9 years at Disney #3

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As I told you in my previous posting, I joined the Disney VR Studio in 2007 when they were developing the next game after Toontown Online.

And that game was...

Pirates of the Caribbean Online. It's an MMO game based on the Pirates of the Caribbean films which are famous for starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

I think it's natural for the VR Studio to develop the Pirates of the Caribbean Online as their second game after the Toontown Online. As I told you in my previous posting it was originally the R&D department of Disney Imagineering and had developed a VR attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold. As we can see from the above video it's an attraction adventuring the Caribbean Sea while one person is steering the ship and the other is shooting the cannon. And this became the basic gameplay of the Pirates of the Caribbean Online.

In the picture above you can see from the player's view as the captain steering a ship in the Pirates of the Caribbean Online. In the picture below you can see from the player's view who is shooting a cannon on the ship.

Besides the gameplay around ships, there are landing play mode on islands as in the next picture and mini-games like Black Jack or Texas Hold'em. It was developed as a quite huge game. Of course, as a Disney game, it's not that violent. I joined the team in June 2007 and the Pirates of the Caribbean Online was launched in December 2007.

In June 2007 when I was joining, Toontown Online which has launched in 2003 was in service in South America, Japan, and the UK. (I heard that they had a discussion with Nexon for Korean service. But it's my own opinion, not the company's official one.) They were in a good mood at the VR Studio for the anticipating new game, Pirates of the Caribbean Online. Personally, my life in the US became more stable as an employee of a big company.

I took the picture above while visiting Disney HQ with my 12 months old kid at the end of 2007. It's the main building where the CEO's office is located. You can see the dwarves from the Snow white are holding the building while one of them is wearing the Santa hat to celebrate holidays. :)

As being excited with Toontown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Disney Internet Group devoted itself to the online game. Decided to develop two more online games. One based on the Fairies series featuring Tinker Bell and the other one based on Pixar's Cars. So they wanted to rule the online game market for kids in the name of Disney.