Fans petition to save beloved ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ game while live-action film looms over future

On June 30, JumpStart Games’ School of Dragons, inspired by Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon franchise, will be sunsetting and shutting down for good. After it was announced on Twitter by the game’s official account, news of the closure spread like wildfire, prompting long-time players to band together in an attempt to save the beloved title. On Change.org, fans started a petition to keep the servers running, which has surpassed 7,000 signatures in total.

And that’s all happening hot on the heels of the announcement that How To Train Your Dragon will be getting a live-action adaptation (why, just why?) and the lead roles have already been cast. It looks like Mason Thames of The Black Phone fame and Nico Parker, who plays Sarah Miller in The Last of Us series, will be portraying Hiccup Haddock III and Astrid Hofferson, respectively. But while that’s all well and good, it doesn’t make a difference for the School of Dragons fans who will be without their beloved game come the end of June.

JumpStart Games released the game in 2014, but have failed to consistently update it with new content, so it’s a wonder that people are still playing it, but if their loyalty lies with JumpStart, they’ll see it through to the bitter, bitter end… apparently. JumpStart itself was founded in 1991 and primarily publishes educational children’s games, but it also owns the virtual Neopets website. In the game, the player takes control of an aspiring dragon trainer, who is then paired with a dragon to rescue, hatch, and train other dragons and compete to become the greatest dragon tamer of them all.

For DreamWorks’ Dragons fans, this is certainly a sad day. There’s still a glimmer of hope if the petition can attract enough attention to sway JumpStart Games from shutting down the servers, but that’s a big “if.”