Does anyone else get the impression...

[Disneychick74]

Seeing that the close date is so close to VMK 3rd Birthday here is what I feel happened..
The contract for the 3rd party programmers (Sulake) was up and it was time to renew that contract, They probably already wanted to much from Disney to continue the game, after the HUGE debacle with the quest Disney decided it was not worth the time and money to renew the contract to a free game that caused so much bad publicity for their company.

 

[Jasonbobdude]

It does seem very sudden, I could maybe understand if VMK was losing popularity but I can tell that it's actually just as strong as ever. And releasing great items like the pirate ride and main street furniture actually boosted my intrest in VMK.

 

[Adventuredaz]

To be honest, I'd be surprised if VMK made them any money. Even if people who wouldn't otherwise have bought pins bought them, there wouldn't be much money made on them. Certainly not enough to pay for staff salaries and the technology used to run the game. The pins are really the only direct item sold for the game.

I agree that Disney failed to reach the full potential of this game, but then again, they did have VMK centrals in Disneyland and Disney World for two years, and they did have ads in their publications for it. So, they did do more marketing for it than we are giving it credit for right now. Maybe to them, it doesn't have the potential of the other games in an online gaming market.

Addressing these two points, I do agree with both. As I stated elsewhere I spent a few thousand dollars over the last 3 years on Disney. I enjoyed wht I got for it. To be honest I don't know if I would have spent all of that on Disney or not - Just can't say.

For sure some Players abused the heck out of promotions with movies and codes and they were aware of this and I am sure it effected the decisions. It was an expensive operation for a marketing campain. Most Marketing Campains are...It was just a matter of evolving the game into a better tool beyond it's original intent.

It never reached its full potential as a marketing tool or as a game, It just could not get past a certain point. It was obviously resourse intensive to keep it running right. I look at Millsberry, Barbie, Webkins, Pogo their user numbers are higher and even toontown and Pirates. Unfortunately VMK fills a small nitch that is dificult to get market share for I guess. I am not sure what it is, but they apparently they could not nail it down either. I could go into where I think they failed but it would really be pointless but I do know their claim that it never was intended to last this long really makes no sense since if it was viable it would have continued IMO.