Disney online games for kids
"This led us to develop several chat technologies that would help us achieve this goal. "We knew that we needed to give players the ability to communicate in order to have a thriving community, but at the same time we needed to keep kids safe," Mike told me. "We started development when we were part of Walt Disney Imagineering, which is the part of the company that designs theme parks. We believed that our experience developing virtual reality theme park attractions would translate naturally into development of online worlds for the Disney audience."Īn example of the conversation trees in Toontown "We always thought we could do Toontown well," says Mike Goslin. In the beginning: Toontown goes after the kids The challenge is making a persistent online world that's both safe and compelling. And there's a kernel of truth to some of this reporting I'm not sure I would want my child playing one of these online time sinks.īut Disney thinks virtual worlds are a good match for the kid demographic, and it has thrown significant resources behind the creation of online, kid-friendly places. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's how the media spins the idea of online games. I've also seen friends fall victim to MMO addiction, and I know that the MMO scene is a wild and woolly place filled with gold farmers, scam artists, and sexual deviants. "You know what an MMO is, right?" I'm asked.
#Disney online games for kids free
Your feet aren't quite falling off your legs, you're not yet suffering the intestinal distress from eating the crappy (but free) food in the press room, and it's easy to find your notes since your bag isn't yet cluttered with free flash drives. At one of these early sessions, I got the chance to talk with the creative director of Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Joe Shochet, and the vice president of Disney Online's VR Studio, Mike Goslin, in Disney's suite in Las Vegas.