Sulake CEO against links on Habbo

[Shorty]

I noticed this was posted on another forum, so thought it would be cool to discuss here. Read from bottom to top!

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[xxMATTGxx]

So basically he hates the feature Habbo have where users are able to click links and that fansites shouldn't do it at all... well that's nice of him for sure. Give us more promotion and then we don't have to link people?

[Red]

Absolutely ridiculous. Fansites would gradually die without advertising within game. Why do they even allow you to post and click links then. UGH

[Andii]

Wow what a ****. First he tweets to me saying weak tweet and now this. Not on at all. His twitter account will now get spammed pointlessly by me =] and He should be doing more to stop people getting banned

[MKR&*42]

Well then why the heck did they even bother allowing links in the first place? It has and always will be a stupid move for the large % of users tbh. If there was a system where only official fansite links would turn up blue and "click-able" then that would be fantastic, but apparently it's a big no no for us.

It's really not hard to read through a list of official fansites tbqh. 42 fansite links at http://www.habbo.com/community/fansites and a simple ctrl + f then typing the link does the job. Jeez.

'Tis k though, they'll be some ridiculous solution in the future which means more fansite promoters will get banned probably :rolleyes:

[dbgtz]

"I'm not having mods go through every link" just made me think if they actually have mods read the text or do they just ban randomly to seem like they are working?

[Zuth]

How stupid, how're fansites supposed to advertise now.

[Mathew]

What a completely moronic thing to say. He really has no idea at all.

[Paige.]

This is ridiculous. He's basically just admitted that people are being banned unfairly just for giving links out whether they're for a fansite or not. What is the point in having the link feature if you just get banned for using it? Pointless.

[Jssy]

What the hell! Something needs sorting because that's just unfair

[Samantha]

It's stupid you can easily ban links from your room but shouldn't need to ban for giving a fansite link at all. I think the problem lies with every forum or radio being classed asa fansite thus not easu to moderate. If mods look at the links they should use common sense or look at the list.

[auffant1]

Are mods really that dumb that they can't tell Habbox apart from scam links? I see people who post scam links all the time and never get banned. But someone posts one Habbox link and bam, perm ban. Just ridiculous.

[Aiden]

That Paul guy is a ***. I don't care if he owns Habbo what a stupid idea.

[Grig]

yeh had a dj banned yesterday for advertising HXL.com at a giveaway. Pathetic.

[lawrawrrr]

This is just ridiculous really, if he really has a problem with links that much why can you still link in-client?? It doesn't even need to be a moderated system, just make the fansite links the only allowed ones, surely that's possible automatically?

[iBlueBox]

Habbo should have an approved list of sites that are clickable!

[GoldenMerc]

Habbo should have an approved list of sites that are clickable!

Pretty good idea to be fair

[Special]

habbo & habbo mods should recognize what are OFFICIAL fansite links and what arn't. anyone promoting anything other than an official fansite link should be banned

[Kyle]

dont allow links if you dont want people to actually link to sites what an idiot

[Red]

Its just ridiculous that he says it isn't his responsibility to sort out fansites from scammers.... of course it is. Better ways to promote? I'd like to see him come up with a few ideas for that :S The idea of only being able to link to fansites is good but would we be able to link to threads and that? Would be annoying to lose the power to click links.

[Hecktix]

Whilst I accept this is pretty ridiculous and that the guy is a moron, Habbox and other fansites did just fine before you could link in client, in fact Habbox was masses more popular than it is now :P

So to suggest fansites will die if they can't link in client is a bit silly, given how popular Habbox was prior to being able to link in client, and in fairness from what I remember promotion back then was a lot more subtle than the spamming of links often seen now.

[Samantha.]

Well this is stupid, since people are getting banned for advertising a habbo fansite!

[Zak]

Surely they could take away the feature and only allow links for official sites.

so only allow

www.habbox.com (http://www.habbox.com)

and others

but not www.habboskem.tk (http://www.habboskem.tk) ;/

I'm sure restricting certain things is easy in programming languages

[xxMATTGxx]

Surely they could take away the feature and only allow links for official sites.

so only allow

www.habbox.com (http://www.habbox.com)

and others

but not www.habboskem.tk (http://www.habboskem.tk) ;/

I'm sure restricting certain things is easy in programming languages

They actually sent an email out with new rules saying fansites couldn't have .tk domains but then changed their minds after people complained. Bit off-topic but somewhat related.

[Inseriousity.]

That was before Habbo decided to take away every feature that made fansites unique (marketplace in place of rare values for example). The first fansite I joined was one that was linked on the client even though I did have to type it in rather than click it.

Paul is clearly out of touch with the struggles that fansites now face and Habbo seem to know both the value of fansites (a student recently did his research here after being told by Sulake to try the fansites) and yet place so many obstacles in their path at the same time.

[SackRace]

This is ridiculous! Does he even know what hes talking about?

[Josh]

ha hah ha hah hah ah hah ahhaahha hahahaa

This is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder Habbo is getting worse.

[Pigperson]

So basically he hates the feature Habbo have where users are able to click links and that fansites shouldn't do it at all... well that's nice of him for sure. Give us more promotion and then we don't have to link people?

Ikr. If he doesn't like links why are they still permitted :S

Will

[Zak]

They actually sent an email out with new rules saying fansites couldn't have .tk domains but then changed their minds after people complained. Bit off-topic but somewhat related.

Used .tk, as an example but why can't they restrict like .tk, .co.cc etc!

At least then the scam sites would have to pay for domain and hosting.

