Disney Shuts Down Club Penguin Remake, Police Seize Website
The fan-made MMO remake Club Penguin Rewritten was shut down earlier this week. Based on the original Club Penguin owned by Disney, the game went live the same year as the shut down of that original title in 2017 seeking to fill the void left for fans of the nostalgia-inducing multiplayer game.
Club Penguin was a kid-friendly casual MMO originally developed and launched by New Horizon Interactive in 2005 and later bought by Disney in 2007, and the fan homage to the original game had amassed more than 140,000 members on its Discord channel. Games like Club Penguin, Neopets, and Gaia hold a nostalgic place for older gamers, with many of the platforms used as the original way to communicate with friends online. There was even a possibility Neopets would release for the Nintendo Switch in 2021. However, as the internet has developed and social media has become more prevalent, these sites have either seen large changes or permanent shutdowns.
Related: Nothing Can Kill Neopets (Not Even the Death Of Adobe Flash)
As reported by TechCrunch, Club Penguin Rewritten has been shut down at the request of Disney. The City of London Police has taken control of the game's website as well as its social media accounts and other assets as part of an ongoing investigation which has already resulted in the arrest of three individuals suspected to be involved with the game. The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) of the City of London Police issued a statement regarding the game's takedown, indicating it was acting on a complaint filed due to copyright law and that multiple arrests had already been made. The statement goes on to clarify that the suspects had been "released under investigation and to aid with the police
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