The Club (Nickelodeon)
| Nicktropois logo, March 6, 2007-present | |
| File:Nicktrop homepage.PNG The site's design as of November 2007. | |
Type of site | Online games |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Nickelodeon |
| Created by | Nickelodeon |
| URL | Nicktropolis |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Required for game |
Nicktropolis (also known as NT, Nicktrop or Ntrop) is a massively multiplayer online game and massively multiplayer online role-playing game that is part of Nick.com. It was launched on January 30, 2007. The game has grown in popularity recently, and now has over 6.6 million users[3].
History
Nickelodeon began construction of Nicktropolis in February 2006, and opened it in March of that year. On June 18, 2006, Nicktropolis was closed for a short time to begin its beta phase. From August 18, 2006 to on January 6, 2007, Nicktropolis closed to the general public. Nicktropolis was initially launched without advertising support but advertising has now been integrated in to the gaming experience. Prior to this release, almost 300,000 children had tested the game. [4] However, it was only accessible through a special link then. In March 2007, Nicktropolis was remodeled and given a new logo. Next, on May 11, 2007, the Nicktropolis home page was remodeled to fit in with Nick.com's new look, which was applied two days before. On June 24, 2007, the game was featured in The New York Times. The paper states the game as a playground they can call their own.
Pre-teenage viewers have a virtual playground to call their own too: Club Penguin.
— The New York Times[5]
As of July 3, Nicktropolis had over 4,000,000 registered users.[6] Nicktropolis' population is over 5 million as of September 7. The Nicktropolis Newsletter was launched in September 2007.
Places
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Naked Brothers Band
This section consists of the Fuzzy Room, Apartment, and The Studio. In the "Fuzzy Room", players put up a disco ball and dance. In "Apartment" users can play the guitar, piano, and drums. They can also play the Naked Brothers game "In Girl Trouble", and listen to full-length songs. In the "Studio" users can look at the band's instruments and make a mash-up.
Downtown
The downtown area of Nicktropolis has 5 distinct areas. These are the Rec Center, The Aquarium, Market Street, Treasure Hunt, the Lounge, and Metro Park.
The Pier
The pier area contains several sections including the Front Gate, Midway One and Two and the Fortune Teller and the House of Horrors. The Midways contain both in game casual game play and also more robust game overlays.
The Nicktropolis Space Center opened on June 28, 2007 at 3:00 PM. It lets users go to Launch Site Alpha, the Alien Planet (really a game called "Save the Flooponauts") , the Space Station and the Station Air Locks. Also, users voted for the space center, over two other locations titled Prehistoric Nicktropolis and Nicktropolis Underground. Out of nearly one million votes in one week, 46% voted for the new space world.
During the winter of 2006-2007, the Winter Park consisted of the Igloo, Ice Cave, Snow Fort, and Bumper Burgs. The area closed on April 5, 2007 and the zone came back on December 20th, 2007. The new Winter Park is accessible via a gondola that user enter and then get whisked away to a random Winter Park room.
Nicktoons Boulevard
Nicktoons Boulevard is divided into 7 subsections. The Bikini Bottom (from SpongeBob SquarePants) area includes 7 rooms, which are the General Store, the Krusty Krab, The Reef, Conch Street, which is a portal to SpongeBob's house, Patrick's house, and Squidward's house. Miracle City (taken from the TV series El Tigre) consists of 4 rooms: Leone, which is Manny's school, the Riveras' living room, the General Store, and Manny's Bedroom. Amity Park's zone (theme from Danny Phantom) consists of 3 rooms: Fenton Works, Casper High, and the General Store. The Avatar Nations (as with the name, from Avatar: The Last Airbender) zone is rather large, consisting of 6 rooms. Those rooms are the Planetarium, Water Palace, Fire Tent, Air Temple, General Market, and Ba Sing Se.
Retroville (from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) consists of 4 rooms: the Candy Bar, General Store, and Jimmy's Lab, outside and inside. Pupununu Village's area (from Tak and the Power of Juju) is made up of Juju Bizaar, Jibula's Hut, Juju Temple, and the village itself. This section is also different, as the player picks a character, he does not create one himself. Also, this area does not have a General Store. This section is also the first to utilize the backpack tool, which is used by collecting items in the rooms, placing them in the backpack, mixing the items together to form spells, and then casting them. The Barnyard's area (based on Back at the Barnyard) is made up of the Mill, Pig Pen, House of Humans, Back of the Barn, and the Feed Store.
The Plaza was launched on November 12, 2007. This area contains sponsor branded rooms. As of launch, Nintendo World is the first sponsor which contains two rooms; The DS Zone and the Wii Zone. The Nicktropolis Kids' Choice Awards zone consists of the Orange Carpet, Voting Room, Control Room, Backstage, Party Store and a Trivia Challenge. Users vote on the Kids' Choice Awards from within Nicktropolis. For the 2007 KCAs' voters cast 11 million votes for the award show.[7]
Sponsorship
On November 13, 2007, Nicktropolis unveiled its advertising and sponsorship plans. The new area for advertising supported content is called Plaza. The first sponsor area is for Nintendo and contains two rooms: Room one for the Wii Title Super Mario Galaxy and room two for Nintendo DS game Mario Party DS. Being a child safe and COPPA compliant site, entrance to the ad areas are bumpered explaining to the user that they are entering an advertiser sponsored area.The second sponsor is the Hasbro "cheerfactory", sponsoring iDog and Power Tour electric guitar.
In Development
Nicktropolis is developing a new area to support Big Green Help, the year long Nickelodeon green campaign.[8]
| version | date |
|---|---|
| Alpha | March 14, 2006 |
| Beta 1 | June 18, 2006 |
| Beta 2 | January 6, 2007 |
| Full Release | January 30, 2007[9] |
References
- ^ Mike Shields (2007-06-18). "Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis Web Playground". AD Week. Retrieved 2007-01-29.
- ^ "It's a kid's life in new virtual world". Reuters. 2007-1-29. Retrieved 2007-11-11.
{{cite news}}:|first=has generic name (help);|first=missing|last=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Nicktropolis (2008-03-01). "Nicktropolis Population stats on the homepage". Nickelodeon. Retrieved 2008-03-01.
- ^ Shields, Mike (January 29, 2007). "Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis Web Playground". MediaWeek. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
- ^ Itzkoff, Dave (2007-6-14). "A Brave New World for TV? Virtually". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Joanna Roses (2007-06-18). "Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis Reaches Almost 4 Million Unique Registered Users in Just Four Months". Press Release. Retrieved 2007-07-03.
- ^ Joe Garofoli (2007-05-27). "Online social networks marketing to preteens". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
- ^ Nicktropolis (2008-03-13). "Nickelodeon Launches The Big Green Help - An Environmental Pro-Social Initiative for Kids This April". Nickelodeon. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
- ^ Mike Shields (2007-06-18). "Nickelodeon Launches Nicktropolis Web Playground". AD Week. Retrieved 2007-01-29.