After 13 years in business, Club Penguin will soon be “sunsetting.”
“When we replaced the original Club Penguin game a year and a half ago, we always strived to make Club Penguin Island the best mobile successor to the original game,” reads a letter posted to the Club Penguin website.
“From day one of development, Club Penguin Island has been a true passion project for everyone here at Disney but, the time has come for the party to end.”
There was no specific closure date mentioned, just that the end would come by the end of the year and players will be provided with all the necessary information in the coming weeks via in-game messages and updates on the company website, Island News.
READ MORE: TIME FOR AN ISLAND ADVENTURE
Lance Priebe, Lane Merrifield and Dave Krysko started Club Penguin in 2004 and in 2007 they sold the virtual world for kids to the Walt Disney Company. The deal was valued at $700 million: $350 million in cash upfront, and another $350 million if performance targets were met through 2009.
Reacting news of the shut-down, Merrifield went to his Facebook account to offer some reassuring words.
“For those of you affected by the layoffs at Club Penguin:
I remember when I first left, one of the weirdest parts was not having anywhere to go every day. That feeling is why we built the Kelowna Innovation Centre as a place for you to come and figure it out,” he wrote in the Sept. 26 post.
Come have breakfast at Gather or a coffee at Blenz in the atrium. Meet another ex-Penguin for a beer on the rooftop at Perch. Do some job hunting or dream up your startup at Accelerate Okanagan… Or pop in to FreshGrade or Wheelhouse just to say ‘Hi.’ Let this be your place to come every morning while you figure out whats next. We’ll keep the coffee warm.”
Club Penguin was one of the longest-running kids’ games of all time and at its height, had over 200 million accounts. Players from countries around the world showed their commitment to the game by adopting 25 million Puffles and creating over 200,000 videos.
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