The Internet's Abandoned Theme Park: Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom
Vložit
- čas přidán 7. 06. 2024
- Thank you to Cool Shirtz for sponsoring today's video! Visit shirtz.cool/lispeaks and use code LISPEAKS for 10% off your order!
!! TW Racist language onscreen at 12:10; the slur is contained within a direct quote from Mark Twain that I did not catch and am unfortunately not able to remove at this point.
Welcome to part 2 of the Disney's Virtual Worlds series, this time all about Virtual Magic Kingdom and its several recreations. This highly unique virtual world had hours of operation, a tremendous, exceptionally inaccessible class barrier (despite being 100% free to play,) a history of exceptionally tumultuous rewritten projects, and more.
This is a bizarro virtual world that truly only a mashup of Disney and the creators of Habbo Hotel could ever hope to whip up; get your lap bar in place and get ready for a ride!
- Time Stamps -
Intro: 0:00
Development: 1:49
Beginning of Game Overview: 5:26
Closure: 23:38
Rewritten Projects + Related Games: 26:08
Conclusion: 35:37
Credits: 26:39
Join the Li Speaks community!
Discord 💜 / discord 💜
Patreon 💙 / lispeaks 💙 - Zábava
Shout out to Cool Shirtz for sponsoring this video! You can get any of the hoodies I wore during this video at this link: shirtz.cool/lispeaks and use code LISPEAKS to get 10% off your entire order!
ok but WHERE did you get those fantastic tbh earrings
@@paranormeow handmade by me!
@@lispeaks AWESOME!!
@@lispeaks I really ❤ your look
Wow! You got an *ACTUAL* sponsor! How rare...
This is my favourite genre on CZcams: a 40 minute video about something I’ve never heard of.
Samesies
REAL
I thirst for useless knowledge.
Me too frrr
Same
thank GOD someone covered this.
i was so deep into this game as a kid that when they announced that it was going to shut down, i remember sitting with my parents to talk about how big of a blow it was. i made a handwritten petition that i had people in my class at school sign (who, granted, had never once played this game before) so that i could send it to Michael Eisner.
i migrated to VFK for years after, which wasn't the same but still had such charm. i was also an avid toontown, club penguin, and pixie hollow kid (how did i have the time????) but nothing hit the same as VMK. my cousin and his now fiance literally met on VMK and are getting married this year. all to say, this game holds fond memories and was a core piece of my childhood, so thank you for documenting it.
final thought: if you've ever played cute or boot, then you deserve a veterans discount and therapy to unpack all of the rejection.
Vmk was so aggy with their rules, I didn't think it was possible to meet someone
not CUTE OR BOOT. you just unlocked a memory for me
CUTE OR BOOT NOOO 😂 or I think at one point it was typed like b00t maybe? All the weird workarounds for the chat.
Core memory unlocked, how did we all come up with the weirdest forms of entertainment on there 😭
Cute or Boot, that hits different
This game occupied my entire life from ages 10-12. I cried when it closed. I then joined the VMK Magic (VMKM) forums, which eventually turned into Disney MMO, and am still friends with many forum members to this day. I even went to the same college as one of them worked at, and was constantly within 500 feet of him at all times.
Fun fact: My cringey VMK music videos still exist on my old CZcams channel. I spent HOURS on them.
Do you play on myVMK at all? It's just like the original with some added areas + features :) it's pretty active too!!
this just made me remember i used to make toontown music videos LMAO. i wish i hadn't deleted that youtube account
That's so cute
drop the link tho
VMKM is literally where i started doing graphic design. i made so many forum signatures.
every time li uploads, a fairy gets their wings istg
it's like the super bowl for me
I loved vmk so much, I was local to Disneyland and had a family friend who worked at the parks so I was the 1% in vmk despite never going to the parks the entire time it was running lol. I got banned for 999 years because a Community Leader baited 10 year old me into asking where they lived which was a HUGE bannable offense. I was devastated. It was the first major virtual world I played besides neopets lol. It gave me my first online nickname. It would auto-generate them. My government assigned vmk name was lolobanana
Wow I am so sorry. My friend and I said “mummy duck.or” and got banned only for 24 hours after an initial warning
Oh wow! I said the state where I lived and only got banned for a week! Looks like it was really just up to the CL whatever they felt like punishing people with! I was MysteryDiamond.