Surely it isn't hard to split a String up into individual characters then reject it if it ends in '.' 't' 'k'. Though I'm looking at this from a Java perspective I have no idea how Shockwave is coded.

[GoldenMerc]

Habbo isn't coded in shockwave anymore is it? All flash i think

Used .tk, as an example but why can't they restrict like .tk, .co.cc etc!

At least then the scam sites would have to pay for domain and hosting.

Surely it isn't hard to split a String up into individual characters then reject it if it ends in '.' 't' 'k'. Though I'm looking at this from a Java perspective I have no idea how Shockwave is coded.

[Zak]

Habbo isn't coded in shockwave anymore is it? All flash i think

I honestly have no idea! I'm guessing it is Flash yeah!

[xxMATTGxx]

Habbo isn't coded in shockwave anymore is it? All flash i think


I honestly have no idea! I'm guessing it is Flash yeah!

They switched over to Flash a good few years now. That's what "Habbo Beta" was all about and remember when a lot of features were taken away and so on because it was moving from shockwave to the flash platform.

[Chippiewill]

It's in flash but it more depends on what the server is written in.

[Samantha]

Gotta think that Paul wasn't really here when this feature was put into use but I doubt he has done anything to remove it though. In this case it is a problem (he says anyway) thus should be fixed instead of doing things that aren't really needed such as treating a plant or releasing another LTD rare that hardly anyone gives a **** about.

At the end of the day, they couldn't be bothered putting their time into the community therefore said they would spend more time in the technical side of Habbo, where's the no lag we were promised, where's the new interface, where's all that stuff? Instead of doing stupid Facebook competitions too and giving pointless badges out actually do something technical and stop being liars because really most Habbos can see through it? Stop trying to be this pathetic dating site, stop promoting flirting but then ban for it. They say every fansite is official now then ******* make sure no one gets banned for advertising one, yes .tk links should be banned, so should those not offering Habbo news, so should those who can't afford a domain and those who basically only want a badge. Something needs to be done and I'm only wishing the council was still open, that was a good way to get your views out.

I mean come on, did we need a new Habbo way? No, that's not really technical is it, writing some words down on a graphic, anyone can do that it doesn't take all of the staff to come up with it. The new StrayPixels competition? Again it's a popularity contest and many didn't adhere by the rules but still get in, why can't they see that they're an unfair website who most of the time get it wrong, why can't they do what they promised and not give us meaningless ****.

/Rant.

[Shorty]

I think the way he sees it, is that people are taking traffic away from Habbo but that's simply not the case. Habbo Fansites attract and draw attention for potential new users as well as regular users with having news articles etc.

[Samantha]

I think the way he sees it, is that people are taking traffic away from Habbo but that's simply not the case. Habbo Fansites attract and draw attention for potential new users as well as regular users with having news articles etc.

I do agree with that, Fansites also keep users for years unlike it would if they just played Habbo alone with no community behind them.

[jasey]

I think PaLaFo gets off a bit on getting spoken about. He certainly isn't careful about thinking before he says things. Not just this, how many tweets and quotes about ludicrous things he has made that we've seen? He clearly is a talking puppet for the people directing Habbo from behind the scenes. The moderators are useless at best. I mean, I know that people have been saying Habbo has been all about the money for years. I remember that being the mantra a long, long time ago. Now it truly is mostly about the money. We have an army man ex-Disney exec brought to help rebrand Habbo from "Habbo, where else?" in to "Habbo, it's free but please buy more stuff!"

You know, PaLaFo's appetite for turning the relationship between Habbo and developers in to one like the relationship Facebook has with Zynga is alarming. His ambitions really boil down to constant 'games inside the game'. Soon we will be playing "Shave The Pet Monkey" for two credits to win an achievement badge in sponsorship of Gilette and being given splash advertisements to go download the newest totally original Sulake iOS app like the totally original 'Niko' that is weirdly alike to 'Angry Birds' but uses images of Habbo animals and something 'fresh and cute' like a purple panda. For £1,99 you can unlock the majority of the game and in reward you get cool badges that everyone will have. You know, like all of the cool and exclusive badges we have been given since PaLaFo took over. Why stop there? Sell LTD Purple Pandas as rare pets for 175c each. Score!

Timo Soininen, CEO for ten years prior to Disneyfied PaLaFo:

If you think about computer games like World of Warcraft, people create their own stuff, but there’s a good chance the magic will be destroyed unless the tools are really elaborate and whatever is created can fit in with the environment.

Paul LaFontaine:

Our audience has a voracious appetite for games. We can't flood the market, but I think 3 to 5 games a month within Habbo would be acceptable.

Monster Plants aren't fun enough for you? How about that and two or three more credit-draining "games" for you to participate in? If you're lucky, they will be fun like Battleball was. If you're not, spend a lot of credits and perhaps you can get a special trophy from the Hotel Manager! Maybe it will have a cute purple panda on the top! Err — here is a free game for you. A guessing game!

Two of these people lead Sulake in the direction the board wants it to go to maximise profit. Two of these people do what the other two tell them. Can you guess who is who? Don't let the assertive glances and sharp editing in the top row versus the washed out lighting and dumb expressions in the bottom row fool you! Actually, on second though, do let it fool you.


http://i.imgur.com/pVfzE.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/iCKLa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uTHxt.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/GPOwl.jpg

Your reward is a fun fact: Paul LaFontaine used to be a Pizza Hut Manager.


http://i.imgur.com/lZR7h.gif
The golden age of Habbo — guess how many are still around!

http://i.imgur.com/j9ENQ.gif
What do you mean real comps don't exist anymore? Just how much easier can badges be to get?