"A certain club penguin private server blackmailing kids should watch out."
— SomeOrdinaryGamers tweets warning people about Club Penguin Online.
Club Penguin Online
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| Club Penguin Online | ||||||||||||||
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 Waddle around and meet a new child predator!
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"Club Penguin Online has been shut down by the request of Disney due to the drama and false allegations caused by rival competitors. We were the al CPPS and after our huge popularity increase due to the coronavirus the admins of rival servers came together to plot to take us down. Unfortunately for them. all CPPSes are now targets to Disney. No CPPS will survive this. Do not believe the horrid lies said about us by paid-off YouTubers and misinformed journalists."
— Club Penguin Online's godawful attempt at playing the victim card before getting closed.
"Never forget that Disney went after a guy who wanted to put a Spiderman engraving on his dying son's tombstone, but they've allowed this to fester even after Kavos's video."
— Slick McWolf pointing out Disney's hypocrisy, which can be found at SomeOrdinaryGamers' comment section.
Club Penguin Online was a massively multiplayer online game launched on January 4, 2018, and discontinued on May 15, 2020. It was owned by Riley. It was shut down by Disney after filing a DMCA lawsuit against the owner of the game, and that said owner is a convicted pedophile. The game developed a reputation as the most hated private server by the private servers community due to the owner's actions.
Why It Melts Ice Caps
- To slip the penguin on thin ice, despite the game's popularity, the main reason why the game was made was so that the "owner" (Adeyori Adebowale, a.k.a Riley) of this game, who was an actual pedophile, could solicit nudes from minors while getting away with it at the same time, among other stuff.
- Unlike many sexual allegations such as Harvey Weinstein, Riley was already exposed as a child predator in 2018 in the private server community, but not outside of the private server community until Joey Hues finally exposed him to the public in 2020.
- Riley, who went by Anthony created Virtual Penguin back in 2016-17 and also shared the same history as Club Penguin Online (Swatting, Doxxing, Receiving explicit images from minors, etc.), which makes his game a reskin.
- Terrible moderation for various reasons mentioned below:
- Admin abuse was rampant here to the point that it was comparable with an authoritarian government. Say something bad about the staff or against Riley for being a pedophile, you get banned. In addition, there were a few instances where players got banned for no reason.
- The way moderators ban users for the reasons above caused many players (including those who were loyal to the game) to decide to stick with Club Penguin Rewritten, as they don't ban players for the reasons above.
- In addition, the official Twitter account can also block you for speaking out against them for the most ridiculous reasons imaginable in a similar manner to PETA, proving they can't handle criticism.
- The official Twitter account actually celebrated Club Penguin Island's closure, which is just tasteless. We are not kidding.
- Ironically enough, Disney (who owns the Club Penguin IP) later shut down Club Penguin Online in May 2020.
- The creator and owner of Club Penguin Online, Riley himself is a terrible moderator and a deranged criminal who has committed more than just pedophilia, ranging from doxing, hacking, or even swatting! (according to Joey Hues, he was swatted by Riley). He was despised by a lot of members in the private server community for his actions as well as one of the reasons why many Club Penguin fans refused to play Club Penguin Online just not to support him. Even Club Penguin Mountains, one of the most popular Club Penguin news websites called Club Penguin Online "unnamed" because the author never wished to promote it to the blog.
- Unsurprisingly, he couldn't take any form of criticism, using various methods ranging from banning anyone who was against him, to censorship, to even going far as to threaten people.
- He even took down Joey Hues' second exposing video and tried to take down the rest of the videos. However, the reupload of the second video can be found here.
- He even claimed that the rival servers were trying to destroy his reputation without noticing the irony that Riley destroyed his reputation with the actions he did.
- Apart from Riley, some of the staff are very controversial individuals who defend/support Riley:
- Kiwii, who became the "owner" of the game after Riley "resigned" in August 2019 to hide the fact that he is the true owner.
- Epic101, an admin who used to operate the army league is a notable racist who actually doxxed an entire army in front of the army league, causing the army to cut ties with Club Penguin Online.[1]
- Adamblaze, a friend and a former staff who associated with Riley with several CPPS data breaches (including CPRewritten), doxing, and threatening users.
- Don Jacko, a former staff who was carried out by Riley to hack Tamago2474's Snapchat account all simply because the latter mentioned Riley in a video.
- While the game didn't have microtransactions unlike Club Penguin Island, the game used ads, which were placed everywhere to make money.
- Riley claimed that he used the money to keep the game running, which suggested otherwise when Joey Hues revealed that Riley used the money to do illegal stuff such as hacking and to use people search websites and possibly doxx someone.
- It makes no sense for Riley to use money to make the game in the first place, since most game engines he used could have been free, like with Unity. Because of that, it's pretty clear that Riley is trying to cover things up.
