Yesterday bronies across the world rejoiced as Kotaku reported on the production of not just one but two upcoming My Little Pony MMOs. Both My Little Pony Online and Equestria Online are set in the fictional world of the popular series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and use graphics and characters from that setting.
On further investigation, both of the startup MMOs appear to be fan projects being developed without the official backing of copyright holder Hasbro Studios. As such, the projects may run into legal difficulties as they continue development using characters, artwork and names from the My Little Pony series.
The cartoon series that inspired these fan projects was originally aimed at a young female audience, but its popularity among an adult male crowd grew when it became a huge internet meme. There may even be enough fans of the series to make an official MMO commercially viable, as developers on My Little Pony Online have noted a clear interest in the development of their game.
Reader Comments (58)
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:05PM Glacier50 said
...popularity among the adult male crowd ?
/seppuku
/seppuku
Posted: Oct 31st 2011 10:58AM SnarlingWolf said
@Glacier50
More like pedophile alert. Adult males watching this/playing this have some serious issues to be worked out in therapy before they end up in jail and someone else is scarred for life.
Downrate if you agree.
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More like pedophile alert. Adult males watching this/playing this have some serious issues to be worked out in therapy before they end up in jail and someone else is scarred for life.
Downrate if you agree.
Posted: Oct 31st 2011 1:46PM Zyrusticae said
@SnarlingWolf
Sorry, you don't get to choose or dictate how the voting system works.
Reply
Sorry, you don't get to choose or dictate how the voting system works.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:14PM MajorPorpoise said
I will give one internet high five to anyone who can guess what the "Adult Male Gamer to Little Girl Gamer" ratio will be.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:18PM mysecretid said
I can't even pretend I understand the popularity of this MLP phenomenon among the college-age crowd (males and females), but hey, if they dig it, it doesn't hurt me any. Game on.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 2:24PM Brendan Drain said
@mysecretid I'll be completely honest here and embarass the hell out of myself, I'm a big fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It was developed by Lauren Faust, the story artist for The Powerpuff Girls and head writer for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and so has similarly awesome stories and animation to those award-winning cartoons. I thought it was just vapid rubbish and people were making fun of it by making it an internet meme, but I sat down and watched a few episodes, and found that it's actually a really good cartoon.
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Posted: Oct 30th 2011 3:40PM Nef said
@mysecretid
As Brenden said -- there's quite a bit of talent working on the show and it was written to appeal to a much larger and diverse audience than its target demographic. If you've ever enjoyed Powerpuff Girls or Dexter's Laboratory, there's a chance you'll also enjoy MLP quite a bit.
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As Brenden said -- there's quite a bit of talent working on the show and it was written to appeal to a much larger and diverse audience than its target demographic. If you've ever enjoyed Powerpuff Girls or Dexter's Laboratory, there's a chance you'll also enjoy MLP quite a bit.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 5:31PM Brendan Drain said
@Saker She worked on Dexter's Lab? Well damn, I loved that cartoon. Mystal, I highly reccomend giving it the one-episode test before dismissing it. You might love it :D
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Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:31PM Daemodand said
Yeah, I'm too old to "get it". I suppose the college boys are using irony as a way to deflect the fact they like playing with little girls' toys.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 4:17PM real65rcncom said
@Daemodand
I wouldn't go that far but I do suspect a fair amount of "Well, if you don't understand how cool it is, we can't explain it to you".
Any second I expect whoever made this all up to come out and say he's suprised at just how many young guys (or old guys) he got to buy into this even though he started it as a extended gag.
And people talk about pandas in WoW lol...
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I wouldn't go that far but I do suspect a fair amount of "Well, if you don't understand how cool it is, we can't explain it to you".
Any second I expect whoever made this all up to come out and say he's suprised at just how many young guys (or old guys) he got to buy into this even though he started it as a extended gag.
And people talk about pandas in WoW lol...
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 5:55PM Nef said
@Daemodand
Actually, being from the demographic of a young guy I can explain what I believe to be the reason for the popularity with my peers.
There was a grouping of cartoons during our younger days that were quite popular -- Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, etc. -- and this cartoon (MLP) is actually fairly similar to them (talent that worked on some of those works on this, so it's not surprising) and thus provides a bit of nostalgia. The cartoon is also quite well done, in general.
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Actually, being from the demographic of a young guy I can explain what I believe to be the reason for the popularity with my peers.
There was a grouping of cartoons during our younger days that were quite popular -- Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, etc. -- and this cartoon (MLP) is actually fairly similar to them (talent that worked on some of those works on this, so it's not surprising) and thus provides a bit of nostalgia. The cartoon is also quite well done, in general.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:38PM Protoster said
Fan-made MMOG, let that sink in.....Do they not understand just how much dedication this would require, not to mention the upkeep costs?
Posted: Oct 31st 2011 5:46AM Jack Pipsam said
@Protoster I think they do understand, I mean the work we have seen from them both so far is incredible.
I think they fully understand the costs involved.
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I think they fully understand the costs involved.
Posted: Oct 30th 2011 1:56PM dudes said
Arrrrggggg ARGGGGGG my eyes my eyes!











