Disney has recently announced that they will be closing their Virtual Magic Kingdom at 10pm PST on May 21, 2008. This will come as a shock to their members who have been building a virtual community on the site for the past few years. As virtual communities become mainstream, this is something we're going to start seeing more and more. If you invest several years of your life building up a virtual home and making friends, what happens when that virtual world goes away?

Disney has a number of virtual worlds under development including one with a faery theme and one based on the movie, Cars. They claim that VMK was merely a promotion in conjunction with the 50th birthday of Disneyland and that it was never intended to be permanent. The lack of subscription fees in VMK most likely had something to do with the demise as well. It's too bad because VMK had a broad appeal (just as DisneyLand and DisneyWorld do). It seems that faeries and animated cars aren't as likely to draw in as diverse a crowd.