Despite a well-organised online campaign from some of its residents, Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom shut down yesterday, with the site now pointing people off to the Club Penguin, Pirates Of The Caribbean Online, Toontown Online and Pixie Hollow virtual worlds instead. The LA Times reports Walt Disney Internet Group executive Steve Wadsworth's comments on the reasoning: "It never achieved scale. It was promotional. There was no business model attached to it. It had a small but passionate audience."
20,000 of that small audience have been moved to sign an online petition asking Disney to keep the world open, but to no effect - admittedly a small proportion of the reported one million users who were in VMK at its peak.
It’s a tough and emotive issue, which requires weighing up the costs required of Disney to keep supporting the world, with the investment (emotional and financial) its users had made in the world. And we’re sure to see more stories of this type in the coming months, given the large number of virtual worlds launching for a teenage (or younger) audience. Some if not most are bound to fail and shut down, and this age group in particular may take the news personally.
Of course, there’s also an opportunity for the successful virtual worlds to pick up users from worlds that are closing, which is where better interoperability and the ability to port your friends list between worlds would come in handy…
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