The Penguin History

Hey Penguin-Friends! With the current preoccupation about Club Penguin and it's popularity slowly decreasing I've decided to make a lengthy post about CP, one that recounts all of it! Since Experimental Penguins to our snowy Club Penguin! Let's start! 

Experimental Penguins

July 2000, It was a sunny day in Kelowna, this day "Experimental Penguins" launched! It was a virtual chatroom developed by Rocketsnail Games . Players would join the game as a blue penguin and chat with other users in snowy rooms, having abilities ranging from driving a snow trekker to wearing a santa hat, it was enough for kids in that time! The game eventually had shut down later that year, however they done yet. Just before they shut down, the game had 2,000 users that played it daily. After winning a few MMOG awards , Rocketsnail decided to start the game again, creating Penguin Chat 

Penguin Chat 1, 2, and 3

Penguin Chat 1 came in  January of 2003, displaying a better player sprite and some animations including the ability to throw snowballs. In contrast to Experimental Penguins, Penguin chat introduced the  blue toolbar. Even though it was limited, it introduced emoticons, sitting option, Snowballs, and many more. The Penguin Chat 1 emoticons stayed for a very long time, and then held a lot of inspiration for future updates. With Flash 5, Rocketsnail had the ability to add stuff that couldn’t be added in the previous game. When entering the servers, if you had registered you appeared as a blue penguin, if you hadn't you were given green names and were labeled with numbers such as “Guest1″. Penguin Chat 3 would be launched for beta on March 31, 2005.  The game went on for 2 more trials before going offline, though once again, not permanently. They named the newest version as the “BIG update”, but they didn’t really give any new information out

Club Penguin

It was August 22, 2005. A launch that would impact the computer gaming industry forever was about to occur . After  Penguin Chat 1 to 3, the “Big update” was finally unveiled. All users of Penguin Chat 3 were asked to join Club Penguin. Mainly, it the a installation Penguin Chat , but extremly different and more exciting. In the following months , moderators would start to introduce themselves. Club Penguin incredibly decorated rooms, and that was quite new compared to the games preceded it. The island was small, but it was growing quickly. It was time for Penguin Chat to become it’s own thing, and that Club Penguin .

Club Penguin: First Years

 And Beta Testing began! The primary goal of this event was to look at every part of the small island (at the time) and report any bugs that you find. It was, actually, pretty exciting for the users! Tons bugs were found, and when this finished, a party was hosted to celebrate the success. All of the current staff attended the event to friend the users and party. The team was quite small back then, it was formed by; Lance Priebe (rsnail), Lane Merrifield (Billybob), Holly Hildebrandt (Happy77), Chris Hendricks (Screenhog), and  Nathan Sawatzky (Gizmo). Testing would last a few more months, and  in October 19, 2005 it was declared that the official launch would be on the 24th. The team was very excited because this was the moment they’ve been waiting for since 2000, and with Dave Krysko’s company New Horizon Interactive with them, Club Penguin was going to be an awesome experience.

   Club Penguin would then go through multiple server tests from November 2005 till February 2006, just to be sure that Club Penguin’s servers were up and without errors. Now that testing was over, people concluded that parties and Club Penguin are made to be together, because such a game without parties is ridiculous. After this, came the first ever main party, the Halloween party 2005! CP debuted their traditional parties such as Halloween and Christmas in 2005. Later in 2006 they decided they would add themes to parties, things like Hawaiian Luaus and Western Parties. The parties were fun for the users because dressing up was so unusually fun and addicting that adding itemsin parties became a tradition! However there was something missing for customization. The team launched the first ever pin in March 2006, a four leaf clover that users could put on their playercard for decoration. 

   Customization ideas showed up very early at the beta testing but they were incredibly expanded in 2006 with tons items to choose from. The concept of customization really gave users the opportunity to differentiate between players with their costumes, as well as their backgrounds and even pins. With the debut of pins, players were allowed to fullow customize their playercard. After being introduced in March, pins started to become the main attraction and helped tourism around the island as they were very well hidden inside the rooms. Both pins and catalogs adopted a constant weekly/monthly update over time for CP's users to enjoy constant new content. This features were in need due to CP’s partnership with Miniclip in 2006, because this caused traffic to increment in the months to come.

