Disney announced today that users have created nearly 2.5 million personalized fairies at DisneyFairies.com. While announcing its acquisition of Club Penguin yesterday, Disney also let out that it intends to convert the avatar-based site into a virtual world. Earlier in the week we reported on the relationship between simple, avatar-based platforms and full-on virtual worlds. It's profitable, and Disney seems to be taking notice. With Club Penguin's 4 million unique users, ToonTown's 1.165 million users, and the upcoming DGamer platform for Nintendo DS, Disney is quickly shaping up to be the major player in children's virtual worlds. Even if you assume only one-third of those fairies were created by unique users, that still puts Disney's current numbers at close to 6 million. That's not to mention Pirates of the Caribbean Online, the more traditional MMOG currently in beta. Sure, the numbers go down when you look only at subscribers, but for advertising and brand awareness, Disney is the 300-pound gorilla in the room.
One of the most interesting sections of the release that's been passed over in the excitement about Club Penguin is that Disney is planning to create a hub for all its online properties:
Strategically, Disney plans to develop a Disney-branded connected entertainment network that allows users to access Disney-branded content, including virtual worlds and Disney.com games and videos, any time and anywhere, as well as communicate with each other across platforms, through a Web-based hub connected with PCs and mobile devices such as cell phones and game platforms.
That sounds like what DGamer is doing specifically with Nintendo DS games, only expanded. Comscore was already placing Disney.com at 20 million unique users per month in July. Connecting hugely popular platforms like Club Penguin and Disney Fairies with IP like Pirates of the Carribean might make it one of the most popular sites for children, teenagers, and adults.
It sounds like an initiative MTV and Nickelodeon announced earlier this month. The Viacom companies will be investing $100 million over the next two years in casual games and virtual worlds.
When Michael Cai wrote that Parks Associates expects branded worlds to become even more popular in the coming years, he might have been better to look for just the coming months.
Comments