GDC Vault highlights from the Game Developers Conference Online 2011 a free lecture featuring Nicole Thompson on Disney's MMO for kids, Club Penguin. Thompson, then executive producer of Disney's Club Penguin, discusses best practices for fostering a successful online community with over 150 million accounts, including how to provide safety, authenticity, connectivity, and fun for users in and out of the game. Session Name: 150 Million Penguins Can't Be Wrong: Managing the Virtual World of Disney's Club Penguin Speaker(s): Nicole Thompson Company Name(s): Disney's Club Penguin Track / Format: Customer Experience Overview:Nicole Thompson, executive producer of Disney's Club Penguin, offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the Internet's largest virtual world for kids manages and cultivates its community by putting them at the center of every decision made on the snow-capped island of Club Penguin. This talk will explore how the Club Penguin community plays a leading role in the development of products, characters, storylines throughout the virtual world, the practices in place for communicating with players - inside and out of the game - and the unique philosophy that has helped build and shape one of the largest online communities on the Internet.

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