   Many new features were introduced in 2006. Events debuted characters that we have love today, Puffles came first! These small, furry creatures started appearing in the Snow Forts in 2005, but were available for adoption in March 2006. Mascots like the Penguin Band and Rockhopper had they're first appearance in 2006, and they brought many fun activities for penguins with their debut. Rockhopper arrived with the Migrator in late 2006, allowing penguins to explore the ship and buy his rare items. It has become a tradition for him to come to the island, and over the years rumors, myths and legends like  the “Rock Hopper Island” have appeared among our community. The Penguin band has showed up at many parties, but they were debuted at the Winter Luau in January 2006. The were given character traits later in July 2006, with the Western Party. With these characters, rooms also found their way into the island. The Plaza, Underground Cave, Migrator, and Lighthouse all came in 2006 along events to explain their placement. Finally, for the secret side of town, the PSA (Penguins Secrets Agency) came, allowing penguins to join as  secret agents and be part of top secret mission for coins and medals in return.

Disney's Club Penguin

   Most will agree that 2007 was Club Penguin’s year. In 2007 Club Penguin was the talk of every single kid in the world, and business was prospering. With more than 100 employees, it didn't take long till Disney requested the purchase of Club Penguin. On August 1, 2007, Disney successfully beat Sony in buying Club Penguin for 350 million U.S. Dollars. Changes in Club Penguin were about to happen, and some still say it changed for  better. Disney first decided that the Club Penguin toys should be available than just online stores, and worked to get the toys in fisical stores. They also released a series of books inspired by the game itself. From “Stowaway! Adventures at Sea” and “Waddle Lot of Laughs“, users thought plots were very interesting, and the codes inside of them brought even more fun to CP! Lastly, Disney devoted a lot of dedication assuring the safety of the users as it should always be a main priority. Disney gave Club Penguin its first advertisement in mid 2007, no ads have been previously bought the years before. Progression came fast, and it was time for Club Penguin’s Golden Age. Search trends for the virtual world drastically rised in late 2007 and it became a much more populated environment.

   Along with the changes that Disney introduced, they made a big addition to Club Penguin’s legacy. Coins for Change started in December 14, 2007. It is a virtual charity allowing users to donate their virtual money to realdonation money to real needs. Coin placers were put around the virtual world in select rooms for users to decide the amount of coins they wanted to donate. Three organizations shared the 1,000,000$ donated by Disney;  the World Wildlife Fund, Free the Children, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. About 3 million penguins donated an incredible amount of 2 billion virtual coins, and that was only  in the first year! Coins for Change became an annual event along with the traditional Christmas parties, and the organizations coins were donated to would, eventually, become wider and with a larger amount. Even though Coins for Change started in 2007, the game has been supported charities since mid 2006, this just really expanded it. Coins for Change is  actually great and it shows the hope and faith that users have in the world, it also helps users make a change and that’s a really important concept.

 Diseny's Club Penguin: Social Community

   In this same year, Youtube, WordPress anb Blogger were brought to Club Penguin, where fans could make videos and fansites. Music Videos and game cheats came in the beginning of this year and are still around. Certain Club Penguin videos would become one time hits but eventually certain users would keep releasing hit videos causing them to become virtual celebrities within the world. Many of these virtual world celebrities include ShyTwice,Ox485, and Wwe adam, who are some of the ones that started the music videos in the game around 2008, as eventually music videos would become a widely-loved custom in the Club Penguin saga, only called as CPMV (Club Penguin Music Videos). Many of the original cheat sites are still around, including forums like ClubPenguinFansite and Pengspace. Both of which were created back in March 2007. These two sites are examples of the earliest “social media” for penguins. The forum held discussions from the PSA to general CP discussion, and has stayed active ever since. 

In 2008 held a new beta testing for Club Penguin: CPIP (Club Penguin Improvement Project). On March 10, 2008, the project was launched to code in some very important improvements into the MMO. Players were able to log onto test servers and even meet with the staff of Club Penguin for the time being. While doing so, they were to repeat what was done in 2005, report bugs! The project went on till July, and all participants were given red hard hats. The improvements included Penguin Mail, Big screen, better playercard options, friend list tweaks, and of course a new website design! Club Penguin was moving on from the past with update, and it was noticable. Disney had a lot of faith in Club Penguin. In 2008, CP also celebrated their success in progress by hosting a 3rd year anniversary party in the middle of Time Square. It was a real life anniversary as the virtual one was going on at the same time. Participants were given party hats and got to meet Billybob. As it was special representing Disney hosting Club Penguin throughout 2008, it was clarified the biggest Anniversary party in Club Penguin history. Comparing this to the previous  years, Club Penguin was now known world wide and their campaign wouldn't halt then. Disney continued adding stuff to CP, with Nintendo DS games like Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force. This games allowed penguins to link both accounts and transfer things like coins and PSA codes. 

