Not sure how in the world you get that POTCO is a loss-leader out of anything in the POTCO Member Services Agreement. And the section of the MSA you partial quote from is specifically talking about promotional uses of the game, and relieving Disney of having to extend said promotions to everybody who uses the product. It most certainly is not talking about any business model. Disney is pretty tight-lipped about how they run the company. Not much to glean from their Annual Reports, either.
There is no superiority if the business model is failing. I'll take a marginally successful child user business model over any type of failing business model any day of the week. Pretty sure Disney and its stockholders would too.

As always, excellent points and thought provoking posts EE. Thanks.

If the model attracting a wider use base was failing for their lack of content additions, how does alienating the majority of their customers, magically make it a marginally successful child business? If they continue with the same lack of content additions, they will garner the same trend. Accelerated by merit of being a smaller group of customers, perhaps, but still with the same trends.

(All that, pre-supposes that it is failing. Neither you nor I have access to that division's finance reports, nor their gross receipts. You and I can't even guess at the pirate population for any given day, let alone a breakdown of paid vs. total. Can't even make a reasonable guess for a single server, let alone total.)

All that aside, I still haven't found the thing where Disney talked about the game being provided to promote the movies first and foremost. I'm not making that up, just having trouble still, finding the page (which may be gone now?) The movies all appeal to families, not 8 year old boys exclusively.

It's the Spongebob business model. Spongebob has a huge following in the "little kid" demographic. But the creators of Spongebob were smart enough to make the show appeal to certain older audiences. College students for one. Putting it on MTV helped. Sheer genius.

But Spongebob remains, at it's heart and soul, a kids show. To complain that it isn't "grown up" enough is pointless because it isn't for grown ups.

The show is HUGE because its intended fan base is an infinitely renewable resource. Kids. They don't even have to add new shows anymore. New shows trickle in, three or four a year. The network shouts about it for months, promos are run, sneak peaks are provided and the interwebs buzz with excitement. The new Spongebob airs and everyone lets out a collective, "Huh..." because they have already seen everything Spongebob has to offer.

But the show maintains its "marginally successful child business" because people are still getting together to create more marginal children.

Are there any pirate movie based MMOs that we could apply this same business model to?

Um, this may seem like a stupid question, but what about POTCO is gearing more toward kids?

This whole arguing over whether the game is family based, for kids, or for eight year old boys is, IMO, the biggest reason why this game is not as good as it could be.

Because they're trying to attract a certain audience, the game doesn't end up becoming as good as it could be. Instead of worrying about making things for this group or that group, they need to just make things that are FUN for all age groups.

Not the story quests, NO! The story quests should not be biased towards one age groups. If an eight year old boy thinks it's too hard to go to some spooky skeleton infested island and try to look for a lost map in a skeleton pit, that's too bad, but if the majority of people like it, that's what's going to happen.

Look at WoW. The developers aren't limited by age groups. While it may seem like a more adult game, and very intense for newer players, the battle system isn't aimed for adults. "Well lets make the battle system so hard to figure out kids can't figure it out so adults are having the most fun." No...

Developers need to stop making content for certain age groups, and just make the content the way they want to. They're Disney guys! They're supposed to use their imaginations and go all out with it! Not sit their listening to their boss saying, "No, it has to be for eight year old boys."

MacIronhawk you make a great point. Disney is supposed to have a vivid imagination. They need to stop directing things toward certain age groups, and start making the game more fun for EVERYONE.