For Walt Disney Co., the task of opening a virtual version of Disneyland on the Web was relatively easy. Closing it, though, is proving to be quite a bit more difficult, thanks to the wrath of obsessive fans of Disney's theme parks. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Disneyland in 2005, Walt Disney launched a free online game called Virtual Magic Kingdom whose look and layout mimics Disneyland's. Users created avatars and explored the online park's various regions, such as Tomorrowland and Main Street; chatted with other users; and participated in online promotions that crossed over into real-life activities at the company's resorts in California and Florida. Disney's notoriously obsessive fans got deeply into this. On Wednesday night, however, Disney plans to throw everyone out of VMK and lock the gates -- erasing their online profiles, lives and collections of virtual trinkets and real estate. Disney says it never intended the 50th-anniversary promotion to run this long, but money is also a factor: Virtual Magic Kingdom is free, and full access to Disney's other online game sites -- like Club Penguin and Toontown -- costs as much as $9.95 a month in the case of Toontown. On Wednesday night, however, Disney plans to throw everyone out of VMK and lock the gates -- erasing their online profiles, lives and collections of virtual trinkets and real estate. Disney says it never intended the 50th-anniversary promotion to run this long, but money is also a factor: Virtual Magic Kingdom is free, and full access to Disney's other online game sites -- like Club Penguin and Toontown -- costs as much as $9.95 a month in the case of Toontown.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124116733805445.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124116733805445.html
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