In 2012 fans of Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom were teased with the idea of resurrecting that much beloved MMO. Instead, they got VMKRevisited, a flash recreation of the environment, but no game-play. Alas, VMK was only the first Disney themed MMO to close. Disney eventually closed them all including: Pixie Hollow, Pirates, and ToonTown Online.
Earlier this month, a fan-led volunteer effort to recreate ToonTown MMO came to fruition. It’s not exactly the same, but ToonTown Rewritten does have MMO game-play and a very similar look and feel. It just doesn’t have Disney characters like Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse.
A story in Bloomberg news talks with some of the team who helped bring the game back to life and explores some of the ramifications for Disney and the re-incarnated game.
“Whether to allow Toontown Rewritten to continue is a tricky decision for Disney. If the company lets Ziolkowski and his collaborators keep going, it builds goodwill with fans. On the other hand, Disney may want to sell the content in the future, and the company could suffer reputational damage if something bad happens to players online…”
What do you think Disney should do?
I think Disney should allow them to remake the game and keep it open.
These students have been working hard on this game almost non-stop for about NINE months now. Dedication like that deserves some appreciation.
Seeing as they are not going to charge people for the game, I don’t see what the problem is with them being able to keep it open to the public. They’re already taking out the main Disney characters, isn’t that enough? Not only that, but they don’t even accept donations. The entire staff of Toontown Rewritten is made up of about a dozen people who are high school and college, so they have been paying out of their own wallets to keep this game going.
I only ask Disney to look into their hearts rather than their wallets at the situation and allow them to continue working on and soon release Toontown Rewritten to the public.
Last fall an almost fully functioning VMK did open allowing character creation, game play, and more. I know links are sketchy but just search VMK on google and the new site/game should pop up it’s called “My VMK”
Excited to try this toontown version though!
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