noughties-kids-mmos

Monkey Quest, Bin Weevils, Moshi Monsters....What happened to beloved noughties kids MMOs?

Have you ever found yourself wondering, “What happened to Fantage?”, “Can you still play Bin Weevils?”, “Does anyone still play Moshi Monsters?”, “Is Monkey Quest still online?” or “Where are all the retro flash MMORPGs today?” Well, you’re in luck.

On MMOGames.com, we have gaming profiles for approximately two-thousand games. Some of the most popular of those profiles might surprise you. They are a combination of flash games, funky colourful hits, and quirky kids MMOs from the noughties that seemingly disappeared as quickly as they arrived.

The demise of the big players like Toontown and Club Penguin are very well documented, but even the “smaller” games had tens of millions of players. We thought we should investigate these forgotten gaming giants and explore where they are today.

We’ll start off this list with a Toontown-style social game for kids, Monkey Quest. This award-winning Nickelodeon MMO was set in the wonderful and whacky monkey-led land of Ook. With challenges to overcome, monsters to fight, potions to craft, and the great mystery of the Monkey King to solve, it was an awesome place to meet new mates and primates alike. That was until 2014, when the game started coming to a close. Depending on who you believe, this was either due to a change in digital direction from Nickelodeon or due to the massive costs of running an MMO beginning to outweigh the benefits.

Can you still play Monkey Quest? Monkey Quest Reborn was an ambitious non-profit fan-led project to keep those monkeys swinging. It had a pretty solid run until a corporate crackdown in 2021. Nickelodeon’s owner, ViacomCBS sent a cease and desist letter demanding that Monkey Quest Reborn essentially become Monkey Quest Rekilled. Even when the indie developers asked permission to get an official license to use the discontinued game’s assets, ViacomCBS declined. Because apparently Nickelodeon doesn't want you to have fun unless they’re making money from it, even when they have nothing to lose.

To our knowledge, that means the only way to get your 2022 Monkey Quest nostalgia fix is by visiting its page on the Wayback Machine.

Fantage, or “Fantastic Age”, was a free-to-play browser MMORPG aimed at kids, with many similarities to Club Penguin. At its peak in 2014, it had more than 30 million users. Players would create fun avatars and go off to explore colourful virtual worlds full of minigames, events, and social activities (without an NFT in sight). It was a surprisingly large and social world that prided itself on being a safe environment for children.

Can you still play Fantage? What happened to Fantage Legacy, Fantage Rewritten, and Pixel Park? Sadly, after ten strong years, Fantage closed its servers in 2018. And at time of writing in February 2022 there is no Fantage remaster nor replacement. As it stands today, the prospect of seeing one is very slim. There was discussion of a new Fantage Rewritten fan-project, Fantage Legacy, but that project was shelved after the original game creators threatened legal action. A new, suspiciously similar game, “Pixel Park”, was slated to replace it – but that too was cancelled in 2020 due to a lack of resources.

With that in mind, we don’t know how long this will last but we can grant Fans of Fantage access to a trip down memory lane through this fan-made link to a single-player Fantage experience that we discovered on Reddit. It’s even available on mobile. Enjoy: https://fanlink.to/Fantage

Stay tuned to our Fantage game page and we'll let you know if anything changes.

Moshi Monsters was gigantic in its day. At its height it had 80 million players enjoying the monstrous animated 2D world. Players were in charge of nurturing surprisingly dynamic monsters with changing moods and distinct personalities. The game challenged kids to think creatively while managing resources and collaborating with others. There were plenty of puzzles covering mathematics, geography and language – giving the game an educational element that made it more popular with parents than its competitors. Unfortunately, with the death of Flash. came the death of Moshi Monsters. They announced their closure in 2019.

Can you still play Moshi Monsters? Yes, you can still play Moshi Monsters. Well, kind of. The fanbase’s ingenuity gave rise to the independent and Discord-linked browser experience MoshiRewritten. The original creators of the game, Mind Candy, also offer two ways to connect with the official Moshi world once more. The first is their children's sleep app Moshi: Sleep and Meditation and the second is through a delightful app called Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt. Finally, a success story.

That a game called Bin Weevils ever managed to gain a player count of 20 million+ is quite incredible. As another social community game with activities such as decorating nests and growing gardens, Bin Weevils was huge in its time. Its weird bug-eyed characters were based on another Nickolodeon IP and so had a ready-made fanbase. But even they could not withstand the death of Flash. And as of 2022 both Bin Weevils and its developers, 55 Pixels, are no more.

Can you still play Bin Weevils? Yes! Thanks to another independent and unaffiliated fan-creation, Bin Weevils Rewritten, players can recreate the Weevily joys of their youth. It’s a surprisingly good recreation of the original game and evidences just how much people loved these noughties flash MMOs. Just make sure nobody tells ViacomCBS.

Fortunately, not all were lost in the great Flash MMORPG cull. Some of the most popular kids MMOs of our youth are still going strong:

• Wizard 101 still boasts an active, dedicated and loyal player base. We still write about their regular updates and get plenty of engagement on our social posts about them. Read more about it on our Wizard 101 game page.

• Star Stable is also active and popular, thanks in part to the resurgence in popularity of My Little Pony. So thanks to the so-called bronies, there is still plenty of horsing around to be done! Learn more about it on our Star Stable game page.

The moral of the story? Don’t entrust your precious childhood memories to giant profit-driven corporations (unless they're equestrian or wizardry based). And to all of those independent developers who rewrote their childhood favourites, we salute your heroic efforts and mourn the loss of your creations brutally crushed by "the man".

MMOGames.com is committed to bringing you all the freshest, funniest, and most insightful MMO news. If you enjoyed this content, why not share it with your community? And make sure that you never miss our updates and exclusive giveaways by following and favouriting us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.