship, and, which incorporated product placements.An alternative revenue stream came through the development of an online merchandise shop, which opened on the Club Penguin website in August 2006, selling stuffed and T-shirts. Key chains, gift cards, and more shirts were added on November 7, 2006. In October 2008, a series of based on characters from Club Penguin, were made available online (both through the Club Penguin store and Disney's online store), and in retail outlets.As with one of its major rivals, Club Penguin traditionally relied almost entirely on advertising to increase its membership base.

Child safetyClub Penguin was designed for the ages of 6–14. Thus, one of the major concerns when designing Club Penguin was how to improve both the safety of participants and the suitability of the game to children. As Lane Merrifield stated, 'the decision to build Club Penguin grew out of a desire to create a fun, virtual world that I and the site's other two founders would feel safe letting our own children visit.' As a result, Club Penguin maintained a strong focus on child safety, to the point where the security features were described as almost 'fastidious' and 'reminiscent of an ', although it was also argued that this focus might 'reassure more parents than it alienated.'

The system employed a number of different approaches in an attempt to improve child safety. The key approaches included preventing the use of inappropriate; providing an 'Ultimate Safe Chat' mode, which limited players to selecting phrases from a list; using an automatic during 'Standard Safe Chat' (which allowed users to generate their own messages) and blocked even when users employed 'creative' methods to insert it into sentences; filtering seemingly innocuous terms, such as 'mom'; and blocking both telephone numbers and email addresses. It also included employing paid; out of 100 staff employed in the company in May 2007, Merrifield estimated that approximately 70 staff were dedicated to policing the game. It also included promoting users to 'EPF (Elite Penguin Force) Agent' status, and encouraging them to report inappropriate behavior.Each game server offered a particular type of chat—the majority allowing either chat mode, but some servers allowed only the 'Ultimate Safe Chat' mode. When using 'Standard Safe Chat', all comments made by users were filtered.

When a comment was blocked, the user who made the comment saw it, but other users were unaware that it was made—suggesting to the 'speaker' that they were being ignored, rather than encouraging them to try to find a way around the restriction.Beyond these primary measures, systems were in place to limit the amount of time spent online, and the site did not feature any advertisements, because, as described by Merrifield, 'within two or three clicks, a kid could be on a gambling site or an adult dating site.' Nevertheless, after Club Penguin was purchased by Disney, concerns were raised that this state of affairs might change, especially in regard to potential spin-off products —although Disney continued to insist that it believed advertising to be 'inappropriate' for a young audience.Players who used profanity were often punished by an automatic 24-hour ban, although not all vulgar language resulted in an immediate ban. Players found by moderators to have broken Club Penguin rules were punished by a ban lasting 'from 24 hours to forever depending on the offense.'

Education and charityCoins for Change was an in-game charity fund-raising event which first appeared in 2007. The fund-raising lasted for approximately two weeks each December during the game's annual 'Holiday Party'.

Players could 'donate' their virtual coins to vote for three charitable issues: Kids who were sick, the environment, and kids in developing countries. Players were able to donate in increments of 100, 250, 500, 1,000, 5,000, or 10,000 virtual coins. At the end of the campaign, a set amount of real-world money was divided among each of the causes based on the amount of in-game currency each cause received.

At the end of the first campaign, the New Horizon Foundation donated a total of $1 million to the, the,. In both the 2007 and 2008 campaigns, two-and-a-half million players participated. In 2009, Club Penguin donated $1,000,000 Canadian dollars to charitable projects around the world. In 2010, Club Penguin donated $300,000 towards building safe places, $360,000 towards protecting the Earth, and $340,000 towards providing medical help. Lane Merrifield said: 'Our players are always looking for ways to make a difference and help others, and over the past five years they've embraced the opportunity to give through Coins For Change, it was exciting to see kids from 191 countries participate together. In 2011, the amount of money donated was doubled to $2 million, ostensibly in response to an unexpected increase in participation. Plot and gameplayClub Penguin was divided into various rooms and distinct areas.