@@ThespiansCreed That's the terrible part of online games, your in-games currencies are worthless and in a second you could be banned for life.
I remember to avoid the ban you'd reply by capitalising the first letter of each word: Unicorns Sound Awesome and you'd read it as U.S.A
genuinely baffling to me how Disney chose the company responsible for Habbo Hotel to make this. like they saw the rampant teenage capitalism and gambling issues and thought, "yeah that's the game company we want to be associated with!"
I only played Habbo Hotel once 3 years ago and I don’t know how to even play it
ok well it was still fun tho
Ah VMK, my love. There’s nothing like scamming people out of the rare in-park only items in falling chairs.
I played the original VMK a lot as a kid. The most fun part was going to different private rooms and winning prizes from them to wear or put in your own personal room. People would come up with really fun games or interesting room designs and sometimes, people would just randomly give you furniture and clothes for free. I had the Alice in wonderland themed room and the music that plays when you enter is still extremely nostalgic for me!
Right! I can still hear that ambient noise that plays at the home screen lol
I LOVED visiting the Alice in Wonderland room!
I HAD THAT ROOM TOO!
Are those earrings of the tbh creature?? 😭❤️
Idk how well documented this is, but I remember a prevalent feature of the original VMK was that clicking someone's avatar would pull up a little window with their username and a short bio. It was pretty standard to see bios that said "single" or "taken" at the end as vmk had the average kids' virtual world problem of everyone trying to date each other. There were also pigtails or bald heads, primarily worn by people who were doing adoption roleplay.
yup I was wondering if anyone was gonna mention the people who roleplayed as zoo animals or babies looking for their parents.
The shrinking rooms are actually a reference to a long defunct Tomorrowland ride called "Adventure Through Inner Space"! Defunctland did a great mini documentary on it. Kind of warms my heart that the designers of this game put so much thought into callbacks like that, it really feels like a labor of love. Also, the Alice in Wonderland ride in VMK also has a feature similar to Peter Pan, where you can travel through the scenes the same way you would irl. As a major Disney parks nut with a great fondness for the Wonderland area of Fantasyland, I was totally obsessed with it as a kid. Thanks for your overview on this, brought back a lot of fond memories.
oh my god i've been DYING for someone to cover this. i remember my brother and i building a "rollercoaster" in our little house from the parts of the Mt. Everest ride-- people would visit us and then leave immediately because it was really small and they though it was lame. I also remember going to Disney World one year and looking for specific items in the gift shops to get items in the games!
The social element of the game really was everything, it was like if the point of Club Penguin was to trade items and host igloo parties. VMK had roleplay rooms, fashion contests, user-built rides, and tons of other activities made primarily by the players. There were always new items and collectibles, and always someone hosting an event with the Shiny Thing TM that you desperately wanted as the grand prize. When I was very young I made the mistake of offering my first rare item as a prize for a game I was hosting in my room, and was so excited that people showed up that I forgot I'd have to give the item away. I tried to change the prize midway through the game, and one of my guests reported me lol. The legacy remakes are a great resource and I'm glad they exist, but me and my sister tried playing recently and it just wasn't the same at all.
