Check out the new Facebook Page for "Tail Towns" as well as the new website Tail Towns
Here is what Ganz has to say about Tail Towns:
Website:
- http://www.tailtowns.com/
- (Visit here and enter your e-mail address for a chance to be one of the first to play)
- Release Date:
- March 8, 2011
- General Information:
- Tail
Towns is a lively online social world of engaging fun and personality. A
series of collectible woodland creatures is the key to this beautiful,
intriguing new online space.
Each highly-detailed figurine includes a code to allow you to become a member of Tail Towns. Your virtual villager has skills that you can use as you complete tasks and grow your town. The more villagers you collect, the more your skills and abilities will expand. - Description:
- Explore, relax and socialize in Tail Towns:
-Once registered, you'll get an estate. Later, start your own private town, alone or with friends.
-Complete fun jobs to earn rewards that you can use to go shopping
-Earn even more items and monetary rewards by completing different quests.
-Even Tail Towns has its dark secrets. You will discover and explore tangled tales of forbidden love, true romance and hidden treachery!
-Social interactions are the heart of Tail Towns: Play and chat freely with thousands of other members as you explore Tail Towns - Company Overview:
- We deliver some of the best gifts in the world - huggable plush, giftware, fashion accessories, fragrant candles and personal care, and finishing touches for the home. Webkinz, Bella Casa, Time & Again and Maggi B are some of the lines that make up our extensive family of products.
Established by Samuel Ganz and sons Jack and Sam in 1950, this privately-held family company is now headed by the founder's grandson, Howard Ganz. Corporate headquarters are located in Woodbridge, ON, Canada.
In the year 2000, we celebrated our 50th anniversary. GANZ began selling plush products, and built on this success to include a wide range of gift offerings, collectibles, seasonal gifts and home decor products. Webkinz World and Webkinz Jr. have bridged the virtual world by combining plush pets with interactive play.
GANZ has established a large dedicated sales force throughout the United States and Canada and owes its prosperity not only to effective distribution but also to product of the highest quality.
Here is an article I found on-line about Tail Towns @ engagedigital.com. Click on the headline to be taken to the site the article was copied from.
Ganz Announces New Virtual World, Tail Towns
Webkinz creator Ganz has announced a new line of virtual world-supported collectibles for girls called Tail Towns. The line’s real world component is a series of “highly-detailed” animal figurines that ship with a registration code that lets the owner create an account at Tail Towns. Users who register can create a virtual villager in Tail Towns and use its skills to complete tasks and help grow their own private town. Collecting more Tail Towns figurines allows the player to increase her virtual villager’s skills and abilities.
Each villager registered at Tail Towns begins with a virtual estate that the player can develop into her personally customized private village. Users can invite friends who also play Tail Towns to join their village. Players develop their villages by working at jobs and earning virtual currency. Players can also complete special tasks in order to be rewarded directly with virtual goods and currency. Ganz promises that Tail Towns will offer its users some story content to discover, which it describes as “tangled tales of forbidden love, true romance and hidden treachery!”
Tail Towns will feature unmoderated player chat for users over 13, so this line is clearly meant to serve girls who’ve gotten a bit too old for Ganz’s Webkins line but still enjoy tying real-world collectibles to a virtual world experience. Ganz plans to launch Tail Towns on March 8, which is International Women’s Day. Tail Towns appears to be Ganz’s first new virtual world product since the company’s Webkinz, Jr., virtual world for kids ages 3 to 6 went live early in 2009.
and here is an article from webkinzinsider. Clicking on the title will take you to the web site as well.
More Details About Ganz's Tail Towns and Its Effect on Webkinz World
Upon reading many of our members' questions, concerns and interest in Ganz's upcoming virtual world, Tail Towns, I leveraged my relationship with the Webkinz Creative Director to get some more information for everyone. Here is some more concrete, confirmed information from Ganz, and the Creative Director's answers to specific questions I asked him.Tail Towns
is a new line of collectibles from Ganz with a virtual-world
counterpart. While this is similar to the model from Webkinz, this new
site is designed primarily for women, and requires that you to be 13 or
older to play. The new collectibles will be high-quality animal
figurines that come with codes that you can enter into Tail Towns.
Tail Towns is set to launch on March 8, 2011, International Women's Day, and the Webkinz Creative Director offered us this exclusive tidbit that should make many of our curious Webkinz Insider members quite happy: Tail
Towns will have a free-to-try option. While you won't get the great
"estate" feature in the game, you'll be able to try out quite a bit and
see if you like it without spending a penny.
When you register for the site, you will create a virtual villager
and use skills to complete tasks and build your own town, starting with
your own "estate" that will eventually develop into a private village (the estate feature is only available if you enter a code, not in the "free-to-try" type of account). As you collect more figurines and enter more Tail Towns codes, you will increase your villager's abilities and skills.
You can invite friends to join your Tail Towns village, and you can
continue to build your villages by working jobs and earning the Tail
Towns virtual currency. Special tasks will also earn virtual items and
the in-game currency.
In addition, Ganz has confirmed that Tail Towns will have some form
of a story line (also known as "lore") which will be "tangled tales of
forbidden love, true romance and hidden treachery". It will also have
unrestricted chat more similar to Free Realms or Club Penguin.
You can join their mailing list for updates and "exclusive first
access to the world of Tail Towns" by visiting the official site: http://www.tailtowns.com.
To address everyone's concerns that Webkinz World may be put on the back burner, as Ganz devotes personnel and resources to Tail Towns, that isn't the case.
Will Ganz shift resources and personnel away from Webkinz if Tail Towns starts to really take off?
Ganz
is completely dedicated to Webkinz. We have the plan for 2011 locked
and loaded and I'm already planning 2012. Look at any Web Metrics site -
we're still one of the top three most played kids sites on the
internet. We're not risking that. Also, Webkinz is Flash, Tail Towns is
in Unity3D (like MAZIN' Hamsters). The two teams don't overlap.
Do you anticipate that older Webkinz players are going to leave Webkinz World in favor of Tail Towns?
Webkinz
is a very robust site with a specific play style. We have lots of
arcade games, and lots of collectable elements. I do think that some of
the older members of Webkinz will enjoy the expanded design abilities in
Tail Towns, and the robust trading/selling features that have been
included. The figures themselves look awesome too. But overall it isn't
our goal to "move people" from one site to another. In many ways we're
looking to get a whole new audience. The kind of audience who never
considered Webkinz -- most adults who play Webkinz got into it through
their children, or grandchildren.
If so, is Ganz going to make any efforts to hang on to
those older Webkinz players inside WW, or are they going to focus their
efforts in Webkinz World on their younger audience?
Webkinz
has always been for "younger members". But we also wanted to make a
site that we enjoy playing. While there are features that appeal more to
our younger members (like taking care of their pets) beyond that kids
and adults on Webkinz play very similarly. We definitely have more
collection events coming and another large daily (ala Jumbleberry
Fields) on the way - and who doesn't like getting more prizes?
