Club Penguin
Club Penguin was a game where you could create and customize your own penguin avatar and play in a virtual world with other players. The virtual world was themed around the Antarctic and had different areas to explore, such as the Town, the Plaza, the Ski Village, the Cove, and the Iceberg. You could also adopt pets called puffles, which had different colors and personalities.
In Club Penguin, you could play various mini-games, such as Cart Surfer, Jet Pack Adventure, Puffle Roundup, and Aqua Grabber. These games allowed you to earn coins, which you could use to buy items for your penguin and your igloo. You could also chat with other players, send them postcards, join parties, and participate in events.
Club Penguin was founded by Lance Priebe, Lane Merrifield, and Dave Krysko as New Horizon Interactive in 2005. It was acquired by Disney in 2007 for $350 million, and became one of the most popular online games for children. At its peak, it had over 200 million registered accounts and 12 million active monthly users.
However, Club Penguin started to decline in popularity and revenue in the 2010s, due to the rise of mobile gaming, social media, and other online platforms. Disney decided to shut down Club Penguin in 2017 and replace it with a mobile-only version called Club Penguin Island. Club Penguin Island was also unsuccessful and closed in 2018.
After Club Penguin's closure, some fans created unofficial versions of the game, called private servers, that replicated the original game or added new features. Some of these private servers, such as Club Penguin Online and Club Penguin Rewritten, became very popular and attracted millions of players. However, some of these private servers also faced legal issues, hacking attacks, and controversies over inappropriate content and behavior.