Why the world needs a Club Penguin successor – that isn’t Roblox

Club Penguin – the Disney-owned, Flash-based MMO, which ran from 2005 to 2017 – was a formative experience for a generation of children. Stephen MacDonald, who was a senior manager at Disney from 2012 to 2015, says that Club Penguin had over 300 million registered users at its peak.

But the demise of Adobe Flash put paid to this penguin paradise, and a mobile-focused successor, Club Penguin Island, failed to take off – it shut down in December 2018, around a year and a half after its launch.

Now, Roblox has risen to become many children’s first taste of the online world. But MacDonald thinks that Roblox is no replacement for the safety-centred approach Club Penguin provided.

“What used to happen is a kid would go from a preschool product, like Peppa Pig, and then would go to Club Penguin to learn what it was to be safe online, learn all those tools, then they would graduate to Fortnite or something like that.”

Now, he says, “you’ve got kids going from Peppa Pig to Roblox, and unfortunately, that is not safe enough for that age of kids. They are not ready for what’s in front of them and the social tools that they’re going to need to interact with a lot of adults.”

“In a lot of the competitive games, they’re just chum in the water for older kids and young adults. But also socially, it’s not safe. They’re being preyed upon.”

That’s why MacDonald has founded Magic Potion Games, with the aim of providing a spiritual successor to Club Penguin. The company has been backed by Square Enix, 1AM Gaming, 1Up Ventures, and Konvoy Ventures, and has sought guidance from industry veterans including Bungie founder Alex Seropian and Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield. Importantly, their new game, Imagine Island, is putting a firm focus on live moderation and age-appropriate safety features, and is aimed squarely at children aged 6–13.

“Our whole thing was, let’s go back into that space, offer something for that kid coming from a preschool product,” says MacDonald. “Then they can graduate to something like Roblox or beyond.”

The old toy’s club

MacDonald is based in Kelowna, British Columbia, where the original Club Penguin was developed by New Horizon Interactive in the early 2000s, before being sold to Disney in 2007. He ran Club Penguin’s game design and production for several years, and he recalls the lengths the company went to to keep children safe.

“Not a lot of people understood how much effort went into it,” he says. “Just how many live moderators we had, just hundreds of people that were responsible for making sure that kids’ content was protected and no bad actors were coming in, how much we worked with law enforcement to make sure that people like predators were reported and moved off of our platform as soon as possible.”

“We developed the technology that became Community Sift,” he adds, referring to the chat filter and moderation tool spearheaded by Chris Priebe, brother of Club Penguin developer Lance Priebe, which was bought by Microsoft in 2021. “It was quite cutting edge for the time.”

But there were subtle behavior nudges, too. MacDonald gives the example of a player walking into a room and saying “something edgy”, with the game making it appear as if the message had been received by other players, when in fact it had been blocked in the background. “It’s like going in and making a joke and no one laughs, and you’re like, ‘Ugh, that’s uncomfortable’. So you’d try something else, and then that would get through, and everyone would laugh. So we were able to really socially engineer what kind of content got through to everybody.”

“Club Penguin just worked on everything – that game worked on a toaster”

Ultimately, Club Penguin died with Flash. And although MacDonald wasn’t involved with the follow-up Club Penguin Island, he thinks the mobile pivot was ill-advised.

“At the time, there was a lot of pressure to get a mobile-only title, and it was like, ‘Hey, all kids are on mobile, let’s go in that direction’. There were a few of us that were like, ‘I don’t think that’s completely true’. A huge swath of our audience played on PC because of accessibility. [Club Penguin] just worked on everything – that game worked on a toaster. Everyone could jump on easily, and I think that was part of the secret formula.”

The rise of Roblox

In the years since Club Penguin’s demise, Roblox has grown spectacularly, rising from 13.7 million daily active users in Q4 2018 to 144 million in Q4 2025, according to Statista.

“We had been tracking Roblox since the beginning,” recalls MacDonald. “It’s like 20 years old at this point, and it was launched as a tools platform – it was not intentionally a kid’s product, it was built as a tool suite. So I think the DNA of the companies is very, very different. Club Penguin was built with an audience of kids in mind.”

But he acknowledges that Roblox has done an amazing job of engaging audiences. “Credit where credit’s due, I remember the first time I put all the game designers in a room to play Work at a Pizza Place when that first launched on Roblox, and I was like, ‘We’re in trouble: here’s why’.

