Disney Online's Mike Goslin on the merits of child-friendly MMO games |
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Disney went against the grain of the conventional MMO game genre when it introduced Disney's Toontown Online in 2003. This wholesome online game caters to the younger audiences and offers them a violence-free and fun atmosphere to interact with other players as they explore the world through a variety of mini-games and kid-friendly dialogue options.Mike Goslin, the vice president of Disney Online's VR Studio, recently talked about the merits of the game and how the company means to follow through with its success with its newer MMORPG title Pirates of the Caribbean Online.
The biggest challenge was to present to younger gamers a persistent world that's both safe yet compelling at the same time. To do this, the developers patterned the world of Toontown on existing theme parks designed by Walt Disney Imagineering. The objective was to give online gamers the feel of living through a virtual reality theme park that would translate well for the Disney audience.
There were a lot of child safety features put in the game, including slapstick humor "combat" instead of real fighting, as well as pre-set menu of chat options to avoid any unnecessary PG-13 language in front of the kids.
Surprisingly enough, the game had a strong following during its release and some reports estimated that Toontown had almost 1.2 million subscribed players.
Goslin ended by mentioning that they wanted to follow through with this kind of compelling gameplay for younger gamers. With the recent success of the Pirates of the Caribbean series of films, he hopes that this may spell another chance for Disney to ride the wave towards another successful MMO property.
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