The entire millennial generation can remember huddling over the family’s communal desktop as we scrounged around the internet for new games. Usually, we found ourselves on the go-to website for all kids in elementary school — Club Penguin. We named our penguins, waddled around in our virtual igloo homes and interacted with strangers on a platform meant for fun. In middle school we moved onto instant messaging. In high school we infrequently checked in to see if our school’s servers blocked Club Penguin as a form of procrastination. As we got older, we eventually forgot about our tuxedo-wearing online profiles, but the game will always hold a special place in our hearts.
On Tuesday, Club Penguin confirmed that the original web browser game is being taken down, according to an article from USA TODAY. The site will shut down on March 29, but a new application for mobile devices is in the works called Club Penguin Island. This is pretty much a final farewell to our childhoods.
Club Penguin belonged to our generation. The game’s peak of popularity was during the millennial’s childhood. It’s surprising that a gaming platform created 11 years ago was able to stay afloat for such a long period of time, especially when platforms of the same kind faded off long ago. There’s a significant feeling of nostalgia that overcomes millennials when they think of the hours spent on Club Penguin after school. It was one of the most popular trends of our childhood which is now attempting to adapt to the age of iPads and iPhones. This evolution is inevitable in our ever-changing, gadget-obsessed world.
Club Penguin was a step before we completely immersed ourselves in the world of social media. Tweens of this generation don’t stop to take that pause anymore – they jump headfirst into an Instagram or Facebook account at the ages of 12 or 13. This is not to say that Club Penguin was the first form of social media we used or can be compared to current platforms like Facebook. However, the website was our gateway into constant posts, likes and comments. The grace period of online games and interactive virtual worlds no longer exists.
There is something to be said for the social aspect of Club Penguin and how it prepared us for the complete takeover of social media. The generation after us is going straight to personal details and profile pictures while our first step was being a penguin. In this way, the generation gap is extremely evident. When millennials were entering middle school, Facebook was an entirely new concept that seemed intimidating. Nowadays tweens are already so informed on the platform that it isn’t strange for them to be making profiles before their teenage years.
Club Penguin appealed to children because it was safe, it was censored and other than the one troublemaker in your class that would post expletives just to be kicked off, it was innocent. It was a trend, which one way or the other, came to an end. Facebook’s longevity cannot be compared because it’s always changing, evolving to the needs and expectations of the technologically savvy. Club Penguin was a part of our childhood and we were their target consumers. As we grew older, we no longer fit into the mold that was targeted by the website. The game is being forced to evolve because although we loved it, the kids of this new generation will not be satisfied by animated penguins racing on ice or trying to dodge snowballs.
Kids are glued to their mobile devices. Even before age five, children have an understanding of apps and iPads. Club Penguin’s transformation from a website to a mobile application is showing that it is capable of evolving with highly technological and screen-obsessed younger generation. We played Club Penguin on desktop computers and Pokémon on our Game Boys, but now a cell phone is used for anything and everything. Kids have their eyes glued to the screen, whether it is in their own home or out at a restaurant. They don’t have to leave their desktops plugged in at home to get a break from the virtual world. Club Penguin, as all games must do, is evolving with its customers.
