Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom to Close in May
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.
Comments
Disney has changed it from the Virtual Magic Kingdom to the Virtual Tragic Kingdom. Since no one can share their contact info, everyone (2 million+) will be losing all of their friends. This is really hard for a lot of us. So some players started a web site, SaveVMK.com. Please visit the site, sign the petition to ask Disney to keep VMK open, and read the heart-breaking comments there. Now that people on other Disney virtual worlds are realizing Disney will likely close their worlds with little or no warning, people who don’t even play VMK are saying that Disney is acting immorally and irresponsibly — see the comments here. If you look at the comments on SaveVMK.com you will find many who agree.
It is tragic what DIsney is doing to VMK. I started a web site to have a petition for Disney. It is at www.savevmk.com. The comments there show how sad and hard this is for many of the 2 million players. And we are all thinking DIsney is a mean company and we won’t play on their websites at all anymore, because they will just shut them down when they feel like it, and say it meets their goals. What about our goals? Our friends? Our lives?? Thank you for your article.
OMG they cant close it down! We love that place! SO WHAT if the lack of subscribers are low! its nawt like their charging us to pay for how long we have to be there! They cant close us down! weve been protesting! Everyone is always saying that we ( us kids) are the voice of the future… but apperantly u adults that are closing VMK down arent listening to the “voices of the future”!
Omg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U Closed VMK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m Turning you in………………………………………………………………………………………………………
:(>l 
:(>l
why did vmk close was it yuuh if it was ur in trouble