Panfu was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for children aged between 6 and 13. Each player could create their own panda and chat with each other, play games, learn in a playful atmosphere and complete quests in the different places of the island of Panfu.
| Panfu - Be a Panda! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publisher(s) | goodbeans GmbH |
| Platform(s) | Online |
| Release | November 2007 (Germany) February 2008 (UK. France, Spain, Netherlands) April 2008 (Poland) July 2008 (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
History
The two founders of Young Internet, Kay Kühne and Moritz Hohl, started Panfu in December 2007. Panfu is a name composed of the words "panda" and the Chinese word for happiness, "fu".[1] In June 2009, the website had 11 million users worldwide and became the biggest children's virtual world in Europe.[2] In the meantime, the number of users grew to 15 million and the service was translated to 9 languages. Young Internet GmbH later became Goodbeans GmbH.[3] In 2015, someone contacted the CEO of Goodbeans, Verena Delius, about the current status of the game, and she answered back saying that they didn't have enough money to maintain Panfu anymore. This was explained by the rapidly declining player base. This also was indirectly the cause of the closure of the player chat. The declining player base meant less money was made, which in turn meant that there were less staff available for Panfu, which slowly caused the chat to be shut down. This of course did not go well with the player base and it accelerated the decline of Panfu, transforming this problem into a self-defeating runaway cycle. The removal of the chat definitely was not the sole cause of the closure of Panfu but it is arguably the biggest catalyst of the decline and subsequent closure. Goodbeans finally filed for bankruptcy in April 2015.
Finally, the game closed in November 2016 after the main website Panfu.com expired, and as it hosted the Panfu-files, the Panfus in other countries didn't work anymore.
Security in Panfu
According to the developers, security was the biggest priority in Panfu. The chat was closed from 20:00 to 15:00 on weekdays and from 20:00 to 11:00 on weekends, and was up during work hours as the moderators was online then. A word filter prevented verbal attacks and warned the players when they were not following the rules. At the same time, the chat was internationally moderated by adults who watched over it, proof-read every word and could ban players who aggravated others. A high security chat was available, which disabled the normal chat and let children only pick from pre-written phrases.[4] Besides verbal aggravation, asking for or giving private information was also forbidden. Due to the lack of moderators and money, the chats began to be gradually closed in the various language versions of the game (with the Polish chat getting disabled first on March 16th 2013 and the German chat ending on January 1st 2015), which was not well received by the player base. Upon attempting to chat, players would receive a message saying that chat had been discontinued. Players were still able to say phrases from the suggested chat.[5]
The world
The player could go to different parts of the island of Panfu. Hidden all over were minigames which children could play alone or with others. The players could communicate and help each other in the quests through the moderated chat. Players obtained "panda coins" from the minigames with which the members could buy items and clothes. If you weren't a member, you could only buy backgrounds or colours. Every avatar had a tree house, which was a room that they could decorate themselves by adding furniture or even completely changing the look. Other pandas could also visit the room.
Membership
The basic features of Panfu were free of charge, but a Gold Membership was available for purchase. The membership removed advertisements from the game and gave access to all of the game's features, and could be purchased for 1, 3, 6, or 12 months at a time. Once a month, on a Friday, a "Gold Panda Day" gave players access to all features of the Gold Membership, such as buying clothes, furniture and pets. In 2012, Panfu introduced a feature to become a Gold Panda forever. This was originally a limited offer but remained available until the game closed.[6]
References
- ^ Documentary about Panfu on German television
- ^ Article about Panfu - German Archived 2010-07-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Panfu About Us[permanent dead link]
- ^ German Newspaper "Die Welt" about security on the internet
- ^ https://www.welt.de/welt_print/finanzen/article4727378/So-behalten-Eltern-den-Ueberblick.html
- ^ http://www.panfu.com/membership/index.html