Disney Launches Online DS Community

Disney has apparently launched "DGamer", a service designed to allow Nintendo DS users to create online profiles, track accomplishments, and connect with other users. First announced back in February, most every Disney game going forward will be completely integrated. "'DGamer was built around the vision to connect Disney video game fans in a secure, fun environment and it is truly the first integrated online community of its kind to do so on multiple platforms,' said Graham Hopper, executive vice president and general manager for Disney Interactive Studios. 'We recognize the importance of delivering unique experiences to our consumers and how crucial it is for parents to feel confident that the community is secure for their kids.'"

Social Networking for the DS.

[Slashdot Suxxors]

Interesting concept, too bad most Disney games aren't worth playing.

Re:

[Aranykai]

Someone hasn't played any of the Kingdom Hearts series...

On a side note though, how is this supposed to be a 'secure' environment? Cant anyone who owns a DS and a Disney game simply connect?

Re:

[Slashdot Suxxors]

Kingdom Hearts flashed through my mind as I hit submit, but that's the exception. The majority of Disney titles however, are utter garbage.

Re:Social Networking for the DS.

[Uncle Focker]

Someone hasn't played any of the Kingdom Hearts series...

Because 'most' means 'all', right?

Re:

[hansamurai]

Anyone remember Aladdin for the Sega Genesis (not that crappy Super Nintendo version where you couldn't even use a sword)? That game was pretty awesome. Actually, most Disney games that I played were pretty good. There was even one for the NES where you walked around Disney Land and the levels were various rides. One was a Space Mountain level which I remember being fun.

There were some obnoxious Disney games, like the Lion King, and I haven't played any of their recent games, but back in day, they were

Re:

[master5o1]

Yeah but everything is fun when you are eight.

Re:

[clichescreenname]

I liked the SNES version way more than the Genesis one. It didn't have a sword, but the actual game play was way better.

Re:

[hansamurai]

Well, I have played both, but that's the only factor I can remember between the two. Sword in Genesis, throwing apples on SNES. Seems like an obvious win there. :P

Re:Social Networking for the DS.

[XenoPhage]

Someone hasn't played any of the Kingdom Hearts series...

While Kingdom Hearts had Disney characters in it, I'm not sure I'd call it a Disney game, per se.. I'd probably label it more of a Square Enix game with Disney licensing..

Re:

[Whyte Panther]

Disney licenses were used for a few classics back in the day. DuckTales and Chip and Dale Resuce Rangers come to mind. As for more recently Kingdom Hearts has been mentioned as well, but Spectrobes is another game I wish I had more time to spend on, and amazingly, it's by Disney.

Re:

[sesshomaru]

I liked most of the Disney games for Sega Genesis:

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse [wikipedia.org]

World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck [wikipedia.org]

Quackshot [wikipedia.org], which was ok but had annoying music.

Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse [wikipedia.org], one of the better Sega CD games.

Disney's Aladdin [wikipedia.org]

Good Times...

Countdown

[Dancindan84]

News stories about sex offenders with Disney DS accounts in 3...2...1...

Yup

[Oxy the moron]

Chris Hanson was last seen purchasing a DS with his NBC credit card. Can't wait for that episode of "To Catch a Predator." *sigh*

Re:

[WinPimp2K]

RTFA:

Disney will have "3 levels of chat available". I'm betting the most common one used will be "speed chat" where you can only pick words from a predefined (by Disney)list.

The true freeform chat that a predator would need also requires considerable hoops be jumped through in order to use it - and then only with others who have jumped through those hoops back in the big blue room.

So, predators will have a pretty rough time of it - not impossible, but pretty darn difficult. Of course, it will be even rough

Exactly what Nintendo did not want

[CogDissident]

Nintendo has gone to amazing lengths to avoid having anything that even resembles names on any of their games. All the Wii games have anonymous players, with chat functionality purposefully removed. You can't even add people by name, you need a 15 something digit randomized ID to add a friend to your system.

I'm surprised that this was allowed at all. Maybe its because Disney will take the blame from parents the first time a child-stalker story hits CNN?

Re:

[KDR_11k]

Does Nintendo actually enforce the use of those codes or are they just using them and some developers are following their lead?

Re:

[j0nb0y]

I haven't played it, but I think Madden '08 for the Wii has online and doesn't use friend codes.

Re:

[Dwedit]

Mario Kart DS has plenty of Hitlers on online multiplayer mode.

Technology section?

[CogDissident]

Why the heck is this in technology and not games? It's not really "tech" news, because its not really anything that hasn't been done before. It really is just gaming news.

Domination and Submission?

[1_brown_mouse]

Isn't that a bit kinky for the mainstream Disney audience?

Are Tweeners learning that much from teh internets?

And why are BD and SM'ers left out? /important questions must be asked.

No there is precedent for this

[zeromusmog]

Remember that Disney ran Virtual Magic Kingdom for quite some time, and closed it down recently, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was because they were basically moving it to this new DS platform. If Nintendo for some reason lets them bypass the friend code thing and have something vaguely resembling an online chatroom, it's because Disney used VMK to make a very impressive case to Nintendo to circumvent the rules--keeping in mind that S-E was denied when they wanted to port Final Fantasy XI to the Wii, this is the only way it could be explained if DGamer allows communication with strangers.

The reason for this being that with VMK Disney went out of their way to control chat activity. I only played it very briefly and mostly at Disneyland park, but the most striking feature was that yes you could chat with random Disneyholics connected to the service, but you could only use pre-approved dictionary words to do so. It seemed robust enough to keep from being excessively limiting (unlike the auto-translate feature of the aforementioned Final Fantasy XI which was more useful for being entertaining and saying naughty things--I played for months before I knew the FFXI dictionary well enough to be able to even use it effectively) but I was led to assume that using it to say anything personally identifiable was excessively tricky.

So if Nintendo greenlights this with the inclusion of chat with strangers, it's going to be because Disney proved that they made VMK safe when their users had full keyboards, and that on the DS they're going to tighten it even more, and that they will have employees constantly monitoring communication to make sure it is safe.

Re:

[KDR_11k]

Are you sure that was the reason for the FF11 denial and not the fact that MMOs require huge patches and the Wii only has about 256MB of storage in total? Flash memory isn't particularly fast either.

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[Yvan256]

The Wii does have USB ports, so FF XI for Wii could have come with its own external USB hard drive, similar to FF XI on PS2 requiring the hard drive extension (though it was internal).

Re:

[zeromusmog]

What Yvan said. They would have just made an FFXI external hard drive. Why this wasn't an option on the PS2 with its USB who knows, maybe the ports were slower I don't remember. But FFXI with all the current expansions and a 20GB+ (the current version with all expansions is about 10GB and there are still more in the works) external USB hard drive for like $90 wouldn't have sold too shabby. Put a longish cord on it with a USB port for a keyboard (you pretty much need one to play XI) to make couch play easier

Kill one, create one

[sg7jimr]

Interesting that Disney is killing off their popular online community Virtual Magic Kingdom next week while apparently seeing enough value in online communities to create a new one.