Ep. 61: Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom

Jacob Salas, of the website Pop History, joins the show to tell us about an ambitious attempt at a Virtual Magic Kingdom CD ROM that, in a lot of ways, is also the story of Hollywood’s odd attempts in the 90’s to try to get into the video game market more seriously. In his feature article One Name, Two Games: Virtual Magic Kingdom we learn the story of a massive virtual Disney theme park project which was shut down, revived into an MMO, shut down again, then subsequently revived again by fans and kept going to this day. You may also know this project as Disney’s Villains’ Revenge, the retail puzzle action game: this project certainly has a complex history.

Salas was the recipient of a writing grant from the Video Game History Foundation for the purpose of researching and documenting this history.

See more from Jacob Salas:

Pop History – https://pophistory.club

Pop history twitter: @js_pophistory

Patreon – /pophistory

Twitter – @js_jrod

YouTube – /czfjrod