As I posted last month, Club Penguin (one of the largest virtual worlds/MMOs around, focusing on kids) was in talks with Sony for acquisition at half a billion. According to paidContent, the deal is off. The Club Penguin folks were asking for upwards of half a billion, and Sony was offering $450 million or so. There were also some issues, apparently, with user churn and the insistence on the Club Penguin side that CP continue to donate a portion of profits to charity.

Club Penguin is a self-funded company as far as I know and while they’re doing about $30 million/year in profits or so, I can’t help but want to slap them and say 450 MILLION DOLLARS! If they’re that concerned with charity (and good for them if so!), take the money and give a hundred million to charity right now. We can all hope to have such dilemmas.