Disney Multiplayer: From Pirates to Penguins

Joseph Laszlo | August 02, 2007, 01:51 PM

Disney yesterday announced it was acquiring kid-oriented, web-based "virtual world" Club Penguin, for $350m cash up front and another up to $350m performance-based over the next couple years.

The price seems high, but this is very smart. It's probably easier to buy a virtual world phenomenon than to create your own. Despite lots of competition in the kid social space (Neopets--which Viacom bought a couple of years ago, Habbo Hotel, Webkins, etc etc), CP has a strong community, good buzz, and it's growing fast.

Still, Disney has to be careful not to alienate the user base; while community-based social offerings have some inherent stickiness to them, if groups of friends decide they'd rather play elsewhere little will stop them.

Disney has been talking about launching a pirate-oriented massively multiplayer for years now (planned for this fall), and of course pioneering kids' MMOG Toontown is still around, too. But with the end of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, who knows how long pirate chic will endure? And Toontown's been around for ages.

By contrast, penguins are cool, and assembling a stable of multiplayer offerings aimed at different ages and interests is better than putting all your eggs in one virtual basket.