I also remember playing VFK at school! It was super clunky and even as a kid I was confused about what you were supposed to do in the game. I wish they'd kept VMK going if only so I could log in and relive the nostalgia that all of the furniture items give me
remember kids, "when profits begin to dip, its time to jump ship" - izzzyzzz
wonderful video li !! i love this series no matter how unintentional its existence may be lol, watching this while i recovery from sickness lol
I don't think VMK was ever anything but a money pit promo 😂
I guess i'm a 1%er (grew up in Kissimmee, went to the parks most weekends and some days after school, 1-2 times a week in the summers) so I had all the park quest items now I have a lot of useless VMK trivia etched in my brain! My family played constantly, and we had stacks and stacks and stacks of in park quest items. My parents used to have VMK date nights and my mom and I were very competitive with the fireworks game. The reason you can't walk in space is because it's another area you need an outfit to access. Another day 1 item that became a status symbol was green flip flops. A close family friend who was a monorail operator was friends with Yavin, and the moderator consensus seemed to be that it finally closed because it cost money to run and wasn't a draw for the parks anymore. The most active players were often people with annual passes and closing VMK wouldn't really hurt those numbers so Disney ditched that money pit. Because of exclusive item scarcity people would often sell cards online, I recall the Disco Inferno effect going for up to $400 on eBay. Some people would mail cards to friends who didnt live near the parks, and if you did live near the parks you probably had a stockpile of unredeemed exclusive promo cards to give to visiting family and friends. Some items were limited promotions, often player rooms and things related to TV and movie IP like a piano from High School Musical park exclusive card. The whitelist chat feature created a series of workarounds known to players. You could say nonsense and spell out swears with the first letter of random words, and one of the most common chat workarounds was saying "I glove you" because for some reason you could not tell another player you "love" them. I think that was to discourage the whole virtual relationship thing, they didn't want a culture of VMK boyfriends and girlfriends like you'd find on Club Penguin with 12 year olds. There were also a lot of scammers who would use the trade system and emotional manipulation to convince you to give them rare and status symbol items to "borrow" and run off with. Moderators couldn't do much about it, the trade system was just a pop up menu that allowed you to set up trading or gifting. There was no even trade requirement, so you could give someone something for nothing and thats how kids would get scammed. I got scammed out of a pink princess shirt once. My mom just gave me hers and told me not to trade with anyone we didn't know irl, but for most kids it was kinda devastating because they couldn't just go to the parks for another item card and rarely had people who would simply replace the item for them. I can probably answer some questions and fill in some blanks, but I was a child at the time. My parents played more than I did, so I have access to other expert daily players who might remember niche things.
There was also the work arounds that "hosts" actually taught us when they would host games that needed numbers, so to count to ten you had "on, too, tree, for, ive, fix or mix basically a few words worked for six, even, mine, and tent." higher numbers were just a combo of the "new" replacement words.
I love this comment. I don't think I ever got the green flip flops, but I did get the stitch hat and dancing inferno
The VMK date nights between your parents sounds adorable
I remember being so engrossed in openvmk drama. the pathos of it all. the deception. nick being exiled in shame. amy the savior.
#FreeNick
Li’s fits are always on point
And here it is! I was super addicted to this game for the last-ish year it was active. What boggles me though is that they never really advertised this game. Or, if they did, then it must have passed by me completely. I was one of the kids who grew up close to a Disney Park and, to be blunt, privileged enough to have an annual pass. Unfortunately, by the time I started playing, they'd mostly stopped doing special, free quests at Disneyland and I had to rely on eBay for a couple of special items (cough cough the High School Musical room). But, yes, most of the magic was with the friends I had met through there, and even though I have trouble recalling most of what I did on there nowadays, there are some memories from there that I'll always treasure.
i learned about VMK through a promotional video mailed to our house after my family booked our first WDW vacation. it had just recently launched and i was absolutely sucked in, played it all years of operation. that's how i learned about it tho!
So how I found the game was actually in the pin shop at downtown disney, they had a brochure by the checkout counter that said "join VMK!" and had a bunch of pictures of the website and rooms and was how I asked my parents if I could play it. The marketing almost feels like it was going for people who were already at the parks since the kiosks where in the parks for you to make an account. A lot of the quests were also given to you on a sheet a paper or in their own brochures with scratch off answers. I believe like the "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom" interactive "games" was to give families something to do besides adding to wait times in the parks. Yes some of the quests you had to ride a ride to get the answer to scratch off, most of the quests had you walk all around the magic kingdom, like looking for hidden mickeys or doing the cookie strolls in epcot.
