Disney to launch Club Penguin magazine
Disney is set to commence publication of a magazine for its popular Club Penguin virtual world website.
Launching on February 9 and retailing for £2.99 the colourful children’s mag is intended to bolster the Club Penguin brand against increasingly fierce competition from upstart creations such as Bin Weevils and Moshi Monsters, the latter of which sells around 100,000 issues of its magazine a month.
Bin Weevils will debut its own printed magazine on February 15.
Commenting on the plans Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield, who sold the site to Disney for $350n in 2007, said: “This type of printed magazine for kids is certainly more popular in the UK than elsewhere in the world.
“We get literally tens of thousands of pieces of artwork sent to us every month which we share on the site and give kids points in-world. It's imperative that we also have kid-created content in the magazine as well.”
A number of codes and offers will be printed in each edition, the volume of which are redeemed online will be used as a measure of the magazine’s success. If these hit target then the magazine will be rolled out to other territories.