Author: Slanted Fish

Short answer: No. But it’s a bit more complicated than that…

Over the past couple of days, a message has been circulating that Poptropica would be shutting down by the end of the month. To address the concerns, Poptropica has put out official posts on Twitter (aka X) and Instagram to assure players that the game is sticking around.

The rumor began with a message posted on our Discord server, the PHC, from an account previously thought to represent Poptropica. It claimed that Poptropica would be discontinued after December 29. However, as Poptropica’s social media posts show, this turned out to be a hoax.

The PHB regrets its part in lending legitimacy to the fake account, which had been given a ‘Poptropica Creator’ role label on our server since their first appearance over a year ago at our 2022 Poppies event. Though we acknowledged then that it was only a hunch, there were reasons to believe in its legitimacy.

Before this incident, the account only made occasional announcements related to the game, which had been documented on the PHB. At no point before this month did Poptropica come out to say that the Discord account was not theirs. The real Poptropica even liked our Poppies 2022 post on Instagram, where we had mentioned “a surprise visit from @poptropicacreators.” More recently, they had announced a Cyber Monday sale that turned out to be true, albeit predictable regardless.

Still, the account has since revealed itself to be an impostor through some out-of-character messages. Again, the PHB apologizes for our lack of due diligence in verifying the account’s status.

Prior to getting debunked, though, the message gained traction all over the internet, including a tweet from popular account DiscussingFilm (later deleted), plus “Poptropica” was trending on Twitter (again!).

A few news sites even got in on the action: some like Delisted Games rectified their posts, while others such as ABC10 in California highlighted the shutdown scare after the story was debunked.

The fake news came right on the heels of a major update that had Poptropicans panicking about a potential shutdown: the removal of membership in early December. As with many of Poptropica’s updates lately, there was no official comms around this news, leaving fans to speculate. Though on social media Pop has since spun this as a holiday gift to all, the game’s own messaging that memberships are “no longer offered” doesn’t ring the same. And why wait two weeks to announce it?

Before the fake news had dropped, Poptropica fan Sleepy Biker reached out to Shan Eisenberg, Chief Commercial Officer at Sandbox, Poptropica’s parent company, to ask about what the membership removal meant for Poptropica’s future. Shan had replied back that he “got feedback from [his] colleagues at Poptropica that they are going to communicate shortly” — only the fraud had beaten them to it.

Meanwhile, the PHB’s Gentle Dolphin also reached out to another Pop Creator, Jon Pitcher, to ask about the game’s current situation. Jon’s response was to redirect back to the official Poptropica Twitter account. Though their individual responses are understandable, it’s a little concerning that Poptropica isn’t speaking much to fans’ worries.

Looking back on Poptropica’s social media posts announcing that they are sticking around, their wording doesn’t firmly push back on the idea of their shutdown — only that it isn’t as soon as we thought. On Twitter they say they are here “on December 31st,” while on Instagram they say they’re not shutting down “at the end of the year.”

Maybe we’re reading too much into it, but the lack of official comms (their last social media updates were in September, and their blog hasn’t been updated since February, almost a year ago) and the removal of membership have definitely rung warning bells in the minds of many. At the very least, we hope that this whole situation reminds Poptropica to keep us more closely updated on their official channels!

Another concerning development is the fact that many pages on Poptropica’s website are not currently accessible, resulting in a 502 error. This includes the Creators’ Blog, Parents Overview, and Help pages. The game is still playable, though players reported getting this error message at the height of the shutdown rumor, so perhaps it may just be an issue of server overload from too many trying to access it.

(UPDATE, Dec 26, 2023: The aforementioned webpages are now back online.)

(UPDATE, Jan 3, 2024: The Creators’ Blog has since disappeared.)

On the whole, we’re relieved to hear that the game isn’t going away this year in 2023. But as for how imminent the end may be — time will tell.

~🐠