Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28666769-20160608031336/@comment-28666769-20160608164356

Pinkie Pie Puffle wrote: I honestly can agree with most of your statements, however, Billybob did a good job as well, I mean, yeah, takeovers started in his last year, but he also did great things, some of the most memorable parties in the history of CP, hte beggining of animated shorts and music, and many other things. Also, google trends can't be really acurate, it gives us idea of how popular a search has been across the years, but it is n its beta version. I do agree that CP now focuses more on winning money, I mean, they changed their slogan "waddle around and meet new friends" to "Disney's #1 virtual world", but we also have to take in considerations that they never wanted to have sponsored parties in the first place, it was like a last chose.

1- Billybob did do some good things, as you mention. He tried to make the game more enjoyable and expand the fanbase, but ultimately failed. This is why CP is slowly declining. Also, I'm tired of those people which I call "Billybob Apologists", who defend Billybob's choices just because he was a "founding father" of the game. Billybob in the end did more harm than good, even if it was unintentional.

2- I agree that Google Trends is not perfect, however it does give a good general idea of where the game is headed. If I had access to more direct sources, like the number of logins per month or the amount of revenue Club Penguin had made monthly, I would use those. But sadly I do not have those sources to obtain data from, so we are stuck with speculating off of Google Trends- which still clearly shows that CP's in a gradual decline.

3- Sponsered Parties were less of a last choice, and more of corperate greed seeping into the game. CP had survived off of membership fees before Disney purchased it, and as long as CP remained enjoyable there would still be paying customers. However, Club Penguin isn't as enjoyable as it once was, so Takeovers had to start-they sold out the game to advertisers. This only made the game less fun, as kids started to realise that every month CP became an elaborate online billboard. Instead of Takeovers, Club Penguin could have given the audience what they wanted- "old CP"- but instead they ignored the fanbase and opened CP up for real estate. I would be surprised if CP lasts another 5 years if this continues.