I am a sucker for virtual worlds. The idea of playing a fun kids game with a bunch of other people and being able to have full control over your character’s looks, environment/house, and life was my favorite thing to do as a kid. I remember several that broke my heart when they shut down as well. So here I am going to talk about 3 virtual worlds that I enjoyed that have since closed.
Shut Down
1) BuildaBearVille
Oh my goodness. This was my absolute favorite game from 2008-2012. I would play on this for hours upon hours talking to all of my friends, taking care of my garden, decorating and redecorating my house, spending time making money to buy new clothes, playing with my virtual bears, this game had it all. The best part of the year was during the Holidays as they had a pretty tough maze game for Halloween that gave you candy if you finished it and a fully interactive North Pole when it came time for Santa to come to town. I would use all of my free time to decorate my house and listen to the Christmas songs they would play on there. However, the part that I really took for granted was the fact that this game was not a heavy “Pay to Play” game. If you had a bear that you could buy for 5(virtual only) to 20 bucks, you automatically had a house. They did try to bring in a “VIP” membership and gave the VIP’s special dance moves, special houses, a zoo, and special backpacks, but as a kid I did not feel bad for not being a VIP. I could go to the store to buy clothes for my real life bear to get credits to use online to buy the same house and dance moves, so it was truly optional. I stopped playing it constantly after 2012 where I became more involved in my Xbox 360, Wii, and DS Lite, however I still got on from time to time until it finally shut down because of lack use in March 2015. If they brought it back, I would still play on it as I had built up quite a balance of money over the time I had played, but I doubt that they will sadly.
2) Pixie Hollow
This was not my favorite game by FAR. This game relied heavily on being a member and you could barely do anything if you were not on a monthly paying service which could cost up to 60 dollars a year. Needless to say I never had one, but this game was nice to play with friends. As i had a friend who was a member, I could spend a lot of time getting things from her that she got as a member for free. Altogether this was a fun game to play with friends but it was not fun to play as a non member alone.
3) McWorld
I remember this game fondly. This was by far the cheapest game that relied on a membership to play as you could get member items simply by buying a kids meal. The games on it were rather boring, but the customization and the friend system was interesting. I would beg my parents to buy me a kids meal, as we did not eat fast food often, when I knew that there was a toy that I wanted to activate on the world. They always gave you a free “sample” of the item virtually, but to get the one that had the designs or that was the full outfit and not just a hat you had to actually get the code from the Kid’s Meal. I do not know why this shut down, it would have made for a great port to mobile devices, and kids would love to be able to play that on their phones as they eat their Kids Meal. Hopefully they realize its potential and bring it back before virtual worlds go completely out of style.
Thanks for Reading!