I didn’t go to school until 9th grade, and my parents never supervised my computer time. In 2008, I played VMK from opening to closing. It taught me how to type quickly (not efficiently though lol), learn internet shorthand and I enjoyed it a lot. I don’t remember about half of the mini games you covered in this video, which makes sense since my main focus was acquiring rare items. I did this through quests and playing “Cute or Boot,” a popular player-hosted game show. The two items I wanted the most were the red “Stitch ship” hat and the cowboy pants. Unfortunately I never got the former. I had the chance to get it, but I let another player trick me out of my rare Tron suit because they were “mediating the trade.” I cried a lot after that.
Sadly, although this game was heavily moderated, I experienced my first instances of racism through players refusing to play certain games with me since my character had dark skin. After the second incident, I gave my character pink skin and hair which I wish I didn’t feel required to do in order to have a fun time.
OH MY GOD I"M SO EXCITED TO SEE U TALK ABOUT THIS. i played VMK for hours every day for an entire summer when i was a kid, it was my favourite kids online world ever and nobody i've asked has ever even HEARD of it
Once again I'll sit down for a good part of my day to hear about a virtual world I was literally never even aware used to exist :)
Also loved the ad hehe
bro i was on youtube for the VMK closure, there was a whole fandom video of people singing a song to save vmk, it gets stuck in my head sometimes but the vid is long since gone. core memory
i was too young to play VMK, but i knew about it from a series called Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson. the main characters played it, and it's just been stuck in my head since i first read it. so cool to finally learn about it! awesome video! 💜
I was going to comment this as well!! Loved Kingdom Keepers when I was a kid, too, and I can’t wait for the newest book!
@@thywordsmith ah! it's so awesome to meet someone else who read the books! i'm very excited for the book as well.
I actually bought this book because it referenced vmk, but I never read it 🥲
@@bsimsonline highly recommend it! it's one of my favorite book series to date.
Oh man I remember reading that series as a kid after VMK had closed and not knowing what VMK was so I just figured it was a made up thing for the book series.
god, what i wouldnt give to go back to 2006 and play VMK again. it all felt so big and real and magical to my little 6 year old self
(My first comment disappeared but) I just wanted to express how grateful I am for your presence in this newly discovered rare niche I’ve discovered through your Barbie girls video. Flash player games are just so nostalgic I miss them so much but not as much as I miss the virtual world game “Wiglington & Wenks” where you learn world history by teaming up with two archeologists who happen to be two “mice people” by going back in time and putting back misplaced historical artifacts that have been scattered throughout time by a villain. Does anyone remember this game because I am starting to feel like the only who remembers and was devastated when the site closed as a kid😢
Oh my god im only a minute into the video but i had to pause just to applaud your incredible ad performance, whatever theyre paying you is not enough. Edit now that I've watched the full video: I just wanna say I love all your videos and appreciate the effort you put in to making them. This video has made me interested in something I've never even heard of!
vmk was quite literally my favourite game as an elementary-aged kiddo! and i have been WAITING for your deep dive video into it so thank you very much for this nostalgia kick! :)
PS: the reason you couldn't access that walking area in the space place is because you didn't have space suit magic activated. ;D
I think dogs should vote! love the reference :D
This sponsored ad is everything and should be the standard lol clever fun and so on brand for the channel you go Glen coco 🎉
I still have all my VMK cards, a few cheap rubber bracelets, even a few pins! This was my favorite online game at the time!
Someone HAS to remember the nick online game. You could dress up and walk around places, similar to msp or any virtual world that was around at the time. i don't remember much but I KNOW FOR A FACT IT WAS REAL
yes it was called nicktropolis
yes i remember it as well
Main thing I remember about Nicktropolis is Vampires VS Werewolves. Also slime. Lots of slime.
