Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26850776-20150223122607/@comment-25371179-20150406071722

Disney is all about the money now. They're not stupid; the virtual worlds market is declining as mobile social networks, like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Kik (yes I know some are web-based too), become the new thing today. Disney Interactive closed down 7/8 of their virtual world games (the only one not being closed is the one we're discussing right now), and - apparently - had a $42 million budget cut. Club Penguin's competition, like Pandanda, Chobots, MiniMonos, Tinkatolli - they've all shut down in lieu of this decline. Club Penguin is really only alive because it's backed by a huge multinational corporation. Disney still profits a fair amount from this game, they really don't care what the remaining 70k-80k players think. Spike Hike, Polo Field, they all might (in fact, I bet they do, even though I prefer the times with Billybob&buddies), but in the end, they do all report to Disney. CPNext seems to be Disney's last attempt to make even more profit from this game. If it fails in attracting more players, which I honestly think it will, and when they see it does, they will pull the plug on Club Penguin and Disney Interactive altogether, and they'll move on. Sorry guys, it's the sad truth though. I'd love to see virtual worlds make a comeback as much as the next guy, including Club Penguin and it's competition, but right now, it's time for mobile social networks to shine (which are, cough, my guilty pleasures anyway). Again, sorry if I crushed anyone here, ignorance is bliss after all, but it's probably best to know the truth (or well, what we can assume, which seems most likely considering, well, it's Disney.).