By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers and Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers|May 21, 2008
With the aid of a special mouse pad and on-screen keyboard, Madison Reed has found a way to venture beyond the protective confines of her home in suburban Columbus, Ohio, and play with other children in a Disney theme park.
Madison, who suffers from a severe neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy, gravitated to Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom, an online game that re-creates aspects of the company's theme parks. It was in this online world that she took her first steps. She rode a ride without being held or sitting in a wheelchair. And, at the age of 11, she celebrated the first birthday party with friends in February.
"This is huge for an 11-year-old girl who has never been able to have a birthday party with friends because of the risk of getting sick," said her mother, Annette Reed.
Now, Madison faces the loss of her connection to the real world. Disney plans to close the Virtual Magic Kingdom today. The company says the game was created in 2005 as part of an 18-month promotion for the 50th anniversary of Disneyland, and that celebration has long ended.
"It never achieved scale," Steve Wadsworth, president of the Walt Disney Internet Group, said in response to questions last month at the EconSM conference. "It was promotional. There was no business model attached to it. It had a small but passionate audience."
But the decision has provoked outcry from its thousand of users, who say they never knew the game was some sophisticated marketing gimmick. One 13-year-old from Richfield, Utah, who goes by the online name of Isadora Q, started an online petition that has attracted more than 20,000 signatures. Others say they've written letters to Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger, imploring him to keep their community open.
The closure of one of Disney's earliest ventures in online game-playing comes at a time when the Burbank-based entertainment giant is investing heavily in virtual worlds and interactive play. In addition to its pioneering Toontown Online, which was the first multiplayer game for kids, it acquired Club Penguin last August for $700 million, launched an online game inspired by "Pirates of the Caribbean" last fall and plans to debut Disney Fairies, a virtual world built around Tinker Bell and her friends, this summer.