@@meaghansadventures1641there was nicktropolis and another nick virtural world as well. You could go to a music lounge and chat while they played music videos in the background
thank you so much for this!! i've been DYING for your vid on vmk-it was basically my entire life as a middle schooler. i basically learned how to type from playing it! i was so devastated when it was announced it was closing & vividly remember spending the last hour doing the dumb default dance in the esplanade with my friend (who'd gotten me into the game) til they pulled the plug. i play a bit of myvmk as an adult but you're right, it's seriously not the same without the massive playerbase and huge social aspect. it's so sad.
As diehard theme park fan, Virtual Magic Kingdom is fascinating to me. So many areas are less 1-to-1 recreations of the Disneyland park and more like a fanciful blend of many different parks, extinct rides and attractions, and things that could never actually exist. Seeing you explore the virtual world while knowing how the real parks are laid out is like having a dream about walking around your house. Everything is just slightly off and surreal. It honestly makes me want to play it just for that experience
Dude dude I was so obsessed with this game I developed a long grudge against club penguin after VMK shut down because I assumed it was to blame
I've been binging your videos ever since your channel got recommended to me this week! I'm so glad I've got a new one to watch 💖
I found li through her Polly pocket video and honestly I love her voice it’s so calming and she talks about such niche topics that no one talks about :)
i can't believe how many people didn't play this. best game ever
It's still the best game. Just wish the game had more players on the game to just have fun.
FINALLY someone remembers VMK.
My favorite was going to the theme parks to do the real quests and get the redeemable code cards. They even had a VMK tour that you could earn at the parks and you would get super rare card items. I never got the Stitch Hat card, which you could only get by staying at the Disney Hotels.
I remember writing emails with a much of my VMK online buddies where we said we would pay for a subscription. We listed out of allowances (or in my case, willingness to get a job) to have the game stay open.
I miss that website, and the people I met.
I really drafted up a hand written petition to the CEO of Disney that i had my class of like 20 kids sign (who, btw did not play the game and must have thought i was so weird).
Hate to think that my activist roots trace back to trying to raise allowance money to give corpo giant Disney to keep open my fav game
Never played this one myself, but I remember reading a children's book series that used the theme parks as a setting and they mentioned VMK CONSTANTLY... the way it was described, it always seemed way cooler than it actually was lol
as an aside I love the tbh earrings
This game still lives in my heart
Best ad for a creator's patreon I've seen in a while...I live for the 10 year old drama and I need to know what happened!
IM SO FREAKING HAPPY YOU DID THIS. I spent my childhood on VMK. I was there when the gates closed. I had collected so much random stuff that I was obsessed with. Miss it still.
vmk meant so much to me! it was such a mess, but i have fond memories of completing the quests for diving/autopia/space magic, chatting with people in various overworld spaces (the blizzard beach pool area was a vibe), grinding minigames for cash so i could decorate my room, mixing garbage beats, and generally getting up to as much mischief as i could without getting banned. much like free realms, i just sort of let it go with a heavy heart - i'd heard of restoration projects but did not witness the drama first-hand.
Dude you're really cool and great at this youtube thing ! I hope you have fun doing it and I know you're gonna go far ❤
Gonna enjoy what you make for a while i hope !!
THANK YOU for covering this game!! It was my absolute favorite growing up and I'm glad to see it being talked about💞 I was one of the first 100 players to play VMK and had a special badge for it - it was my entire life for a LONG time😅
Also, I only went to Disney once at got VMK items as a bonus, never went there specifically for them..most of my special items were from trading with other players, never had to pay a cent for them! And I also remember Hosts giving away items, player auction and game rooms to acquire prizes in the form of rare/desired items!
I was a VMK player who ended up migrating to VFK for many years - definitely a bootleg version, but it had a pretty big player base back in the day, and much more of a game element with its quests and events. I picked it up for a few months during the first half of the pandemic and there was still a small but respectable group of loyal players and new events, but the social aspect is still the most important and is sadly missing with how cliquey longtime players get. The history presented is also not fantastic, it's often very whitewashed, especially in the Australian and Colonial eras, and IIRC there aren't any avatar options for darker skin tones. The holiday quests are also overtly Christian, like they talk about pagans being heathens. Going back to it was, um... interesting! I don't know who runs it, but I don't trust them.
