R.I.P. CLUB PENGUIN

Predecessors (2000-2004)

The first seeds of what would become Club Penguin began as a game called Snow Blasters that developer Lance Priebe had been developing in his spare time in July 2000. Priebe's attention was brought to penguins after he "happened to glance at a cartoon featuring penguins that was sitting on his desk". The project was never finished, and instead morphed into Experimental Penguins. Experimental Penguins was released through Priebe's company of employment, the , British Columbia, Canada-based online game and comic developer Rocketsnail Games, in July 2000, though it ultimately went offline the following year. It was used as the inspiration for Penguin Chat(also known as Penguin Chat 1), a similar game which was released shortly after Experimental Penguins' removal. Released January 2003, Penguin Football Chat (also known as Penguin Chat 2) was the second attempt at a penguin-themed MMORPG, and was created on FLASH 5 and used the same interface as Experimental Penguins. The game contained various minigames; the premiere title of RocketSnail Games was Ballistic Biscuit, a game that would be placed into Experimental Penguins and eventually be adapted into Club Penguin's Hydro Hopper. RocketSnails Games' Mancala Classic would also be placed into the game as Mancala.

Lance Priebe, as well as co-workers Lane Merrifield and Dave Krysko, started to formulate the Club Penguin concept when the trio were unsuccessful in finding "something that had some social components but was safe, and not just marketed as safe" for their own children. Dave Krysko in particular wanted to build a safe social-networking site their kids could enjoy free of advertising. In 2003, Merrifield and Priebe approached their boss, with the idea of creating a spinoff company to develop the new product. The spin-off company would be known as .