If you weren’t a Club Penguin kid, can you even say you were cool?
Club Penguin was a multiplayer online game founded by Lance Priebe and co-founded by Lane Merrifield and Dave Krysko under New Horizon Interactive, an interactive graphics software company. However, Club Penguin’s lore runs deeper than that.
Priebe wanted to create an online game for children based on penguins playing an online snowball war game. Merrifield encouraged Priebe to create this virtual world, and Krysko, their boss at New Horizon, gave permission to proceed.
Priebe created the website RocketSnail Games to begin experimenting with his idea. He launched Experimental Penguins in 2000. Penguin Chat 2 and Penguin Chat 3 were later launched in 2003, following beta testing, which solidified the base for Club Penguin’s launch later on.
Club Penguin was officially launched in October 2005 and was purchased by Disney in August 2007. Club Penguin ran from 2005 to 2017, after Disney decided to discontinue the game in favor of their new app, Club Penguin Island.
True Club Penguin fans will tell you that Club Penguin Island was not a hit (I agree, it sucked). Disney suffered a lot of backlash from this decision, finally shutting down Club Penguin Island a year later due to low engagement.
I'm missing gaps in Club Penguin's history, but if I discussed everything, we'd be here all day. The point I’m making is that the game was highly influential, as it ran for many years and had a lot of diehard fans.
Disney Channel, back in the 2010s, would advertise to get players on, and there were themed parties (like the Prehistoric party, April Fools party, and Christmas party, to name a few) where the island was decked out. Players could dress up their penguins, chat with other penguins, decorate their igloos, play fun mini games, and earn stamps (Bean Counters, Catchin’ Waves, Pizzatron 3000, and so much more), or adopt puffles (if you know, you know).
They had mascots with their storylines and interests, like Aunt Arctic, Gary the Gadget Guy, Rockhopper, DJ Cadence, and more. My favorite was Aunt Arctic–I had a stuffed plushie of her growing up. It’s funny looking back because she was a journalist, and I’m studying journalism. She was also Editor-in-Chief of Club Penguin’s newspaper, The Penguin Times. Little did I know, my future was somewhat written out for me: I used to send letters to the editor, begging her to let me write.
There was even themed music for different rooms, such as the Pizza Parlor, the Pet Shop, and the Town, and parties (as I mentioned above) in Club Penguin. They also released songs by their Penguin Band, such as "Party In My Iggy," "Gotta Have a Wingman," and more. My personal favorite was the Night Club’s music.
Sometime in 2013, I signed up for Club Penguin after I heard many fun things about it from my friends in elementary school. Little did I know that I would become obsessed (that is an understatement).
Every Friday, I would rush home from school to hop on my computer to play. I would either decorate my igloo, play mini-games, or hang out with my penguin friends that I made. And to be honest, I did this every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for YEARS. It was something I looked forward to for a long time.
Now and again, I think about how today’s kids (Gen Alpha) don’t get to experience something as simple as that, in a world of new technology. They have iPad addictions, obsessions with Sephora/being an adult, and they love skibidi toilet TikTok memes (that make no sense to us Gen Z’s).
Club Penguin was an innocent game–it took measures to keep children safe online, and I can say it shaped my childhood for the better, as it allowed me to be creative in an online space. I loved decorating my igloos and designing my penguins’ outfits. It taught me how to be respectful of the penguins I met on the island, fostering friendship and care.
It molded me into who I am today, even though that sounds silly, but I am serious! I had a lot of anxiety as a child, and Club Penguin was my outlet to relieve those feelings. I’m grateful I had it as an escape, because the memories of it still sit in my head nine years later.
When I thought about writing this opinion piece, I thought of an old friend of mine named Noah, whom I met on Club Penguin when I was nine. Somehow, through maybe God’s grace, we remained in contact on-and-off in the years since the shutdown. I told him I was writing this piece and asked if he could provide a comment on how the game had shaped him. This was his response:
“I played Club Penguin pretty religiously as a kid when I was in 2nd grade all the way up to when it shut down its servers during my first year of middle school,” Noah wrote.
He continued: “The game was an important social outlet and means of self-expression for me in my formative years: I am a first-generation American, and I always felt like there was some part of me that the other kids in my orbit didn’t quite get. Club Penguin allowed me to build an international community of online friends built on tolerance and empathy, which has shaped the stronger and more confident person that I am today.”
Although I did yap about the contents of the game, I do agree with Noah’s point. There was something about the game that shaped both of us into who we are today. If you think it’s silly that an online game shaped us, just think about how games like that don’t exist anymore.
We were lucky enough to have played these games at a different time in our lives. This game shaped me, and for that, I'm grateful I played for all those years.
I don’t know what I would’ve done with my life (as dramatic as that sounds), without Club Penguin (who knows, I might not have been chasing journalism dreams like Aunt Arctic).
Dominique Mercadante is the head editor of The Setonian’s Campus Life section. She can be reached at dominique.mercadante@student.shu.edu.
