Disney Protest May 10th, outside Disneyland

[Imagineer_Tech]

How did it go!!!!

 

[snowgracefulstone]

found the first picture of the protest!

 

[mizmouse]

Wahoo! These pics are going up at my Save VMK! - VMK Blog.

 

[rosesredrosered]

I was there! I didn't wake up in time to go to the march, but I was at Disneyland. I ended up meeting some VMKers from the DIS!

 

[teriyaki]

I was there! I didn't wake up in time to go to the march, but I was at Disneyland. I ended up meeting some VMKers from the DIS!

We are the VMK'ers you met today, rosesredrosered . It was nice to see someone who actually had heard of VMK.

We were there from about 9:30-11:00 and there were just 9 of us, but I'm glad we went.

Smackeralchick

 

[bowlofcereal]

What an exciting and interesting day at Disneyland. The morning started with a quick mile walk from the hotel to the intersection where we were planned to protest with about a half dozen in tow. Within an hour we decided that we needed to relocate to the Shuttle Entrance where there was more foot traffic and we could relay our message more efficiently.

Once there another dozen Protesters joined the group and we got the attention of Disney security and they sent traffic over the North section of Disneyland to prevent visitors from seeing the protest. They also hung around in plain clothes for some time with different set of them coming out throughout the morning. And of course our last security visitor who come out about 10 minutes to 11:00A at which point we knew why he was there and did not want to give them the benefit of telling us our time was up and concluded the morning with those there at the end signing the banner, giving their hugs and moving on with their day. Press took pictures from across the street and one reporter from the OC Register hung out with us for a while.

The most response we got from what appeared to be a Disney Official was a brief conversation that basically said the exact same thing verbatim about VMK being a promotion. I asked about other games and social networks and got an interesting response that Disney Games are promotional vehicles for merchandising, including Pirates of the Caribbean!

Basically the time we invest in building friendships within these games does not matter to Disney (as we know) and the single purpose of the Communities they create is to sell products and in a year when Pirates of the Caribbean is no longer on DVD that game too will be retired to the back of Disney’s Vaults along with the magical friendships, forever.

This was a quick reminder to an article I wrote some time ago about synchronous vs asynchronous relationships. Both types of relationships do exist and regardless of the medium used to delivery the limited stimuli it is still a building block of “real” relationships.

The problem I had with the recent press coverage is the use of portions of what is said vs the concept of the entire message to make it portray a different picture. By Sonya Smith, OC Register Reporter quoting, “Our real life is in this game” for one is not a correct quote. If certain conversations were taken as such she failed to reference the healthy balance that was clearly mentioned that our family has with school, sports, scouting and the community and was mentioned only to draw a negative response from those that read this article.

Well it is late. I am hoping that someone will send some pictures in and we can share them with everyone. Again thank you all for showing your support.

 

[Tampa]

Thanks for that post and for being there Cereal. You're an awesome dude.

So the common ground is, if anyone ventures on with disney online gaming, they're either not very bright (neither is cattle so it's cool), or they don't mind setting themselves up for disaster.

 

[aengus]

Thanks for the update.

You all did a great thing yesterday

 

[Goofy05]

Awesome of you to give us an update! Thanks!
As for the media...well, I won't post examples but I do know they have tendencies to skew stories to their advantage, not yours. Any attention is good attention and you guys rocked for doing this!

 

[snowgracefulstone]

What an exciting and interesting day at Disneyland. The morning started with a quick mile walk from the hotel to the intersection where we were planned to protest with about a half dozen in tow. Within an hour we decided that we needed to relocate to the Shuttle Entrance where there was more foot traffic and we could relay our message more efficiently.

Once there another dozen Protesters joined the group and we got the attention of Disney security and they sent traffic over the North section of Disneyland to prevent visitors from seeing the protest. They also hung around in plain clothes for some time with different set of them coming out throughout the morning. And of course our last security visitor who come out about 10 minutes to 11:00A at which point we knew why he was there and did not want to give them the benefit of telling us our time was up and concluded the morning with those there at the end signing the banner, giving their hugs and moving on with their day. Press took pictures from across the street and one reporter from the OC Register hung out with us for a while.

The most response we got from what appeared to be a Disney Official was a brief conversation that basically said the exact same thing verbatim about VMK being a promotion. I asked about other games and social networks and got an interesting response that Disney Games are promotional vehicles for merchandising, including Pirates of the Caribbean!

Basically the time we invest in building friendships within these games does not matter to Disney (as we know) and the single purpose of the Communities they create is to sell products and in a year when Pirates of the Caribbean is no longer on DVD that game too will be retired to the back of Disney’s Vaults along with the magical friendships, forever.

This was a quick reminder to an article I wrote some time ago about synchronous vs asynchronous relationships. Both types of relationships do exist and regardless of the medium used to delivery the limited stimuli it is still a building block of “real” relationships.

The problem I had with the recent press coverage is the use of portions of what is said vs the concept of the entire message to make it portray a different picture. By Sonya Smith, OC Register Reporter quoting, “Our real life is in this game” for one is not a correct quote. If certain conversations were taken as such she failed to reference the healthy balance that was clearly mentioned that our family has with school, sports, scouting and the community and was mentioned only to draw a negative response from those that read this article.

Well it is late. I am hoping that someone will send some pictures in and we can share them with everyone. Again thank you all for showing your support.

Hmm...interesting!! Maybe we should head over to some POTC online fansites and let them know that all this money and time they are spending is a "promotion" as well, and try to get them to join the fight before it is too late for them as well

 

[Imagineer_Tech]

The last question is - Do You Think It Was Enough To Save VMK?

 

[Padrepride]

Hmm...interesting!! Maybe we should head over to some POTC online fansites and let them know that all this money and time they are spending is a "promotion" as well, and try to get them to join the fight before it is too late for them as well

Unfortunately, Pirates isn't going anywhere. I have done the free trial for Toontown a couple of times, and it has nothing on any of Disney's online games. But since it makes money for Disney, they still run it.

 

[bowlofcereal]

This is not completely true. Disney Games are created to promote Disney Products and this was the official word from Disney.

Do not make the same mistake that a lot of People on VMK did in building friendships within the game as when the POTC Promotion is over so will the game. Seriously enjoy it while it last. I do like the game myself but I now learned a valuable life lesson about building friendships within a game and not being able to have those friends when Disney says the promotion is over.

It hurts.

 

[Imagineer_Tech]

Or the smart thing is to just never play in the first place.

 

[fantasymooma]

I would just like to thank those who protested in CA. Big thumbs up to you all!

Hopefully that will get the point across to them that VMK is just more then a game to most of us.

 

[poohluv2u]

I too would like to thank the people who protested. Considering that we only had six weeks notice of VMK closing, it was great that at least some people were able to physically protest. If they had given us a year or 6 months notice, just think how many of us could have planned to be there. I would have that's for sure.