"Oh boy a video about a game ive never played! I sure hooe there arent any unintentional references to a popular horror ga-"
*Music box moment*
IM JUMPING UP AND DOWN YELLING "YESSSSSS!!! YESSS!!!"
VMK was my whole life. my best friend in 4th grade tried to catfish me on there. i used to always lose "cute or boot"
hey Li, i just wanted to say that your channel is growing to be one of my favorite channels on youtube and with that i just wanna say a huge thank you for entertaining us and creating amazing content ❤
omg i’ve been waiting for someone to cover this!!! i remember being obsessed with this when i was in elementary school, it taught me to be a fast typer because i wanted to chat with people
Woo! Congrats on the sponsorship! Loving every video you put out so far. Really well done! Even the simpler tier list video. Definitely squeeze in more of those lower effort videos to give yourself breaks ❤
less than 1 minute in and the ad read is already KILLING ME
thanks Li!
i remember as a kid knowing about the in park rewards, and finally when we went to disneyland the park had stopped implementing the in park quest related stuff so there was nothing we could do, also at the same time that was when the finding nemo ride opened in 2007 and they were giving away free VMK furniture codes for a submarine piece you could put in your room that was related to the finding nemo ride
I love these videos! You should definitely look into a virtual world called Imagine Town! It had a small community that was super dedicated and it was an odd scenario when it was shut down.
the moment i saw this pop up in my recommends, i got super excited. hopefully this'll lead to a video about habbo someday, i was obsessed with that game growing up
I just want to point out the magnificent music selection!
I always catch FF 7 songs in other videos, but starting this one with Kingdom Hearts made my heart happy :D
I definitely would be interested in a video about your favorite JRPGs (?)
I was obsessed w VMK and was on the forums too and I just recently went looking for a video essay on it and here it finally is thank u
hi li!! very excited to watch this, keep doing what you do!! ❤❤ you’re doing amazing
worst shift ive worked to date and i come home to find a new video from you! Exactly what i needed i remember playing DVMK for hours back in the day. thank you
One of my fave little details in your videos is your choice in background music - you have no idea how happy it made me when I realised you were playing the fireworks music from Ōkami (my fave underrated game!!) during the little fireworks cutscene from the Disney game!!
I found this, like… days? Maybe? Before it closed. I was captivated, mesmerized, in love, and then it disappeared and since it was such a short experience for me it sort of just faded into a vague background memory.
I didn’t know it that well, so seeing JUST how much was in it blows me away. Plus, being intensely too into Disney now it’s neat to see the many Easter eggs and references and places I’ve come to love in the actual parks. The team that built this really knew what they were doing!
LI IVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO TALK ABOUT THIS THANK YOU SO MUCH💕
Im excited for you to make more videos! They are so chill to watch :P
Hey guys! I really appreciate you doing a video on vmk I was awaiting a second part!
You do such a good job at covering these old virtual worlds. So happy I get to learn about them even if I never played them myself.
I love all of the Kingdom Hearts music you used. Never knew this game existed, but I'm so glad to see it documented like this.
The best VMK video ever made! Thank you for letting me relive this small piece of my childhood.
i love your tbh earrings
Your videos are so fun and interesting even if I know nothing going in most of the time 😂 Love your ear rings too!! ❤
Finally got to start catching up! I love this videos about virtual worlds I didn't even know existed. Makes me wonder how I would have maybe enjoyed some of them like that Rango one, it looked good!
i've been waiting for this! i played VMK almost the entirety of its existence
I genuinely get so excited every time you upload
When Li uploads my heart sings for joy
ive been wanting to see a VMK video for so long now, i was like 5-7 yrs old when i played and i was absolutely in love with it. my dad and sister were on it too and my aunt, uncle, and cousins (they went to disney world often which i was always jealous of lol). i remember it being so much fun and this definitely satisfied my crave of wanting to play it again
You're currently one of my favorite channels and I feel so relaxed and entertained when watching your videos. I would love to hear you talk about the Papa Louie game series.
