Habbo in the Guardian!

[Nixt]

Okay so, I did a forum search and couldn't find this posted already. Given that the search function is a bit funky, though, I apologise if it has been posted - just let me know and I'll close the thread!

The link to the article can be found by clicking here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jul/05/habbo-virtual-worlds). It makes quite an interesting read! A couple of things that came to my attention are quoted below.


Parent company Sulake (http://www.sulake.com/) reported $20m revenues for the first quarter of 2010, up 25% year on year. The site has a not insignificant 150 payment channels set up across 31 countries, maximising their chances of encouraging players to upgrade their avatar and Habbo spaces by making it as easy as possible for them to pay in multiple ways. Soininen adds that a significant amount of transactions take place between users in the form of gifts and so on - to the value of $600m per year.

A 25% increase in revenue is quite impressive, and this is pre merge. A lot of people are saying Habbo are struggling and it's the beginning of the end. I'd say this reflects the fact that Habbo is on the up in terms of revenue. The merge will only serve to strengthen this profit - I wouldn't say Habbo is suffering!


"keep the service fresh and relevant by frequently introducing new features and gaming elements, arranging engaging campaigns, enriching the virtual economy and payment models and nurturing the community"

I thought this one was interesting! Particularly the nurturing of the community, which I don't believe happens enough or as much as it used to, although it has improved with the merge.

Thoughts?

[dbgtz]

then it makes you wonder, why did we really merge?
I can then only think of they want to use the money they saved from the redundancies and invest in further projects. Or be greedy gits and get more money.

[myke]

Well, they're certainly thriving.

I found this video off one of the videos in the article:
http://www.youtube.com/v/4DLWLMQxHUY&hl=en_US&fs=1

Even though it's in a diff language it seems its some guy being arrested for hacking Habbos? :/

[Nixt]

then it makes you wonder, why did we really merge?
I can then only think of they want to use the money they saved from the redundancies and invest in further projects. Or be greedy gits and get more money.

It's all about the money. Sulake is a company, a company that wants profit - the more the better. The merge itself made business sense in terms of making more money. It was little or nothing to do with the fact Habbo were "struggling" I don't think, it just made economic sense to merge the hotels, cut costs and increase profit.

[Grippz]

They also posted more info about it here:

http://www.sulake.com/press/releases/2010-06-14-Habbo_Hotel_Turns_10_Years_Old_and_the_Success_Sto ry_Continuesx.html

[-Danube-]

Yeah i remember it being posted on the Sulake website.

I myself don't think Habbo is struggling, there's alot more younger people on it and alot of the older members and dieing out, Habbo is being more aimed at the younger members and with most of the active users on this forum being older, they think it's dieing out.

The reason for the merge, i think, is just a way to increase profits. Someone obviously brought it up in a meeting and light bulbs started to go off in all the staffs head and thus it happened. It meant they good decrease the work force which decreases their overheads and then increases their profit. I'd love to see what increases they have earned in the quater after the merge.

EDIT:

Wow i just watched that video and at the end he threw in a nice little comment about trading. Per year, if you translate the trades of items in terms of credits and them apply this to how much credits are worth in real life, the Habbo 'Economy' shift around $600 Million eeeek thats alot of trades.

[kk.]

i dont get what the bottom part of the article has to do with anything!! :P

[Suspective]

The more money they receive, the more money they are going to invest into Habbo! :P

[Tintinnabulate]

How odd, I was just thinking about when a official news reporter from a leading newspaper used Habbox to write an article on Habbo. Habbox and a few members were mentioned in the article.