According to Holzberg, the new pitch leaned heavily on its value to sell tickets to Disney parks. After being introduced to Sulake, who were attempting to expand beyond their breakout service Habbo Hotel (now Habbo), they collaborated on a pitch demo set in Adventureland. Holzberg and Dobson reunited at Imagineering, then were recruited separately for a new Parks and Resorts Online unit around 2003. The work on the Fantasyland portion was repurposed into the 1999 game Disney's Villains' Revenge. The game was developed from 1996 to 1998, but was ultimately cancelled. The project was overseen by Roger Holzberg.
In this iteration, which was the first to be called Virtual Magic Kingdom, a stylized park would be overrun by villains during a special after-hours visit. In 1995, Disney Interactive greenlit a pitch from Imagineering art director Terry Dobson to create a CD-ROM adventure game set at a Disney theme park. The VMK homepage now redirects to the main Disney games site. This prompted Disney to post a message on the VMK homepage that the game was a promotion, and was closed, and that there were "no plans" to reopen VMK in any form. Many fans asked Disney if VMK was going to reopen. Virtual Magic Kingdom was closed by Disney on May 21, 2008. Because of the need for human monitors, the time that the game was open had to be limited it was open to the public daily between 7:00am–10:00pm PST (10:00am–1:00am EST, 3:00pm–6:00am UTC). Due to the young age of the game's target users, it was patrolled by paid staff who watched out for inappropriate behavior and language. The target audience of the game was children between the ages of 8 and 14, although VMK was designed to be enjoyed by guests of all ages. Despite no long-term intentions, it gained popularity and eventually became a long-term venture on its own. VMK initially launched as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth promotional campaign, commemorating Disneyland's 50th anniversary. The beta version opened publicly on May 23, 2005, with new lands opening up through 2007. It was a virtual representation of the Disneyland-style theme parks, containing areas and minigames which were based on real park scenery and attractions. Virtual Magic Kingdom, also known as VMK, was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Sulake and published by The Walt Disney Company. Fiona Romeo, Seth Mendelsohn, Jeremy Malillin
0 kommentar(er)