- Riley claimed that he used the money to keep the game running, which suggested otherwise when Joey Hues revealed that Riley used the money to do illegal stuff such as hacking and to use people search websites and possibly doxx someone.
- One of the reasons why the game was commonly regarded as unsafe by the private servers community is when you register an account there, the admins would get access to your info, such as IP address, email, etc... Even more horrifying it was leaked by Joey Hues in the second video that their Discord server had a bot that could reveal a player's info, including IP address and email.
- If any of your accounts have the same password as Club Penguin Online's, unless they have 2FA, well they could get access to those accounts.[2]
- To make the website even more unsafe, the site won't allow players to delete their accounts, and since Riley resides in England, this effectively qualified this as a violation to GDPR.
- The staff team even tried to justify this by claiming that the rule breakers would create a new account again while hypocritically saying that the game was following the law, when it wasn't.[3]
- According to former moderators, the work environment was extremely atrocious to the point that it ruined many users' lives. This includes the following but is not limited to:
- Many female moderators, especially underaged ones were forced to send explicit images of themselves to become moderators. Disturbing, right?
- Many moderators were forced by Riley to do illegal things or else he would threaten them. In addition, Riley also forced them to defend his illegal actions. Joey Hues admitted that the reason he defended Riley was understandable because he was scared of him, which is why he didn't expose him until late 2020.
- The worst aspect of this game was how popular the game was. Not only did the game have around 7 - 8 million players (which was on par with Club Penguin Rewritten at the time) but the player base was comprised of younger audiences who played the game without knowing the owner's true personality, (even if it was understandable because of how naive they were). It also did not help that the COVID-19 lockdown boosted the game's player count.
- While Club Penguin Rewritten gained popularity through nostalgia, Club Penguin Online, on the other hand, gained popularity through false advertising (by advertising itself as the new Club Penguin.)
- Ironically enough, while the game was created as a legacy to the original game, Riley's actions ended up being the opposite, which resulted in Club Penguin's name being tarnished.
- Even scarier than before Disney's involvement, some users have pointed out Disney's hypocrisy for not allowing a father who wanted to put a Spider-Man engraving on his dying son's tombstone but left alone a man who not only used the Club Penguin IP for predatory purpose but also without Disney's permission.
- This is supported by the fact that Disney did sue Club Penguin Online back in 2018 because of the domain's name but did not take it down.[4]
- Even scarier than before Disney's involvement, some users have pointed out Disney's hypocrisy for not allowing a father who wanted to put a Spider-Man engraving on his dying son's tombstone but left alone a man who not only used the Club Penguin IP for predatory purpose but also without Disney's permission.
- Ironically enough, while the game was created as a legacy to the original game, Riley's actions ended up being the opposite, which resulted in Club Penguin's name being tarnished.
- While Club Penguin Rewritten gained popularity through nostalgia, Club Penguin Online, on the other hand, gained popularity through false advertising (by advertising itself as the new Club Penguin.)
- Like Star Wars Battlefront II, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery and "Gran Turismo 7", this game is yet another example of a treasured franchise being exploited, except this one is far worse. While the three formers were created for a quick buck, Club Penguin Online, on the other hand, was created to lure children for the owner's gains. It did not help that Club Penguin's kid-friendly nature made it even easier to lure children.
- The final statement before being shut down was an equivalent of playing the victim card. The statement was also clear proof that the staff are unable to take the slightest form of criticism as well and are also unable to take the slightest form of responsibility, as they blamed the YouTubers for being responsible for the private servers' closure when it was obvious that Riley was the one who caused the actions in the first place.
- The developers falsely accused that Club Penguin Rewritten is the private server run by a pedophile, which is outright hypocritical and ironic because Club Penguin Online is run by a pedophile himself.
- Because of all of the above reasons, they have been declared by the private servers to be the worst Club Penguin private server that ever existed, due to the owner's actions. Even many private servers, including Club Penguin Rewritten despised them, as one of the admins was happy to see the owner get arrested.
- This game just doesn't have the same feel as what Club Penguin once used to be. It was nothing but a generic "I'm gonna force you to play this game because I'm god!" game, and it ruined everyone's good time, which is especially bad due to the game being run by a child predator.
- The concept of allowing mature content on a kids' MMO is a very bad idea, considering that not everyone, especially minors, can handle mature content. Pony Town, despite focusing on a kid-friendly premise, worked out because it was also able to have NSFW/SFW channels separate, but in this game, it allowed mature content everywhere which the original Club Penguin strictly forbade.
- This included things ranging from uncensored swearing and slurs, to strip clubs, gambling, sensitive ads, etc.
- Just like Coin Master, the game gets old pretty fast and feels more like a carbon copy of the original Club Penguin that kids from the new millennium are familiar with. In contrast to other private servers:
- Club Penguin Rewritten is focused on the classic Club Penguin era (2008-2012) with modern and entirely custom content.
