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Club Penguin was a massively multiplayer online game involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by New Horizon Interactive. Players use cartoon penguin-avatars and play in a winter-set virtual world.
After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005 and has since expanded into a large online community —growing to the extent that by late 2007, it was claimed that Club Penguin had over 30 million user accounts. As of July 2013, Club Penguin has over 200 million registered user accounts. The success of Club Penguin led to New Horizon being purchased by The Walt Disney Company 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.
Three video game adaptations, known as Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force and its sequel, Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force – Herbert's Revenge on the Nintendo DS, released in 2008 and 2010 respectively, and Club Penguin: Game Day! on the Wii, released in 2010.
On January 30, 2017, the creators announced that the game would be discontinued on March 30, 2017 and be replaced by a successor called Club Penguin Island, which would also shut down the following year following its failure and eventually end up ending the Club Penguin franchise for good.
Why It Can Waddle and Meet New Friends
- It was free-to-play.
- It was the biggest and safest friendly MMO videogame where you can talk and socialize with people and make friends.
- Visually appealing and greatly detailed artwork and environments.
- Every 3-5 weeks, a special event would take place and let players complete puzzles to unlock limited items, with some of the most popular events being 'Medieval Party', 'Prehistoric Party' and the Christmas and Halloween parties.
- Operation: Blackout was considered by many to be one of the best events of the whole game.
- The Puffles are interesting creatures with lots of deep backstory behind them, which got their deserved attention in the Puffle Party event every year.
- You can create your own penguin avatar and customize it with a big catalog of items for 9 different categories, even if the majority required a paid membership.
- Wearing special items would let your penguin do secret animations (For example the Hard Hats, which would replace the dance animation with a jackhammer by pressing the 'D' key on your keyboard).
- Fun and iconic minigames such as:
- Aqua Grabber
- Astro Barrier
- Bean Counters
- Card-Jitsu and its variants Fire, Water and Ice.
- Cart Surfer
- Catchin' Waves
- Dance Contest
- Hydro Hopper
- Ice Fishing
- Jetpack Adventures
- Pizzatron-3000
- Pufflescape
- Puffle Launch
- Puffle Rescue
- Puffle Roundup
- Sled Racing
- System Defender
- Thin Ice
- There were a special type of minigames known as the PSA Missions which had the player solving difficult puzzles to unravel the lore of the game.
- Club Penguin's island itself was a very cozy and attractive world. It's in fact one of the most iconic and famous videogame worlds to this day.
- Fan theories such as the Iceberg tipping, the Megalodon shark and the Card-Jitsu Shadow minigame were ultimately confirmed or refuted by the creators.
- Likable, endearing characters such as Aunt Arctic, Cadence, Captain Rockhopper, Dot, Gary the Gadget Guy, Rookie, Sensei and many more.
- Herbert P. Bear was a clever and hilarious villain, along with his sidekick Klutzy.
- Amazing and unforgettable soundtrack with some of the best tracks being 'Charlie's here', 'Coffee Shop', 'Dojo and Ninja Hideout', 'EPF Command Room', 'Ice Fishing' and 'Pizzatron 3000'.
- There were original songs as well, such as 'The Party Starts Now'.
- It spawned spin-off videogames like Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force for the Nintendo DS and Club Penguin: Game Day! for the Wii and even three television specials.
- You could send fanart, ask questions or jokes to Aunt Arctic and see them featured in the newspapers every 2-4 weeks.
Bad Qualities
- It started to go downhill in mid-2013 (Ex. Longer parties, most parties being Disney takeovers, removal of the Recycling Plant and the Stage, big design changes in 2012-2013, etc.).
- The game had a micro-transactions system known as 'Membership' which denied non-members from buying specific clothes, items or even playing the final levels of a minigame.
Unofficial games
Club Penguin Rewritten
Club Penguin Rewritten is an unofficial remake of Disney's Club Penguin. The game's playerbase has substantially increased following the negative reaction to Club Penguin Island. CPR Team has said "Just because a company pulls a plug out of a game doesn't mean it has to die.".
On October 10, 2017, it was reported by Club Penguin Rewritten that Disney Interactive had filed a copyright complaint against the website. Nikola Petkovic has set up a petition on Change.org to help the site keep its domain name. In 2 hours, the petition got over 140k signatures.
On February 26, 2018, they have announced that they have decided to close Club Penguin Rewritten down on March 4, 2018 until its revival in late April. As of April 13, 2022, Club Penguin Rewritten has shut down for good due to a lawsuit request by Disney and 3 people who owned and operated the game got arrested by the City of London Police.
Club Penguin Online
A private server called Club Penguin Online which was one of two largest Club Penguin private server along with Club Penguin Rewritten. It was notoriously known for its abusive community and the illegal actions committed by the server's owner Riley which almost destroyed the reputation of Club Penguin itself. However, it ended up being shut down by Disney for good on May 15, 2020.
New Club Penguin
Yet another Club Penguin private server that was launched back in July 8, 2020, but didn't get a high playerbase after Club Penguin Rewritten shut down in 2022. Some unique features include a teal-colored Puffle and a Discord server where people can share art and suggest things.