Dream jelly did a video on that series, if you like Li you'll probably like them too (-:
czcams.com/video/CzMxu7ld108/video.html
Okay but where did you get your TBH Creature earrings omfg I NEED THEM 😭😭😭
Im going to cry this was my favorite game of all time and I have played some private servers and I cant even get into it anymore because theres a bunch of bullies and zero community rip
I played MyVMK on Day 1 in 2013 and the drama was so bad. So i left for a few years and then came back to see what the game had added and what not. I started playing it alot more because there was so much more stuff to get. However, the drama with trading was getting bad, drama with lots of players attacking others non-stop, the drama on the discord with players, staff and etc. I only go on it to just say Hi to friends now because i needed a break from the game. Im hoping more people join the game and change the way the game has been going for many years. We need more nice players on the game.
@@scorpiovenom4742As did I, and I seriously hate how immature most people are unfortunately, I hop in once in a while just to go into rooms but thats about it. Sad how it is , but usually it happens to these reborn/rewritten games.
Have to save this to watch later... its currently 1AM (Nevermind I just checked its 2AM) and your voice is just. RAHHH gets me eepy
I'm dying For a video like this on Littlest petshop online. I was obsessed with that particular virtual world from almost Its launch Till The eventual sunsetting. I still own a few of the associated plushies somewhere. Love your content and can't wait to see More❤️
could you do a video on like those virtual worlds by cereal companies? there was my personal favorite which was millsberry, and i think post cereal made one too (like fruity pebbles and stuff) that i used to go on. It might be fun if you're still on the virtual world kick
Oh my god I was hoping you'd do a video about this game. No one ever talks about it but it consumed my mind and life in 5th and 6th grade!!!
Good choice of background music. Lit up when I heard Dearly Beloved 🥰
Gator waiter may have lived and died with this game, but it looks like it might be based on the gator statues at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort in Disney World! They have the exact same look to them :)
VMK was a core piece of my childhood from about 9-12. Played it every single day with my friends. Spent so much time trading to work my way up to getting a stitch hat, eye pin, and green pants. Had so many online friends on there, some of which I still am friends with. I was on VMK Magic forums as well. I was lucky enough to be a moderator for a while on there. When VMK announced it was closing I cried. I had spent so much time in this game building friendships, trading items, and playing games. I signed petitions and emailed Disney execs to try and get them to not close it down. Unfortunately, none of that worked. I remember when the game closed there were hundreds, if not thousands, of players in (I think the esplanade) all standing side by side waiting for the clock to strike midnight when they were shutting it down. I still have VMK cards and pins. I tried the fan run VMK for a while but it just wasn’t the same.
I saw a few new players join the game yesterday, and it's bc of your video and jenn video. I'm hoping to see more people join the game and just have fun.
Love your stuff Li!
Thank you so much for this video! I remember discovering this game as a kid and telling all my friends at school the next day. They all made accounts and we'd hang out in game after school. This video is a really nice walk down memory lane. Some of the rooms you showed off i still vividly remember! I find it impressive how many rooms and minigames vmk had compared to other disney virtual worlds like pixie hollow or club penguin. I think the reason why i liked this game as much as i did was because we don't have disneyland in my country. The closest disneyland was tens of thousands of miles away and my family weren't nearly as wealthy enough to take a trip to another country despite me desperately wanting to go. VMK was the closest i could get to experiencing disneyland. Anyways, thanks again for reminding me of this great childhood memory!
same!! you could join MyVMK and enjoy it again! :)
Omg, I remember playing this! I got in trouble for playing it because I wasn't allowed to play multiplayer games which let me talk to people on the internet when I was 10 years old lol.
I remember one time I hung out with a mod on Main Street, then had a dance party with at least thirty other people who were following them around. I was really young then but I remember only having positive interactions with the mods, if you reported someone for bullying they typically responded fast. I think one time after I reported someone I got a personal message from a mod saying something along the lines of 'We handled it, the player was banned.' Or something like that.
