Disney’s virtual world of Club Penguin, which is dedicated to serving up a peace of mind for parents and a variety of fun for kids, is now available in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The online winter wonderland, which is populated by animated penguins, is used by millions of children from more than 190 countries around the globe. Children gather online to interact with friends, explore, play games and let their imaginations soar.
Children can create and customize a penguin to represent him or herself in this virtual world and engage in a variety of fun and imaginative activities such as, a ice-hockey game, snowball fights, theme parties and many more activities. The site has continually evolving content every week
Children can practice reading, develop keyboarding skills and participate in creative role-playing on the site. Children can accumulate virtual coins by playing games on the website. While accumulating and spending their virtual coins on buying items to customize their penguin, children also learn math and money management. Children can even show their support for Club Penguin’s charitable initiatives by donating the virtual coins they have accumulated.
In terms of safety, parent’s can choose from two safe chat options to suit their child’s virtual experience. The filter is continuously updated to account for shifts in language and pop culture trends.
Safety is ensured with the use of chat filters and live moderators to monitor chat and to prevent the sharing of inappropriate or personally identifiable information.
A parent’s e-mail address and permission is required to activate an account and allow play within the virtual world. Parents can also create their own account and log in to view their child’s account history, change their password and set the time of day and duration of their child’s visit to club penguin.
According to the head of Disney Online Studios for Asia Pacific, Rob Beeston:
“ The virtual world is popular with kids and trusted by parents because we believe passionately in providing a fun online experience that’s guided by a strong commitment to safety. There’s no third party advertising in the virtual world of Club Penguin, and its thanks to the players who purchase memberships we re able to maintain that no-ads policy as well as a large team of trained moderators and player support staff.”
This virtual world is free to play but offers benefits to those who purchase the subscription membership, which is priced at $6.95 per month.
Club Penguin was awarded the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards – Kid’s Vote, for favourite website in 2009 and was also awarded the Nappa Gold by the National Parenting Publications Awards in the year 2008.