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Panfu

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Panfu was a virtual world targeted to kids aged 6 to 14 where the player could chat, play games and roleplay.

History[]

The idea for Panfu came when Moritz Hohl and Kay Kühne wanted to make a safe place on the internet for German children. The development of Panfu, (called Pandaland[1][2] during development Sep–Oct 2007) started in September 2007, a month after Young Internet was founded. The virtual world was opened in a beta-period during the month of November 2007 and was available only in Germany. Panfu was officially released in December 2007, after beta testing was completed. More languages, such as English, were added from 2008 to 2009.

The only rooms available were the Town, the Ice cream parlor, the Pet shop, the Gift shop, the Library, the Jungle, the Sports field, the Gym, the Swimming pool, the Changing room, the Kiosk and the Volcano.[3] The minigams that were available at this time was limited, with the only ones available being Blub, Happarama, Train your Brain, Fish'n'Fish, Hubi and Bolly Hop.

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Panfu was an immediate hit in Germany. Young Internet wanted to expand Panfu, and decided to make it international. When the new languages were added throughout 2008, Panfu's playerbase exploded in size. The game quickly became a competitor to Club Penguin in Europe. Panfu's best year was 2010.[4]

Panfu was opened in Arabic on September 10, 2010, and had over ten thousand users within the first two weeks. The mascots Max and Ella were renamed to Houssam and Leila, and Kamaria to Marjana. Love-related smileys were disabled.[5]

Despite initial plans of expanding the Panfu brand into other parts of the world, things began to take a turn downhill early on. The Arabic Panfu, closed on November 1, 2010, having been open for less than a month before the plug was pulled. The closure of the Arabic Panfu was followed closely by Portuguese Panfu, which shut down on December 9, 2010. The Turkish and Russian versions closed around the same time. The reason given was that Goodbeans wanted to focus consistently on Europe. Goodbeans had around 139 employees at this time.[6]

Panfu began losing popularity in 2013 mostly due to Goodbeans' own actions, such as trying to cut expenses by firing developers in December 2012 and ending the promotion of Panfu via television spots. The first chat to be shut down, were the Polish and French chats, which was shut down on March 15, 2013 due to a shortage of moderators[citation needed]; this occurred despite protests from the player base; protests which, with the declining nature of the game, would spread to other languages, but would mostly go unnoticed. The Norwegian and Danish chats were shut down on November 15, 2013.[7] Soon after, the chats of other language versions followed, with the German and English chats getting shut down in 2015.[citation needed]

By 2014, there were very few active users, and with the chats shut down, the number of players would only plummet even further, making it difficult to find even slightly populated servers. The last Panfu update occurred on December 1, 2014[8], around the same time the last team-members were let go.[9][10] Except for a change in server-domains on March 2015;[11] Panfu would remain in this state until its closure in late 2016.

Goodbeans was shut down in January 2015,[12] and applied for bankruptcy in April 2015.[13] The team decided to let Panfu stay up until the servers expired[14], and they finally expired on November 1, 2016, marking the end of the official version of Panfu. No official announcement were made ahead of the closure, and no farewell party was held for the occasion. The former CEO, Verena Pausder, is the head of mobile gaming company called Fox and Sheep, which owns some of the apps and IPs Goodbeans made.[15] Co-founder Moritz Hohl has expressed interest in opening Panfu again as a mobile app, and applied for a trademark for Panfu in October 2020 through his company Memorado GmbH, but further updates never happened.

Private Servers[]

Main article: Panfu Private Server

There has been made a list of Private Servers for Panfu. A Private Server is an online multiplayer game that is not part of Panfu but uses game files from Panfu, a database and a server emulator. Private servers are not affiliated with or endorsed by Goodbeans GmbH. Private Servers are the only way to play Panfu after its closure. Caution should still be taken when playing these servers, as their security won't necessarily be as strong as would be expected from a large-scale company.

Trivia[]

  • The trademark for Panfu was filed on October 10, 2007[16], the same date they purchased the domains and finalized the name.
    • The international trademark of Panfu was registered April 10, 2008, and expired April 10, 2018.
    • The trademark of Panfu was terminated on October 31, 2017. The trademark was refiled in Germany on October 7, 2020 by Moritz Hohl under his company Memorado GmbH.
  • The word mark Bolly was registered for trademark in Germany on January 14, 2008. It expired January 31, 2018.[17]
  • The domain Panfu.de was purchased on October 10, 2007, and was first opened November 1, 2007, showing a form for an email newsletter.
  • The first pandas (Moritz, Marc etc) were created on October 10, 2007. Panda id 1 was a test account called xxSignalaxx.
  • The wordmark of Panfu uses the typeface Jonas, designed by Manfred Klein in 2001. The latest logo introduced in January 2011 uses a modified version of the typeface.
  • Panfu had a blog which was frequently updated until 2013, with the last update in December 2014. The blog was written in-universe by Max and Ella, a reporter-duo who often got themselves into trouble. The blog would often be written in a storyline which would match the current events going on in Panfu; these storylines could sometimes go across multiple posts. Occasionally, other Pandas such as Kamaria and Bookworm also made appearances.
  • Panfu offered 15 different languages of the game.
  • A premium membership, Gold Panda, offered special features for those who bought it. Among them were the abilities to buy clothes and furniture, weekly gifts and in some cases the possibility of accessing VIP areas (such as San Franpanfu, when it was still under construction).
  • Pandas without gold panda could occationally get clothes and items from events and quests.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. ↑ com.pandaland is the name inside the Panfu-source
  2. ↑ InformationServer title was pandaland.com (found here)
  3. ↑ File:2007map.jpg
  4. ↑ Google Trends
  5. ↑ Gaming site Panfu launches in Arabic - Gründerszene
  6. ↑ "Wir haben eine konsequente ausrichtung auf Europe beschlossen" - Verena Delius von Panfu im Interview
  7. ↑ flashclient/features/popup/popup.swf, in package com.pandaland.features.popup.view.popups.ChatClosingPopup - lines 37-39: else if(Config.inst.lang == "DK" || Config.inst.lang == "NO"){_loc1_ = new Date(2013,10,16,0,0,0,0).getTime();}
  8. ↑ The last flashclient's build date, 20141201 (YYMMDD)
  9. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/moritzhohl/
  10. ↑ https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/haba-fox-and-sheep-exit?interstitial_click
  11. ↑ Looking at web.archive.org, we see in March 2015 the InformationServer changed domain from info.panfu.xx to xx.info.hetzner.panfu.com, and the content-subdomain changed from content.panfu.com to origin.web.hetzner.panfu.com
  12. ↑ Danilo Hoffmann's Linkedin
  13. ↑ Goodbeans GmbH - North Data
  14. ↑ OMR #174 mit Fox & Sheep-Gründerin Verena Pausder (Interview in German about Panfu)
  15. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/company/fox-&-sheep
  16. ↑ Panfu - TESS
  17. ↑ WIPO Global Brand Database Search
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