Remember spending your Friday nights as a penguin online during your tween years? Club Penguin was a beautiful place for all of us -- filled with snowball fights, puffles and messing with people you didn't even know. That dream is coming to a close after many years. Club Penguin has announced they are closing their virtual doors on March 29, 2017.
Opening in 2005, the site allowed you to create an avatar as a penguin and do things like play games, create homes, adopt a pet, chat or explore the island. The company sold to Disney in 2007 for $700 million dollars.
This closure is bittersweet for many millennials, as we were the first ones to grow up with computer games and learned to socialize through them. Though we had other options like Webkinz and Toontown, Club Penguin was the one that never seemed to disappoint -- the one game that everyone could agree on.
It's not the end, though. The company has announced they are moving toward mobile with a new remake called "Club Penguin Island." The app is targeted toward modern-day children (and college kids forever -- let's be real) and will launch sometime in March, though no exact date has been set. The remake will stand on its own -- no accounts, coins or super awesome igloos can transfer over to the new game.
We don't know much else about the game, but I'm hoping it will still have many of the awesome minigames that the original had. Remember skiing down the slope with your friends early on Saturday mornings? Those were the good ol' days. I'd be more than willing to procrastinate adult responsibilities to play the remake on my phone.
Will the fact that it's an app give it a short lifespan? Will it just be a fad like Pokémon Go? Hopefully Disney can pull this one off, but the fact that they need to shut down the site must be a tell that the site is starting to plummet and needed a modern twist.
Too excited to wait until March? Club Penguin Island is now offering pre-registration so you can get the penguin name you want, come March. If you do, you get special items when the game launches! Check it out on the pre-registration page!
