Sanrio Launches Hello Kitty World
Sanrio Digital announced today the launch of a closed beta for a virtual world based on its incredibly popular Hello Kitty brand. Hello Kitty Online will feature locations based on the Flower Kingdom, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow and more. Integrated with the community portal of Sanrio Town, the world will have ties to blogs, email, video sharing, and Sanrio merchandise sales as well as NPCs based on the characters of the Hello Kitty world. While the world seems to have a large social component, it's being billed as an MMORPG with customizable avatars, guilds, skill systems, and a player economy. There's combat and puzzle solving, but also crafting, houses to customize, and puzzles. Targeted at females in their pre-teens to twenties, the downloadable world is free to play, but will monetize off of the Item Mall, which "allows players to use real money to purchase special items and upgrades for characters."
Did anyone notice they ask for a LOT of information when initially signing up???
That's a TON of personal identification info without parental approval. (Do they really need to know how much income I make?? Weird and slightly creepy)
Granted U13's are not allowed to sign up at this time-- of course they don't tell you that until AFTER the info is provided... I hope they quickly delete that stuff and do not store it. Imbee & Doll Palace both had to answer to Coppa for that one...
Anyone else have thoughts or information on that?
Posted by: Izzy Neis | February 13, 2008 at 11:46 AM
I've signed up through the community of Sanrio Town, but they're apparently linked. So if the virtual world is part of the community portal, is there going to be a move to help protect the users?
I'm just curious. There could be a way to bridge VWs to portals without taking advantage of younger users, or exposing them to an environment not meant for them. (Seems to be what people are trying to do with youth-oriented widget/applications open for various social networking platforms.
Posted by: Izzy Neis | February 13, 2008 at 12:02 PM
The best way to keep riff raff out, is to make it Non English. Non usa to be more specific. Meet me has done this, and I agree with their strategy. Hopefully they keep it NOT in English.
Posted by: Mistermr | February 13, 2008 at 03:27 PM
Has anyone emailed/contacted them to let them know?
My intuition tells me they don't realize they are on shaky US law ground. Looks like they just used an out-of-the-box middle-ware for registration. Especially given the fact they ask for income level.
I bet if one of us good Samaritans let them know, they would change the input fields. They DID just launch...
Posted by: Joi Podgorny | February 14, 2008 at 09:34 AM