'Habbo Hopes For New Life As A Gaming Platform'

Accidentally clicked news when googling Habbo, came up with lots of articles about this:

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After Losing Over Half Its 9M Users In A Pedophile Scandal, Habbo Hotel Hopes For New Life As A Gaming Platform

Habbo Hotel, the under-21 social networking site that had to close down and then “mute” users over the summer after it was discovered that people were using it to send minors illicit content, is opening a new line of business: as a youth-focused online gaming platform.

From today, site owner Sulake is launching a set of APIs for people to publish games that can be distributed on its network. It hopes that the effort will help it pick up significant ground that it has lost in recent months: Habbo says it currently counts 4 million monthly users across 150 countries and 12 languages; before the scandal hit, Habbo Hotel had 9 million monthly visitors.

The target audience, it says, are 13-18 year-olds. Habbo says that it will be marketing to them with a newly positioned games center in its main menu. Games can be promoted for free (for now) and appear to be free, getting monetized through in-app credits and advertising. We’re asking Habbo whether games will follow the conventional 30/70 revenue share split or something else.

To avoid some of the problems of relaxed governance that got Habbo into hot water in the first place, the company is specifically laying out what is not allowed into these games, with the list including “raw violence”, nudity, drugs, racism, bad language, and political and religious content. In contrast with Zynga, which is interested in doing more with gambling to improve the margins on its social games business, Habbo specifically forbids it.

That relaxed governance not only lost Habbo over half its users, but it also meant that one of its key investors, Balderton, also backed out of its relationship with the company.

Habbo already has a track record as a gaming platform, but for games it develops itself. This move opens the platform to significantly more activity from others, and puts Habbo in line with other online gaming contenders like Gree, Zynga and of course the biggest social-network-as-gaming-platform of all, Facebook. Developers that have already signed on include Chat Republic and Seepia, the company says, and that trial usage so far has been encouraging, if perhaps a little empty in its early days.

“We have been thrilled to work with such a great bunch of talented game studios,” Antti Viitanen, Sulake EVP New Revenue, said in a statement. “Habbo offers developers globally a great opportunity to create games for the huge Habbo user base, especially now, when the platform isn’t yet crowded with games.”

If opening to third parties does not take off — or even if it does — Habbo may also find it has a lease of life through anonymized data it collects on the key youth demographic.

Habbo’s API documentation gives some interesting insight into what platforms are the most popular with Habbo’s young users at the moment. The vast majority, over 90%, of users play on Windows machines, with only 6% on Macs, and mobile platforms like iPhone or Android each accounting for 1% or less of usage. About half of all users are accessing Habbo via Google’s Chrome browser. And given that the network is mainly used for conversations and interactions, device usage is just the tip of the data iceberg for the company.

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http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/27/aft...ming-platform/

API Docs released too: https://dev.habbo.com/docs/General/Getting_Started

Closed by Lee (Forum Super Moderator): Due to off topic posts / arguments.

Very interesting, under 21-social networking.. I was unaware of that.

I personally think Habbo has lost it's users for good.

For god sake, does anybody even want games? I couldn't care less about the crappy games that they keep introducing. Habbo isn't what it used to be and it seems they're really drifting away from what it used to be about, a community!

Awful. Habbo is no place for these god awful games. They really don't have a clue.

I loved the operating system statistic. But yeah I guess we knew this was happening with the launch of the games centre and then the dev site.

Habbo what R you doin'? Habbo Stahp. I miss old habbo way way WAY to many crap changes going on now.

---------- Post added 28-11-2012 at 08:46 PM ----------

I don't think habbo realised no one plays those games.

It's sort of going the way of the dodo bird, eh? They probably need to focus on a different demographic. Farmville for Habbo ain't gonna cut it.

More games..... fun! They need to think of better ways to work this out, like maybe making the promotion things free for a start and then bringing back old ways that were popular. Listening to users would be better too.

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Originally Posted by McDonalds

More games..... fun! They need to think of better ways to work this out, like maybe making the promotion things free for a start and then bringing back old ways that were popular. Listening to users would be better too.

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Once we think they're finally listening to us it goes right back in the opposite direction ffs

The title is ''Habbo Habbo Hopes For New Life As A Gaming Platform'' - they obviously feel Habbo is dead and they need to change, which is why they are going towards gaming.

Wow............

Well this is the end of Habbo, bringing random games into the the Hotel. Imo maybe if they listened to what we want they could bring back some of their users, but in reality they don't listen and probably never will.....hopeless.

Docs and API are no good to anyone without an account in the development center, so that you can create a game and have your api keys.

Additionally, that article is full of blown up garbage. The scandal was never anything to do with peadophiles, it was to do with poor moderation of a teen service. No peadophile was ever caught or charged over the period of the scandal.

Welcome to habbo hotel, We will supply you with all of your unnecessary things, but when it comes to listening we suck!

