Club Penguin

About

Club Penguin, commonly abbreviated as CP, was a children's massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by New Horizon Interactive. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players could chat, play mini games and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. Though a large amount of the game could be played for free, some of features we're not available unless a membership was purchased. On March 29th, 2017, Club Penguin was shut down by its parent company, Disney.

History

Experimental Versions

In 2000, RocketSnail Games released the game Experimental Penguins, in which players could interact with each other using penguin avatars. The following year, the game was taken offline. In 2002, Penguin Chat^[1] was released by RocketSnail Games as the successor to Experimental Penguins, which was subsequently followed by Penguin Chat 2 (2003) and Penguin Chat 3 (2005).

Club Penguin

On October 24th, 2005, Club Penguin^[3] was released as a web browser game on the Flash site Miniclip to the general public after a short beta-testing period. In August 2007, Disney bought Club Penguin for $350 million and an additional $350 million in potential bonuses.

Shutdown

On January 30th, 2017, Club Penguin^[4] announced that they would be discontinuing Club Penguin game on desktop and mobile devices on March 29th, 2017 and launching the game Club Penguin Island for mobile as a replacement. That day, a thread about the news was posted to Reddit's /r/bannedfromclubpenguin^[5] where it gained over 15,500 upvotes. The Daily Dot^[6] also covered the news, giving a rundown of Club Penguin's long history and it's relation to memes. On March 28th, Redditor Vajazle uploaded a screenshot of his 10-year-old account, and thanked the game's developers on the /r/gaming^[7] subreddit (shown below, left). That day, artist Shadman tweeted an illustration of a blue-colored penguin committing suicide with a handgun along with the hashtag "#clubpenguin" (shown below, right).

On March 29th, 2017, fans prepared for the game's shutdown that evening at midnight. That day, the /r/bannedfromclubpenguin subreddit went private, displaying the noticed "You've all been banned from /r/bannedfromclubpenguin" (shown below).

Club Penguin Rewritten

In February 2017, a closed beta for the remake Club Penguin Rewritten was launched. By October that year, the game accumulated upwards of one million registered accounts.^[8] On October 10th, a complaint was filed against the game by Disney Interactive. On February 26th, 2018, Club Penguin Rewritten published an announcement that the game would be discontinued the following month. That day, YouTuber Drivr2joe uploaded a video about the impending shutdown (shown below).

On March 4th, 2018, the game was discontinued and the official website was updated with a "Closing Doors" message placed on the front page (shown below).^[9]

On April 26th, 2018, Club Penguin Rewritten was relaunched. The version reached over 4 million registered users on April 20th, 2019.^[10]

Club Penguin Online

On January 3rd, 2018, Club Penguin Online, a Club Penguin private server similar to Club Penguin Rewritten, was launched. On June 13th, 2019, the version reached over 3 million registered users.

On August 28th, 2019, YouTuber LazarBeam posted a let's play video of the game titled "Club Penguin is Back" (shown below).

In the following hours, Redditor ManiMassala mada a PSA post stating that "club penguin servers are back online" in /r/teenagers subreddit which gained over 24,100 upvotes in eight hours.

In the following hours, multiple posts and memes about Club Penguin Online and Club Penguin Rewritten were made by users on Reddit.

Features

Club Penguin players can interact with each other in a variety of virtual locations navigated with their penguin avatars. The game was designed for children of ages 6 to 14, but players of any age can join the game. Developers employed a number of child safety features to confront this, including an "Ultimate Safe Chat" mode in which users can only select comments from a menu of pre-chosen terms.

Related Memes

Tip The Iceberg

Tip the Iceberg is a Club Penguin game in which players attempt to tip the secret Iceberg location by dancing while wearing a hard hat, miners helmet, construction hat or green hard hat item to make the penguin avatar use a large drill (shown below)

On January 31st, 2017, YouTuber punpun uploaded a video to YouTube of the penguins finally tipping the iceberg, revealing a secret dancefloor.

Club Penguin Bans

Since the game was designed for children, rules prohibit any inappropriate, violent or suggestive themes. If a player breaks the rules, a moderator will ban their account. On February 25th, 2013, the /r/bannedfromclubpenguin^[2] subreddit was launched, featuring screenshots of users being banned from the online game.

Purple Republic

The Purple Republic is a group originating on 4chan’s /v/ board dedicated to raiding Club Penguin servers with purple penguins, similar to the Anonymous Pool’s Closed phenomenon associated with Habbo Hotel.

Search Interest

External References