Illustrator Chris Hendricks designed many of the first environments. Each player was provided with an igloo for a home. Members had the option of opening their igloo so other penguins could access it via the map, under 'Member Igloos.' Members could also purchase larger igloos and decorate their igloos with items bought with virtual coins earned by playing mini-games. At least one party per month was held on Club Penguin. In most cases, a free clothing item was available, both for paid members and free users. Some parties also provided member-only rooms which only paid members could access.

Some major Club Penguin parties were its annual and Holiday parties. Other large parties included the Music Jam, the Adventure Party, the Puffle Party, and the Medieval Party. Franchise. Main article:Disney's franchising of the brand began with its acquisition of Club Penguin in 2007.

In addition to the Club Penguin Island web-based video game, the franchise has also included console video games for and, television specials in the UK, and a series of books. Critical receptionClub Penguin received mixed reviews throughout its journey. The site was awarded a 'kids' privacy seal of approval' from the. Similarly, Brian Ward, a at the Child Abuse Investigation Command in the United Kingdom, stated that it was good for children to experience a restricted system such as Club Penguin before moving into sites, which provide less protection. In terms of simple popularity, the rapid growth of Club Penguin suggested considerable success, although there were signs that this was leveling out.

Figures released in April 2008 indicated that in the previous 12 months, Club Penguin traffic had shrunk by 7%.A criticism expressed by commentators was that the game encouraged and allowed players to. While Club Penguin did not require members to purchase in-game products with real money (instead relying on a set monthly fee), players were encouraged to earn coins within the game with which to buy virtual products.

In addition, the 'competitive culture' that this could create led to concerns about, as children looked for 'shortcuts' to improve their standing. It was suggested that this might influence their real-world behavior. To counter this, Club Penguin added guidelines to prevent cheating, and banned players who were caught cheating or who encouraged cheating.

The use of in-game money was commented on as possibly helping teach children how to save money, select what to spend it on, improve their abilities at math, and encourage them to 'practice safe money-management skills'.In spite of the attempts to create a safe space for children in Club Penguin, concerns about safety and behavior still arose within the media. Supercross circuit games. While the language in-game was filtered, discussions outside of Club Penguin were beyond the owner's control, and thus it was stated that third-party Club Penguin could become 'as bawdy as any other chat'.

Even within the game, some people noted that could still occur, with potentially occurring within the game. Also, the 'Caste system' between those who had membership and exclusive items and those who lacked full membership (and therefore were unable to own the 'coolest' items) could lead to players having a difficult time attracting friends.One criticism came from Caitlin Flanagan in: in relation to the safety procedures, she noted that Club Penguin was 'certainly the safest way for unsupervised children to talk to potentially malevolent strangers—but why would you want them to do that in the first place?' While views of the strength of this criticism might vary, the concern was mirrored by Lynsey Kiely in the, who quoted Karen Mason, Communications Director for Club Penguin, as saying 'we cannot guarantee that every person who visits the site is a child.' On August 20, 2013, Disney announced that, and were closing directly because of Club Penguin and Disney's mobile games.

This caused major controversy between Club Penguin and fans of the three games, especially Toontown, where some users had played for more than 12 years ( Toontown's started in August 2001). Private serversA Club Penguin Private Server (commonly abbreviated and known as a CPPS) is an online multiplayer game that is not part of Club Penguin, but uses files from Club Penguin, a database, and a server emulator in order to create a similar environment for the game. Many now use these environments in order to play the original game after its discontinuation. CPPSs often contain features that did not exist in the original game such as custom items and rooms, free membership, etc. Throughout the official game's existence, various players created private servers of Club Penguin, and in response to the its closure, more private servers were created.

Club Penguin Rewritten, launched February 12, 2017 – had reached a million players as of October 12, 2017, though discontinued 'permanently' on March 4, 2018. Citing community support and funding, it returned in April 2018. The private server had at least four million player accounts in July 2019.During the, the Club Penguin Online private server game passed six million players. Legal statusSince private servers essentially copy materials copyrighted by Disney, there has been much controversy as to whether or not creating and hosting them is legal.

Disney and Club Penguin have pursued numerous CPPSs and attempted to have them taken down with notices. VulnerabilitiesMany private servers have become vulnerable to DDOS attacks and database leaks due to insufficient security measures. In July 2019, the login data of over 4 million Club Penguin Rewritten users was stolen after a data breach. Awards and nominations.