Not Far From It Now

At the time of Club Penguin's acquisition, there were 12 million registered users, with about 700,000 of these paying subscribers. Each of them paid an average of $6 monthly, bringing the monthly subscription revenue of Club Penguin to an approximate 4.2 million dollars. To top it off Club Penguin was also making money off virtual goods and online merchandise. For a 3 man team sharing that amount of dough per month that's pretty good money!

Disney's acquisition was a cash payment of $350 million and an opportunity to earn out an additional $350 million between the time of acquisition and 2009. This simply threw the world into frenzy.

Suddenly the folks who were already in the virtual world business began examining how they could emulate Club Penguin's success. Folks who were in the gaming business decided to get a piece of the virtual world business. Folks who were not in either industry but in the tech business decided to invest in virtual world R&D. Folks who had no idea how to go about this and had no money to invest could only look on.

One year later, there is still speculation whether there would ever be another Club Penguin, or whether there is already the next Club Penguin waiting to be procured. In the wake of the economy downturn, is it even possible for any company to fork out extravagant amounts of cash to procure a piece of virtual real estate these days

Today, there are several promising virtual worlds for kids on the internet, all with impressive membership stats and equally impressive Alexa rankings. But Club Penguin is currently still top of the game.

But how long more will Club Penguin stay at the top of its game? Is Club Penguin already waning in its popularity or will it remain champion for another few good years?

In spite of these questions and uncertainties, one thing is for certain.

There are dozens of virtual worlds for kids hot at the heels of Club Penguin, and one of them may just be the next Club Penguin.

This article was contributed by Aldric Chang - a creative businessman who is active in music composition and production, internet marketing, casual games production, animation production, cartoon production and character licensing. His 3d animation studio - Mediafreaks - is focused on producing high-end animation work for documentary producers, advertising houses and cartoon animated series - with projects ranging from the animation of dinosaurs to the visualization of natural disasters and something as chic as 3d jewelry animations.

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