MMO virtual worlds: A fallen giant

By Jonathon Redden

Moshi Monsters logo. Moshi monsters hit it’s peak player base of 10 million in 2009

Do you remember Club Penguin or Moshi Monsters? Would it surprise you if I told you that they are both shut forever? Yes, your virtual pet and their friends, all the money you made, and all the cool items you bought over the years are nothing but a pile of rubble now. But it doesn’t matter because you haven’t played these games in quite a few years, right? They were all part of the era of MMO virtual worlds.

All these games followed the same formula: create and customise an avatar, decorate your own home, play games, build a friend list, and hopefully enjoy the game enough to buy a monthly membership which grants additional features and ways to play.

At the time, these were great fun, from choosing a username you regretted a few weeks after, to angering your pet for overfeeding them after spending all your virtual money on food. it was a great alternative to Facebook for children to interact with friends online.

Chat rooms are considered to be the first virtual world but Club Penguin, whose origins trace back to 2000, revolutionised the concept by inspiring dozens of very similar titles including Moshi Monsters, Panfu, Bin Weevils, MiniMonos and Horrible Histories World.

In 2007, Club Penguin was acquired by Disney who expanded the franchise through the launch of toys, mobile spin-offs and Nintendo-licensed console games and by 2013, a whopping 200 million penguins had been created. Meanwhile, Mind Candy’s Moshi Monsters was signing record deals, toy deals and releasing a theatrical movie.

Club Penguin closed in 2017 due to low player numbers, followed by Moshi Monsters in 2019. What on earth happened? As players seemingly grew tired of the virtual world concept, the developers for both Club Penguin and Moshi attempted to continue the brand on mobile to keep up with the times, but lack of interest showed that penguins or monsters were no longer the word on the street, and the two companies moved onto other ventures. The only notable surviving virtual worlds are Animal Jam and MovieStarPlanet.

Social media can be blamed for the fall of MMO virtual worlds. The 2010s saw the invention of Instagram and Snapchat which proved to be popular with younger audiences compared to Facebook, and smartphones (which includes smartphone games) were becoming a preferred everyday device over computers.

Mobile gaming has became a very popular choice for game developers due to the low costs and quick development time

A study online suggested that the genre was relying too much on ads to make money – ads which never offered any new or exciting gameplay and instead appeared tacky and unappealing to players. This was the go-to method for keeping things fresh and any small change made to the game that wasn’t an advert required a £5-a-month subscription which was never going to be worth it.

The idea of socialising in a colourful and fantastical point-and-click world was an exciting concept for a couple of years, but one cannot deny that the novelty simply wore off and the genre offered nothing game-changing enough over the years to keep it fresh.

I believe that Club Penguin and all the virtual world giants should have capitalised on their success during their peak and planned for the future of the brand beyond computer gaming, rather than watch the player numbers fall for a few years and then panic and chant “Abracadabra... mobile game. However, this era is one that can be looked back on positively from the fun it created.