When You Wish Upon a Star… April 15, 2008
Posted by Kendricke in The Gaming Industry.Tags: Disney VMK
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Browsing through the morning news sites, I was surprised to find this headline posted on the front page of CNN.com: Thousands fight closing of online game
“More than 11,000 people have signed a petition to save Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) after an announcement was made that the site will be closing.” -WKMG
Some of the most heart wrenching stories are coming out of this one. Children and parents are angered - ANGERED - by Disney’s decision to close this online world. Disney’s not only missing the boat on another opportunity to nab kids, but this type of action is exactly the sort of thing parents will remember when they look for other online worlds for their children to participate in.
Visit http://www.savevmktoday.com/ for more details.
Kind of silly of Disney to leave a promotional, free to play, MMO up and running for 3 years. It seems to me they would be better served at this point to simply add a nominal fee to pay expenses and keep the servers running. By nominal, I mean just enough to keep the servers running and supported without loss to the company.
I wrote a bit about the reasons behind Disney’s shuttering of the game this morning. I don’t have it on high authority, but I’ve put the puzzle pieces together.
Alas, adding pay-for-play is not as simple as Laldail’s comment would make you think. There would have to be a massive re-programming effort, software to be licensed, servers (of course), and people to monitor the game (Disney hires the wizards to protect itself liability wise).
Would that it were so
- John
http://www.thedisneyblog
story link: http://thedisneyblog.com/2008/04/15/vmk-time-for-disneys-virtual-magic-kingdom/