Most typical teenagers can remember a peaceful time in their lives, when they would excitedly rush home from elementary school to play the iconic online game: Club Penguin. In this penguin-filled world, hundreds of Generation Z and millennial kids would gather in their free time to play games to earn coins, meet new friends and most importantly–try and tip the famous iceberg. While the memories from playing the beloved Club Penguin can last forever for many past players, it was up until recently that teenagers decided to return to the game.
“Club Penguin was one of my favorite games as a kid,” Jack Kahn, an avid player, 11th grade, said. “My siblings introduced it to me at first and I got some of my friends to play it with me.”
After 11 years of fun for players like Kahn in the virtual penguin world, Disney, the owner of the game, announced that on March 29, 2019 that the original CP would be shut down forever, according to TechCrunch. Instead, the company created a new, more modern version of the game to target the next generation of kids. After months of anger and sadness resulted in this shutdown, Club Penguin Online emerged. This game was a rewritten version of the original game in order to deliver nostalgia to previous players and to bring back the authentic gaming experience after the shutdowns. (Club Penguin Online)
“It’s extremely nostalgic,” Kahn said. “It’s been forever since I played and fun to go back to the good days as a kid. I play to remind me how fun my childhood was, and it’s also nice to just mess around with friends.”
According to Kahn, playing brings back memories that no teenager can forget. Memories such as playing mini-games for hours to earn as many coins as possible, or even participating in events that go on in the game. Sophomore Anna Reis experienced the same Club Penguin nostalgia and likes to focus on certain aspects of the gameplay.
“I really like one specific game, Card-Jitsu,” Reis said. “I originally returned to Club Penguin because a lot of my friends talked about it and a couple of my friends added me. I played my friends in this Card-Jitsu game and I got really good at it. I’m a black belt and I beat the sensei–I basically beat the game. I play for Card-Jitsu.”
As more and more teenagers, such as Reis and Kahn, return to the game as a source of stress relief, nostalgia, or simple fun, Club Penguin Online offers lots of different experiences for any type of player.
“Now, it’s more, I would say, older people or teenagers playing,” Reis said. “When you go onto Club Penguin, the people who you talk to don’t sound like children, they sound like teenagers. Since club penguin got shut down, the only people who play it at this point are teenagers because they are older.”
