Fantage

Fantage was a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by Fantage Inc. The game featured a customizable anime-style cartoon avatar, called a "Fantagian", that users can customize with items ranging from hair to clothing and accessories. Fantage was released to the general public on March 17, 2008, and had since expanded into a large online community— the game had over 16 million registered users by January 2012 and over 30 million by December 2014. The game was designed for the ages of 6 to 16. According to its founders, Fantage was focused on child safety, made possible by a three-tiered safety system. This safety system had several features, such as professional chat moderation, automatic word filtering, an in-game user reporting system, and varying chat options for parents. On May 17, 2018, Fantage announced that the game would shut down on June 30, 2018. At 12:36 am EDT on July 1, 2018, Fantage closed down its servers to all users.

Fantage was a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by Fantage Inc. The game featured a customizable anime-style cartoon avatar, called a "Fantagian", that users can customize with items ranging from hair to clothing and accessories. Fantage was released to the general public on March 17, 2008, and had since expanded into a large online community— the game had over 16 million registered users by January 2012 and over 30 million by December 2014. The game was designed for the ages of 6 to 16. According to its founders, Fantage was focused on child safety, made possible by a three-tiered safety system. This safety system had several features, such as professional chat moderation, automatic word filtering, an in-game user reporting system, and varying chat options for parents. On May 17, 2018, Fantage announced that the game would shut down on June 30, 2018. At 12:36 am EDT on July 1, 2018, Fantage closed down its servers to all users. ==Reception== Within its first few years of launch, Fantage has gained positive reviews, with most of the praise going towards the game's kid-friendly environment. On March 9, 2010, Fantage received the Editor's Choice Award from the Children's Technology Review for excellence in children's interactive media, with the website's review on the game saying: "Fantage, or 'fantastic age' is a responsive, safe and no-fail MMO that resembles Club Penguin back in the good old days." Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat notes that Fantage offers "fun games and social activities in a safe, parent-friendly setting", and how the game developed much more than 200 kid-friendly virtual world games that were then reported of being under development. A user on GamersInfo.net by the name of "Alladania" states that the game "has the potential to be more socially involving than games for the younger set but has enough other things going on that a lot of social chit-chat isn't a requirement to have fun." Jo McClelland of Time has acknowledged the site as one of the best social networks for preteens. Carolina Ribeiro of Portuguese online magazine TechTudo believes the game can be enjoyed by kids while protecting their real identity and appearance with the game's avatars. ==Legacy and Pixel Park== A day after Fantage announced their discontinuation, rumors of an attempt to recreate Fantage's environment by creating a private server with the game's files surfaced. This project was then confirmed under the name Fantage Legacy. The project, which promised fan-requested ideas such as all users being given Premium Membership and the absence of in-game currencies other than Stars, gained many support from fans of the original game. On July 12, 2018, the Fantage Legacy team announced on the project's official blog that the project was being discontinued, due to an e-mail from the official Fantage team that warned them of possible legal action that would accuse the team of Fantage copyright infringement. Despite this, it was also announced that same day that they would be working on a game similar to Fantage (codenamed Plan Z), as the Fantage Legacy team continued posting updates through their blog until May 28, 2019, when they revealed Pixel Park, the successor to Fantage Legacy. The Fantage Legacy website closed on May 31, and Pixel Park eventually launched its public beta on November 28. The first few hours of launch saw 156 users playing the game. The game had features such as clothing, chat, Player Cards, events, and other features. On January 10, 2020, Pixel Park closed its public beta, and registration for the game closed. Existing users (more than 1,500) were still able to play the game. On April 12, 2020, it was announced that development for Pixel Park would be suspended due to lack of finances and support. The game shut down on April 30. As of May 5, 2020, the website is no longer online. ==References==

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1333064757 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.