Disney's Club Penguin: Takeovers

Besides being a success, Disney wanted to give the game another boost. In 2012, Disney teamed up with Marvel for  ‘Marvel Super Hero Takeover” the fist of the Sponsor Parties. The response from the fans was incredible. It was the first of its kind, and the sponsored events continued. In the following years, Disney would make Monsters University, Star Wars, The Muppets, and even Frozen takeovers. The list continues, as the parties tend to be very large and full of excitement. Billybob actually stated that the team had to work extra long hours for such event, and the effort paid off by getting many responses from companies like USA Today. By 2012, parties had some pretty interesting storyline to back up what was happening. The event was important in the fact that nobody has ever seen such a concept, let alone even thought of these two companies collaborating. Disney had the right idea with business and merged it perfectly with user enjoyment. The year is notable for returning every mascot from January to December, which shows Disney started to listen to their fan’s requests because of their registered Twitter and Facebook accounts, which were primarily to interact more with the users.

   However  all good things come to an end. Billybob, as well as Happy77, two of the original founders of Club Penguin, decided it was time to leave their staff positions. Both of the moderators posted on the blog about them leaving in October 2012. Billybob stated that he’ll be moving on after 7 incredible years, and stated Spike Hike, another veteran user of the game, would be the CP's new CEO (Chief Executive Officer.)  The community lost their minds with the idea. "A new CEO? That’s crazy! That's Wrong!"  was basically what every user was thinking. This showed how much the users cared about CP. The same month, Spike hike made his introduction on the blog, he showed his past experience and his motivation to make Club Penguin even better. The community quickly adapted to Spike Hike, and he eventually joined social media to get a closer relationship with users. Polo Field as well became famous, though he had known the team for a bit before. Both would eventually become the present day pioneers of the virtual world and have been big ever since. This shows how times change in the gaming world, and the only way to go now is up.

The year of controversy, 2013. This year came with some more sponsored parties, but is most notable for starting discovery of many new puffle species. Most of the parties had special puffles that came with them for users to collect. Puffles weren't never really expanded until this year, from dinosaur puffles to the mythical gold puffle. Many things were updated in 2013, this would otherwise remain un-popular things. They did not only expand puffles, but the concept of EPF was expanded with new parties with the agency as the main part, this helped recruit more penguins to become agents. They were great strategies and it really levelled out all of the traits of the game. The team was mostly renewed with new employees but managed to keep the same concept of the old Club Penguin, however this changed as the year went on. Many old timers were upset with Club Penguin’s drastic change. 

   The graphics of Club Penguin were always been simple, quickly sketched. Users enjoyed such concept. In 2013, Club Penguin completely replaced all of this with a new art style, because it looked more presentable. Even though it was for the better, it started some protests because users argued that the visual nostalgia is non-existent. The graphics remained the same for many years because there was no point in replacing them, though like said above,  all good things come to an end. Screenhog had already left and the new art style was thoroughly based on his. This controversy was really the only main negative input by the users, so since 2013 the team does casual throw backs to the previous generation to level things out. Later that year, Disney would close an incredible amount of their games to focus only on Club Penguin and its future. The list included Toontown, Pirates online, and Pixie Hollow. .

In may 2013, CP certainly changed the game with the launching of the app version of CP, only titled My Penguin. It allows users to log in via an iPhone or iPad (at the time of it's launch) and check on their penguin as well as log onto selected servers for the app. The difference in these servers is that the models of the penguins and as well as all of the animations were re-done and given a 3d model and player sprite. This was of course the start of something new: App friendly computer games! The app was incredible due to its compatibility with other languages including English, French, Portuguese, Russian, German, and Spanish, which are all available on the actual virtual world itself as well. Club Penguin was really successful in getting users to download the app by linking many item delivery systems between the computer itself and the app. Games like sushi drop allowed players to unlock “rare” items that will instantly transfer to the player’s inventory for future wear. Going through some name changes, the app remained and introduced many more apps.

While reaching 10 years looks easy , comparing 2005 Club Penguin with the present day one would seem as if they are two different games, in both a feature and a graphic way! Mind the decreasing views per month, Club Penguin remains the most prominent online game in the business at the moment. The game has gone a long way, testing to testing, the 10 year journey isn't necessarily the end. More years are promised in the game, and as Screenhog stated in his post (you can see , it might just go on generation for generation. 2014 – 2015 really adjusted the concepts of parties and app friendly versions of the game, introducing multiple Club Penguin related mobile games. The ideas of parties covering the island would be cut short due to the effort of story-line add-ons but a neat task system would eventually be added to cover-up the loss. The Disney team won’t stop continuing Club Penguin’s journey as the game is now a walking inspiration. By 2015 Club Penguin would have the largest staff its had, as well as a stable viewer rate and net worth.