- Super Club Penguin being focused on modern Club Penguin but with Club Penguin Island aesthetics and with their own custom contents.
- Despite being a generic private server, the game somehow gained over 7 million players, likely due to the Google algorithm showing Club Penguin Online first when searching "club penguin" and advertising it as "the new Club Penguin," along with the majority of the fanbase being kids.
- This game was also reskinning Virtual Penguin, which of course, suffered some of the same problems considering that the game was also created by Riley.
- The game lacked some of the features in the original game such as the newspaper (in which the newspaper redirected to the game's blog instead of the Club Penguin Times newspaper) and the party construction.
- The option to play both newer and older Club Penguin, is a neat concept but the old client received little to no updates as opposed to the new client. It felt like the old client was only added to pander to players who prefer classic Club Penguin.
- In fact, the old client was added to pander to Rewritten players when the game closed around in March 2018 before being returned a month later.
- False advertising for two reasons:
- The game intentionally advertised itself as the new Club Penguin, despite being a private server of the original game, and even used the original Club Penguin logo with the Disney logo, which may explain how the game became popular in the first place.
- Despite being advertised as a kid-friendly game, the game had mature servers (which were 18+ servers) that allowed swear words, homophobic and anti-LGBTQ slurs, antisemitism, and racist messages to be posted publicly, along with disgusting activities such as strip clubs. These servers also basically destroyed the purpose of the original Club Penguin, being a kid-friendly MMO.
- Although to be fair, the admins removed the mature servers in April 2019 before reintroducing them in October 2019.
- In fact, this reason, along with WIS#1 contributed to Club Penguin Online's shutdown.
- Due to how toxic the mature servers were, Club Penguin Rewritten made the right decision by not adding mature servers.[5]
- In fact, this reason, along with WIS#1 contributed to Club Penguin Online's shutdown.
- Although to be fair, the admins removed the mature servers in April 2019 before reintroducing them in October 2019.
- Chat filter was extremely abysmal, you could get warned even if you did not say something inappropriate. Even the word "girls" was filtered regardless of context, presumably to prevent "sexist" behavior, despite the game's owner being attracted to girls. Even worse, swear words and racial slurs were allowed in mature servers.
- Recently, the admins censored a YouTuber's name from the servers as an obvious attempt at silencing criticism.[6]
- While the game had designers who made stuff for Club Penguin Online, sometimes there was stolen stuff from other servers.
- For example, the Marvel items for Marvel Endgame Party were directly stolen from a different private server.[7]
Reception
The game later gained notoriety as a pedo ring due to the allegations surrounding its owner and "mature" servers. Although allegations against Club Penguin Online have existed since 2018 (or dated back to Virtual Penguin days to an extent), they didn't gain much recognition until Joey Hues, a former staff member uploaded a series of videos exposing them in 2020. The controversy became so widespread that it caught the attention of many big YouTubers like Kavos and SomeOrdinaryGamers.
A petition by Joey Hues was created to shut down Club Penguin Online, which (thankfully) caused Disney to take action against them. Disney also released a statement:
"Child safety is a top priority for the Walt Disney Company and we are appalled by the allegations of criminal activity and abhorrent behavior on this unauthorized website that is illegally using the Club Penguin brand and characters for its own purposes. [...] We continue to enforce our rights against this, and other, unauthorized uses of the Club Penguin game."
The shutdown of Club Penguin Online was seen as a victory for many people.
One reporter for BBC News, Joe Tidy has investigated the game for 3 weeks and has documented some...nasty stuff. Just look.
Trivia
- Club Penguin Online's predecessor was Virtual Penguin. which was opened in December 2014 and closed in 2017.
- Jonas (he is actually against Riley), who was the head designer and owner of Club Penguin Online later created a private server called New Club Penguin.
- Around 2018, Disney filed a complaint against Club Penguin Online due to the domain's name containing the trademark "clubpenguin." Because of this, the domain had been changed to Club Penguin's abbreviated word (which, ironically, also means "child porn".)
- Disney also filed a complaint against Club Penguin Rewritten for the same reason above in 2017, and then in 2022, The said game was closed and its website was handed over to the United Kingdom's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.
References
- https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52677039
- https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-05-18-disney-shuts-down-club-penguin-clones-after-kids-were-exposed-to-explicit-messages
- https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/club-penguin-fan-server-club-penguin-online-shut-down-by-disney
- ↑ https://twitter.com/spotty803/status/1204101761956548608
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/ClubPenguin/comments/gf1tz9/a_word_of_warning_cpo/
- ↑ https://preview.redd.it/p76r8vwzsp631.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=95b040ab653564aa25304e3153871ec576b11072
- ↑ https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1797637.htm
- ↑ https://twitter.com/CPRSupport/status/1255590201067479041
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KavosYT/status/1257314719255236609
- ↑ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D7K1FpiWkAA8E1Y?format=jpg&name=medium
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