I ask the question: ‘Has Disney Ruined Club Penguin?’ the answer to this of course is “No they have not’ here are my thoughts, comments and reasons to why Disney have NOT ruined Club Penguin.
Firstly it was on August 1st, 2007 when Club Penguin joined with the Walt Disney Company. So, Disney did not join with Club Penguin at all, in fact it was Billybob, rsnail, Screenhog and the other founders of the game that decide to join with Disney! Ok, yes the Parties were good when Disney was not involved, so what if they are up-grading the rooms! My main point here is without Club Penguin asking Walt Disney to join with Club Penguin may never have taken off!
Secondly, without Disney in the picture there would be less staff to work for Club Penguin, here are some points:
- There would be less Developers to create cool features like the DJ3K Recording option, or the Map Update!
- There would be less artists to Draw for new Games, Catalogs, Igloos, Parties and so much more!
- There would be less customer support and it would probably take about a week for a response from Club Penguin if they had not joined Club Penguin, and yes I know some of the Supporters that take calls are totally useless and dumb!, but in with those messed up supporters there are lots of good ones, who are very polite, so there would be less supporters to take down your awesome suggestions and make them come to life on Club Penguin also!
- There would also be less of the Technical Team to squash the bugs, and once again, yes I know there have been a lot of bugs in the parties this year, but just think if Club Penguin had not gone with Disney… there would be lots more bugs in the Parties, rooms, games and more!
Thirdly, all of the updates and new room upgrades that have been done on Club Penguin are actually very well done! The Pet Shop for instants has been around since 2005 or 2006 and lots of players who play the game had gotten very comfortable the old version of the Pet Shop, but to be honest, It did really need to be updated. In my opinion the Pet Shop looks greater forever, there are more features added into it like the Puffles in the tubes, Puffle Launch, the Puffle Book, Quiz’s and more!
Forth, there are millions and millions of kids who play Club Penguin, and millions of them send in suggestions and Club Penguin listen to them! You may just be lets say twenty thousand players not wanting lets say the Dance Club to be updated and the other one hundred and twenty thousand do, who do you think Club Penguin is going to listen to? Obviously they’d have to go with the one hundred and twenty thousand who want the change to happen, however Club Penguin would try and make the other twenty thousand happy by still keeping some old features of the Night Club.
Fifth, There would be less Server management on Club Penguin, meaning that there would be no Portuguese, French or Spanish servers only English which is a bad thing for other big country’s around the world.
Here are some other points that I’d like to state about Disney not ruining Club Penguin:
1. - Memberships: When you buy a membership off Club Penguin about 10 – 15 percent of your money goes to a good cause like Free the Children.
2. - Coins for Change: Club Penguin would never, and I mean never, would of had Coins for Change without
Disney’s help!
3. - Merchandise & Disney World: If Club Penguin decided not to join with Disney you would never see the Club Penguin attractions around Disney world and get a special coin code, You’d never see Penguin Plush toys either for sale, or memberships in your local store!
4. - Staff: Without the great Artists, Designers and Developers Club Penguin would be probably the WORST virtual world out there, with none of the rooms being updated and messy Puffle animations, Penguin dances .etc
5. – Rooms: We’d probably have the boring old Club Penguin PSA Head Quarters still! I mean, come on guys! That HQ has been updated constantly since the Club Penguin began, The new EPF Command Room is better than the PSA HQ because it has a Weekly Field-Ops missions so we can earn new items and a cool System Defender game where we can Face off against all of the Enemy of Club Penguin!
Here is a recently revived e-mail from Screenhog a former creator of Club Penguin:
That’s a very difficult request… not because I don’t know how Disney has affected Club Penguin, but because there’s not a lot I can publicly say about it without breaking my NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Here’s a few facts, though:
- The 10% thing wasn’t because of Disney. Giving 10% of each membership started on the day Club Penguin began because of a tradition within New Horizon Productions (the company I was a part of when Club Penguin was originally created). However,if it weren’t for Disney’s involvement, I doubt Club Penguin would have been able to do Coins for Change, so that’s something.
- Before Disney bought Club Penguin, it was in English only. We had no other languages, no offices in other countries, and had very little resources for doing so (even though we wanted to go to places like Brazil). Disney, though, was worldwide… without Disney’s help, going to other languages would have been much harder, if not impossible.
- Merchandise in stores. Sure, before Disney bought CP, we had a few T-shirts and puffles. It was nothing compared to what Disney enabled Club Penguin to do.
There are many others that I can’t talk about, unfortunately. There are also other areas where Disney’s involvement probably hurt CP a bit too… but I can’t talk much about those either. Bottom line: Disney buying CP was more good than bad.
Let me compare it to something else in CP history. When Club Penguin first got put onto Miniclip.com, there were a lot of benefits. We suddenly had a huge boost in traffic, which meant a huge boost in memberships. That was very good. However, some of our older users hated it… they thought Miniclip’s involvement ruined Club Penguin, because it was so much easier to find their friends when there were only two servers to choose from (yes, really). Yes, the partnership with Miniclip created problems, but the partnership was more good than bad.
Chris
If you do not believe that is from Screenhog here is the original email prove so: (click on the image below to make it bigger)
So in my Opinion and probably millions of people around the globe I know that Disney has done more good than bad to Club Penguin, so,once again, really I’m asking you all out there: Have Disney Ruined Club Penguin? – Let me know by leaving a comment on this post!