I think it’s time for some inspiration and origin of Club Penguin details, what exactly struck the idea to Lance? 15 Years ago, Lance was employed at New Horizon Interactive. Lance had the idea of creating a mass snowball war game involving penguins, but a comic of a penguin slipping on a banana peel would surely verify that he should form the game. Lance recruited his fellow co-worker at New Horizon Interactive to help him out on the idea. That co-worker was Lane Merrifield, better known as Billybob. It was time to consult the boss, Dave. Dave was the go-to at the time, and he said they can go fourth. Experimental Penguins was formed and was really simple yet exciting as Rocketsnail knew it would be something big, but they needed a bigger idea. The two found penguins easy to draw so the concept of penguins was kept. Some may not know that Rocketsnail went through multiple chats. From Crab Chat to TV Chat, he went through them all. Imagine reading this based in “Club Television”! After penguin chats, Lance Priebe would then be watching the news in 2004 and would get an idea for their next game; Club Penguin. As they say, the rest is history!

Inspiration

Inspiration has always played a huge part in the development of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMO), so it isn't a surprise that CP would keep the inspiration and turn them into simple Easter eggs and references! One of the most known references in the MMO is the simple Hydro hopper located at the Dock. When entering, your penguin is placed on a tube directed by a boat and you must dodge objects within the lake to not crash. This game is actually a reference to the 1999 Ballistic Biscuit by Rocketsnail games. Throughout the years CP would keep this Easter egg concept, it showed humour within the staff and fun within the game, and those are two important key factors in an MMO. The staff is great at it too, even rumours formed by fans around the island aren't safe. With the Ice berg tipping mumbo jumbo, the CP team insists that the ice berg can be tipped!

STAFF

Blogging has always been a vital part of CP’s communication with its users, and Holly Hildebrandt (Happy77) , really got to know the users for the many years that she blogged on the What’s New Blog alongside Lane (Billybob). Joining the team in Penguin Chat 3, her account was neat in a way that her user sprite was known to be a large green snail at times, a reference to rsnail’s logo persona. Happy77 made her first appearance in December 15, 2008 on the blog. Though some may not know, she was very new to the blogging hobby. Moderators like Polo Field and BusinessMoose helped her pick up some blogging skills along the way. Though she left the team in October of 2012, you can still find her giving tours around the Club Penguin headquarters. 

The stats are quite vast within the 10 years but searches started to pick up in late 2006 and boomed in late 2007 due to Disney’s ownership. You can, going back to Coins For Change, tell the system really helped the virtual world as the peak was instantaneous with Coins for Change 2010. Population was booming so more servers were called for in case of overflow. Minding the population boom, you could tell Club Penguin got a good start on their networth in 2010 following coins for change and the first few commercials on select channels.

Community

The community also deserves some recognition. I've been around the community for about 6 years now, but really joined the social media side in late 2010 and I realized that CP makes talents! Blogging, Coding, Designing, etc, There's talent in great suggestions and even CPMVs (Club Penguin Music Videos). The earliest was of course the fan blogs, though they may not seem much they really showed devotion and enjoyment of the game. From Drawing Pixel Penguins in paint to designing a complete fan blog, users have always found a way to show their talents.

The fullest extent that the enjoyment of the game is in the community. Websites like ClubpenguinMemories and Monchocho (retired) remain after multiple years of blogging and it really helped Club Penguin’s user rate and even its business overall due to it being the focal point in these so called ads, so it being about the users isn't all that far fetched. That’s one of the things that made me stick to Club Penguin, the relationship between users and developers is quite strong and it really influenced other games to enforce the same with their users. It’s quite impressing to think that our virtual world is turning 10 because it doesn't seem like it. 

Club Penguin has thought me that dreams are valid and friendships are valuable, it thought me about blogging, designing, and even a bit of coding! It’s been ten years and Club Penguin still stands, and there is no doubt by the looks of it that the game might just tear down a couple more years. So there’s to ten to even fifteen years of memories, memories that we’ll carry with us in our adulthood,  even though it is in the shape of a virtual penguin sprite. Some memories will perish, but memories will keep waddling with us. Club Penguin is been my childhood and I could never let it go. I know I count with the community whenever, because we're not like other game community's, we're a family, and families don't ever leave one of their members behind. CP created this awesome community! Now lets #SaveClubPenguin!

-Topopato