As you may well have heard, on Wednesday Disney announced that it was buying Club Penguin for a total of $700 million dollars. First of all, that’s a fuck lot of money (sorry, in the spirit of appropriateness for children, today seems to be a cursing day). Second of all, that’s a fuck lot of money. Third of all, that’s a fuck lot of money. $500 for every paying user? With that kind of cash, I could buy myself 350 millions Diet Cokes, then build some kind of crazy Surrealist fortress with the cans.
Now that Club Penguin has become Disney’s Club Penguin, I feel like I have even more to fear as the “pervert” who dared to ask whether sex might be going on in a children’s MMO. I mean, hate mail is one thing (and don’t get me wrong, I’m getting plenty of that after the Resident Evil 5 article I wrote earlier this week), but I feel like Disney is the kind of happy-go-lucky company who might break your legs in your sleep just for soiling their good name. Lucky for them, it seems Club Penguin really is air tight.
Still, it’s interesting to hear that safety played a big part in the buy-out. Says Lane Merrifield, one of the game’s three founders, “As a former employee of Disneyland, I’ve always had a great respect for what Walt created. When he first envisioned Disneyland, he wanted to create a safe place that he and his daughters could enjoy. In the process of creating Club Penguin, we shared that passion and often pulled from Walt’s vision in the hope of creating a unique place online that we would be comfortable letting our own children visit.†Safe? Comfortable? Does this mean that now no one can die on Club Penguin property? Those penguins will live forever!
Bonnie Ruberg is a sex, technology, and video games journalist who contributes regularly to publications like The Economist, Forbes, and The Village Voice. By day she's also a comparative literature PhD student at UC Berkeley, where she studies French, English, gender, sexuality, surrealism and perversion. You can reach her at [her first name and last name, all one big word] AT gmail DOT com.
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 am
Do you think the penguins could cyber?
Thatd be great fun.
What is your opinion on that?
I can already imagine “I’m pulling your fin-like arms to hold you up, bent over in the air, doggy style. I relish your fishy kisses while I slide my hand towards…”
I thought thats the stuff you were most comfortable and knowledgeable writing about? Cause if its anything higher caliber than that, dont you think you should step back and think if thats really what you should be writing about?
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:56 am
I’m a bit confused by your question, Cybersexpert 2-13. If you’ll check out the article I linked to from the post, you’ll see that I’ve already investigated cybersex in Club Penguin, and found out that to the best of my knowledge (because the place is very heavily monitored) there is none. It sounds like what you’re talking about is penguin role-playing, which could certainly take place in any chat venue (though, as I mentioned, not within the confines of Club Penguin itself). Beyond that, I’m really not sure what you’re asking…
August 4th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
wow i was not being serious at all.
i was saying that as a joke because for some reason you are way way into cybersex and also because i find that you lack the literary skills to write about anything of value.
honestly tho im not surprised you have looked into cybersex on club penguin… whats wrong with you?
August 6th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Awesome, Cybersexpert 2-13. Thanks for adding constructively to the conversation.
March 1st, 2009 at 1:01 am
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