Non-Disney Online Games Does anyone remember when Wizard 101 was all the rage?

[DodgerGirl]

Does anybody remember the game Wizard 101? It was an online game where you could play a Harry Potter /Onward type of adventure and you could interact and chat with other Wizard 101 players to help you solve different challenges. I tried to play Wizard 101 once and I couldn't see what the hype was all about despite it being promoted a lot through countless TV commercials. And what I think why Wizard 101 was trying to do was to cash in on fantasy/adventure role playing games especially since Harry Potter was very popular at the time. But I couldn't figure out why Wizard 101 became a popular online game? Because when I played Wizard 101 once the gameplay was confusing and I think why this game did well was because Wizard 101 hoped to gain an audience as big as Webkinz did

 

[blueoxroxas]

I just remember the commercial was kind of cool but never played it, I was playing Toontown Online around that time, which they should have never shutdown!

 

[DodgerGirl]

Why I think Wizard 101 gained such a fanbase was it began the trend of phone/tablet apps and computer games that you needed the internet to play and once Wizard 101 debuted the trend of online gaming took off like a rocket and soon games like Club Penguin and Webkinz followed suit and since online gaming is still popular with franchises such as Marvel Harry Potter Assassin's Creed and Call Of Duty launching phone/tablet games that can be played online this style of games has replaced computer games of today. But I think Wizard 101 failed was because despite countless commercials people found the game very confusing to play and figure out like I did and I cannot see how Wizard 101 was so hyped up when in general it wasn't worth playing. But once Wizard 101 ended it's run it started the trend of role playing online games and apps

 

[blueoxroxas]

I wonder if Wizard 101 being turn-based made it less popular than other games and younger people probably didn't really enjoy that type of combat as much. I loved Club Penguin / ToonTown Online. Wizard 101 was also competing with World of Warcraft and ToonTown Online which had commercials as well, I think Club Penguin had commercials too. I remember when Mobile Games were pretty cool when I played them the most back in 2010-2016 and then it seemed the quality of those apps went down A LOT for some reason, including graphics. Like we had high quality games such as Mass Effect on mobile and now nothing like that is being made these days, just cash-grab apps.