“We didn’t have the tech to be able to do what Roblox was doing at the time.”

“It was a significant shift, as we witnessed Minecraft, Roblox, and other games capturing the audience’s attention in a new direction. It was evident that a changing of the guard was taking place.”

“If you have a platform that has kids on it, it is your responsibility to take care of kids”

He foresaw Roblox as a dominating force in the future. “However, my concern lies in the responsibility of adults overseeing platforms with children. It seems that this aspect is not being given enough consideration.”

The US Senate recently initiated an investigation into Roblox, citing the platform’s prioritization of revenue and engagement metrics over child safety. Roblox implemented age verification for chat features in January and introduced a “sensitive issues” content descriptor in 2025. Additionally, protections were put in place in 2024 to prevent under 13s from accessing direct messaging.

Next-generation penguin

Imagine Island was born from a question posed by MacDonald: “What aspects of Club Penguin’s essence can be carried forward to create something unique for a new generation?”

Having contemplated this idea for years, MacDonald seized the opportunity to make it a reality after departing from Electronic Arts in 2023. He collaborated with former Club Penguin colleagues Sascha Williams and Karin Johnson to secure VC funding and venture into this market.

“We managed to raise funds to prototype Imagine Island and launch it. Safety was our primary focus from the start. We established fundamental safety rules as part of the product. Our next step was to introduce fun elements for testing.”

The game allows players to create custom avatars, explore the world, participate in minigames, complete quests, and engage in community challenges. It has already attracted a substantial user base, reaching over a million users without significant marketing expenses. The game transitioned from beta to full release in August.

Similar to the original Club Penguin, Imagine Island is accessible via a browser (in partnership with web-game company CrazyGames) and has upcoming IP activations and marketing campaigns. MacDonald expresses enthusiasm for the forthcoming plans over the next six months, particularly December.

“They’re in a protected playground space, and there are adults watching over”

Despite the game’s growth, safety remains a top priority. MacDonald mentions the use of the GGWP moderation tool alongside human supervision. He envisions potential in AI tools for detecting problematic conversations.

“I view this world as akin to an elementary school playground with adult supervision to ensure a safe environment. While AI has its merits, human intuition surpasses its capabilities. However, we will explore AI tools as we expand.”

TTP

Monitoring everything can be challenging. MacDonald acknowledges that Imagine Island features user-generated content (UGC) but restricts asset uploads to maintain control.

“There are ways for users to arrange assets in inappropriate ways, so we conduct extensive moderation within the game.”

When asked about ‘time-to-penis’, MacDonald confirms the issue. “This is precisely what I alluded to, and you articulated it better.”

He reiterates the primacy of safety. “Once safety is ensured, we address other concerns. Children will test boundaries, especially in an online setting. Our goal is to maintain a parent-friendly environment. Time-to-penis discussions are common as we strive to prevent inappropriate content.”

Since the closure of Club Penguin, the landscape has evolved significantly, acknowledges MacDonald.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on an entire generation of children. Many kids, at a crucial stage of development, found themselves immersed in virtual worlds and realized the importance of their online presence just as much as their physical one. Virtual environments like Roblox became exceptionally crucial, essentially serving as the go-to destination for a whole generation.

“A lot of kids learned that their virtual presence is as important as their physical one”

Despite this shift towards virtual engagement, the fundamental way children play hasn’t changed drastically. Games like Adopt Me in Roblox are essentially modernized versions of previous systems like Club Penguin’s Puffle system, almost identical,” he explains.

Reflecting on the lack of games following in Club Penguin’s innovative footsteps, he expresses astonishment. “It’s truly mind-boggling. There’s a tremendous opportunity here to pioneer something new.”

He recognizes the weight of responsibility as a game developer, emphasizing the importance of delivering a positive message to the world. Drawing from the impact of Club Penguin, he stresses the significance of creating meaningful contributions to the gaming landscape.

Recalling a poignant moment when a terminally ill child visited the Club Penguin production site through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he remembers the joy of drawing them as a penguin. Witnessing the profound impact of this experience on the child deeply resonated with him.

“The realization of how crucial video games can be, and the necessity of taking them seriously, stuck with me,” he reflects on the lasting impression of that encounter.