I remember the DJ game was my favourite tho, I thought I was so good at it despite the terrible sound clips, but the queue to play your tune on stage was always insanely long.
I vividly remember the restrictive chat features. We would typically use slang or other ways to get around it, for example I remember 'sys' meant 'Sister.' If we wanted to tell each other our irl names, we would use the first letters of words, i.e. if your name was Carl, you would go 'First of Coconut, first of Art, first of Rain, first of Land.'
I would spend hours decorating my private room, I remember I had two specific locations in them: one looked like the inside or a pirate ship or was underwater, and the other was some kind of castle which I turned into a fighting arena.
You're right whne you say that the social aspect was the whole reason for playing, I don't remember playing many of the games at all. I made so many friends, and I would have hang outs with specific people. We would get together and chill and it was a lot of fun!My parents were sure I was getting lured tho, haha.
I remember going to one person's private room where they were offering makeovers. I got one, but I hated the way it made me look so the moment I left the room I changed back to my original outfit.
I also remember I had a coveted rare item, a tiara! I ended up wearing it everywhere. I ended up roleplaying as an ordinary kid who could transform into a dragon form thanks to their magical tiara, so I had one 'regular' outfit, and then another all-red outfit with a tiara which was my dragon form.
If there's anyone out there who remembers hanging with a kid with red hair, all-red outfit, a tiara, and insisted they were a dragon...that was me.
Good memories all around. Worth getting grounded for for talking to people on the internet. I was sad when I heard VMK closed because it would've been nice to go back and relive the memories but I'm glad some form of it is preserved out there.
Love this, love you- I’ve been binging your videos for the last couple of days.
…….. but had to come into the comments to be an obsessed Kingdom Hearts fan for a second and say the track you credited as “Title Screen” is Dearly Beloved. I’m not super well versed in telling the versions apart but my guess is you used KH1 or CoM’s variant. Just in case you end up using that track again in a future video or feel like falling down a rabbit hole listening to all the different versions.
Thanks for making amazing videos and diving in deep to flash games and virtual worlds! Your deep dives keep bringing me so much nostalgia, even if I didn’t play the specific media in question. Growing up in that era of the internet was special.
i love your videosssss dude - this niche scratches a happy little itch in my brain 🥹
Ooo I’ve heard about this!! So excited to watch!
I cannot tell you the sense of excitement I get when I see a new Li Speaks video in my feed. Li da real MVP!
Loved VMK. Had a really cool ride made that went thru all my various themed rooms
Bahaha I'm dying at the sponsored part 😂 super creative, now making my way through the rest of the video! Love your content :)
I SWEAR you are in my brain, you make videos of things no one ever remembers when I bring it up. I was obsessed with virtual world games and still am to this day. I talk about this game and its like it never existed so thank you for making me feel like im not crazy 😅 Ive watched every vid you have uploaded so far! Have you ever heard of or thought of making a video for Spineworld or MyCoke/Coke Music/Coke Studios? Again thank you sm for the content you put so much time and effort into, I really appreciate it!!! (little me from the past does too lol)
that was a very eventful intro and it was only like a minute long, this is why i love this channel lol
I thought you had mercy for a second 😭
Also how dare CZcams not recommend this video to me for an entire day
I was so sad when this wasn't included in your other video and now it makes sense. I miss it to this day. It was my entire childhood.
This video is very interesting! I’m a big fan of learning all about Virtual Worlds, whether I had personal experience with them or not.
I have vague recollections of VMK, but I might be getting confused with visual similarities it holds with the Disney Magical World games. It’s not of the same caliber, but it’s a fun duo of games.
The fact that you have KH music playing in this video keeps making me jump since I’m currently grinding in KH1 as I watch this video. Merlin’s House’s music fits perfectly with the other music you use in your videos, though. Right alongside the Wadanohara tracks!
I remember trying to make a restaurant with my rooms and being bullied relentlessly for how bad of a DJ I was