Hey, it's Intrxting and I will tell you the true history of Club Penguin.
The beginning
In 1999, rsnail started work on "Experimental Penguins." rsnail made Experimental Penguins as a test to see if then-called "Macromedia Flash 4," now called "Adobe Flash" can make multiplayer games. He released it in 2000, and it won several awards. But, the server was buggy, and rsnail didn't have the money to keep running it, so he shut it down a year after it started.
In 2001, rsnail tried making a new game based on penguins. But, he was interrupted by companies who wanted character chats on their websites. The team made several, including "Crab Chat," which was Experimental Penguins, but with a theme based on crabs.
In early 2003, Penguin Chat was released, more commonly known as "Penguin Chat 2." More than a million penguins played the game by 2004. It was a major success.
Development is underway
In late 2004, rsnail had an idea to create a world that was safe for kids to play. He wrote a four-page document, explaining the reasons he would make it. He had three challenges:
How to build a server that could handle thousands of players? My current server could not handle more than 100 simultaneous connections.
How do you make the world “safe”?
How do you generate income? This game was going to be very expensive to operate.
Penguin Chat 3 was made to test out the server and client for the new game that would eventually be called "Club Penguin." Many people played, and it was very successful, like the original Penguin Chat.
While he developed Penguin Chat 3, he was working part-time for a man named Dave Krysko (CP name: Gizmo) at New Horizon Productions. Krysko hired Lane Merrifield (CP name: Billybob,) to help sell the game. rsnail was developing Club Penguin each Friday, and he wanted to launch in 2010. Merrifield encouraged Krysko to fast track the project, and New Horizon Interactive was born.
Chris Hendricks (CP name: Screenhog) was hired to help with designing Club Penguin, rsnail's brother was hired to create the database and support tools (which he did from Belize,) and rsnail himself developed the client and server.
On August 22, 2005, beta testing for Club Penguin began. 15,000 people were selected to test Club Penguin for the first time. During beta testing, they held a party which gave out the first Party Hat, also known as the Beta Hat. And that's where the idea for parties came from.
The game launches
On October 24, 2005, Club Penguin launches. By March of 2006, 1,000,000 people join. The CP team couldn't keep up with the demands, and rsnail completely re-wrote Club Penguin 3 times that year. In 2007 the game was growing so quickly, with over 12 million penguins, something had to be done.
Disney gives the game a new dimension
On August 1, 2007, Disney announced that they would buy Club Penguin. Club Penguin under Disney created toys, games, parties, and other new things to explore. Now, over 100 million penguins are registered on Club Penguin. Club Penguin was a great example of a start-up that hit gold.
~Intrxting
Credits go to http://www.rocketsnail.com for the information.
