Disney Closing 3 of It's Online games

Disney Closing 3 of Its Online Games

On September 19^th, 2013 Disney will be closing 3 MMRP online games. ToonTown Online, Pixie Hallow and Pirates of the Caribbean. Between now and September 19^th you can play the games for free. I do not know why they are closing the games but I can tell you why I’m sad. All three games had things that entertain and educate.

Here is what Disney says about the closing of the virtual online games:

“The Walt Disney Company is committed to offering high-quality, entertaining play experiences in both online virtual worlds and mobile apps. At this time, we are shifting our development focus towards other online and mobile play experiences, and a growing selection of Disney Mobil apps. We deeply appreciate your enthusiasm and loyal support for ToonTown Online, Pixie Hallow and Pirates of the Caribbean and sincerely hope you will continue to enjoy the large variety of online and mobile play experiences Disney offers - with more to come soon!”

Pixie Hallow is more girl themed and let young children live in the world of Pixie Hallow with Tinker Bell and her fairy friends. You could decorate your Fairy’s house and choose the outfit and play games.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a swashbuckling adventure for people of all ages. Crew your pirate ship and battle with others! Make alliances and build teams.

ToonTown Online is my favorite of the three Disney MMRP games. In ToonTown you design your own Toon. You choose from various animals types and pick your coloring. Then you select clothing from standard  outfits offered at first. Each Toon also has an estate where they “live”. They can decorate their home, store their extra clothing and even entertain guests.

In ToonTown you battled evil Robots called Cogs. These Cogs don’t like happiness. They want everybody unhappy so it is a Toon’s duty to keep the Cogs from taking over ToonTown. You battle the Cogs by playing “Gags” on them.

So how can a child learn from playing ToonTown? They learn life lessons playing ToonTown. In ToonTown you are assigned tasks. You accomplish the task you are rewarded with Jellybeans. Jellybeans is the money of ToonTown. You want a new piece of furniture for your Toon’s house or a new shirt for your Toon? You earn the Jellybeans to pay for it. You see you can’t spend all you have if there is a goal that is for more than you have. You learn to “budget”, “save” and plan. You have to pay for your “Gags” to fight the Cogs so you must not spend all you have on other things.

To me the lessons in the paragraph above are important life lessons. You must have money for what you need to do your job, clothing and tools. Without that can’t work. You want something you must work and save for it, realizing you can’t make other unnecessary purchases until the goal is reached.

Some of the Cogs are just too powerful for one Toon to handle by themselves. So you have to work as a team with other Toons, watching what the other Toons use in the battle so you can defeat the Cogs.

The things learned by working together are immense. Yes, the kids learn teamwork but they also learn to communicate in many ways other than just the strait spoken word. (Vocabulary is strictly limited in ToonTown for the safety of young children.) I have seen young children with Autism and Asperger’s learn to communicate and break past the wall that generally holds them inside their own heads much of the time.

I’m very sad to see these games go. I spent many hours playing ToonTown with my daughter years ago. It helped her over some rough spots and to learn some life lessons. I hope Disney comes up with other MMRP. I loved how people learned to work together and how the stronger usually helped and protected the weaker.