Terribly frustrating! Habbo always was a social networking site. It was less about the games and more about the interaction, the friends, the community. So what do Habbo do in their hour of need? Turn it into a games site. Perfect logic.... idiots. Why would people go on Habbo to play their simple games (Speedway) when you have a plethora of sites dedicated to good games, with new ones being added daily! Habbo is NOT a gaming site, it is a social networking site!

Just when I thought staff were getting the right idea with recent updates, you suddenly see they go the complete other way with it.

Let's make this very clear to staff.. You want to save Habbo from the brink? Get rid of Facebook integration, get rid of news via Twitter, bring back the articles page, bring back the visible staff and moderator presence. Make it feel like we are a part of something. I go on Habbo and I feel completely alone! Half my friends are sat in boosting rooms AFK, the (very few) games around that you can play are all Wired so there is no host, and the players barely talk to each other. In effect, bring back the community! Isolating Habbos even further through non-communicative games is NOT going to help you! Look at Habbo circa 2005-2009 - Those years were amazing for community! That is the point of a social networking site: to create a mini society, another community, another social world!

Get it together Habbo! Seriously.. do it now. Before it's too late. Speak to your users and listen. We are your customers and take heed. We aren't as daft as you may think we are..

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Originally Posted by Abdicators

Docs and API are no good to anyone without an account in the development center, so that you can create a game and have your api keys.

Additionally, that article is full of blown up garbage. The scandal was never anything to do with peadophiles, it was to do with poor moderation of a teen service. No peadophile was ever caught or charged over the period of the scandal.

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Well I have heard before they they are extending 3rd party games and yes from the c4 news report, I distinctively remember the term 'paedophile haven' being thrown around.

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Originally Posted by Red

Well I have heard before they they are extending 3rd party games and yes from the c4 news report, I distinctively remember the term 'paedophile haven' being thrown around.

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As far I remember, the original report said nothing about paedophiles, infact I'm very sure of it

http://www.channel4.com/news/striptease-and-cyber-sex-my-stay-at-habbo-hotel

It was blown to by journalists and other media.

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Originally Posted by Abdicators

As far I remember, the original report said nothing about paedophiles, infact I'm very sure of it

http://www.channel4.com/news/stripte...at-habbo-hotel

It was blown to by journalists and other media.

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The term "paedophiles" was used by the media. It may not be the case of Habbo and yes no one was caught but the term was actually used.

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Originally Posted by :Act

Let's make this very clear to staff.. You want to save Habbo from the brink? Get rid of Facebook integration, get rid of news via Twitter, bring back the articles page, bring back the visible staff and moderator presence. Make it feel like we are a part of something. I go on Habbo and I feel completely alone! Half my friends are sat in boosting rooms AFK, the (very few) games around that you can play are all Wired so there is no host, and the players barely talk to each other. In effect, bring back the community! Isolating Habbos even further through non-communicative games is NOT going to help you! Look at Habbo circa 2005-2009 - Those years were amazing for community! That is the point of a social networking site: to create a mini society, another community, another social world!

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Agree with all these points made, would add that smaller hotel fosters better community. Post-merge and post-BETA, mad account deletion and the creation of a flagship website did nothing for the community. Going on a 2am GMT used to be where you'd find the most interesting of nightcrawlers in their scripted rooms with plenty to say about real topics, the ebb and flow of peak times etc added life to the hotel, now it's just all the New World players on in peak time.

The account deletion and removal of public rooms was a big guillotine to the very heart of the hotel, one of the sites strengths over sites like Facebook, Twitter, IMVU, Second Life etc was its history. The public rooms were the greatest familiarity to returning members, and it was already repping 5+ years before YouTube showed up. The website survived when titans like Sims Online and Coke Studios fell, paralleled by other popular sites of similar age (Runescape, Neopets). The rooms created in the early years held social memes, trends in pop culture, showed the stretches of design Habbos could apply to the then limited furni range, it was the historical iceberg beneath the surface, the maze of creation and past communities held in time, all gone. And all the photos? Well instead of pursuing the scripted ones, a small portion of what were the thousands of others, each one an in-game capture of life on the hotel, they wiped them all, again, ignoring users.

/rant. The point is here, for those outside of the hotel, it's a silly game they can't understand an affection for, but for those that got lost in it a few nights a week, built entire friendship bases, knew all there was to know and did their best to be involved and create, they were the lifeblood, loyal users retained community relations - not swathes of T driven newcomers, but it is this audience that has had all the attention and direction of the hotel since then and will, inevitably, continue to have as long as it is profitable.

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Originally Posted by Abdicators

As far I remember, the original report said nothing about paedophiles, infact I'm very sure of it

http://www.channel4.com/news/stripte...at-habbo-hotel

It was blown to by journalists and other media.

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Pretty sure they used that term and during the report talked about men who had been arrested for it?

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Originally Posted by Red

Pretty sure they used that term and during the report talked about men who had been arrested for it?

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Originally Posted by Abdicators

As far I remember, the original report said nothing about paedophiles, infact I'm very sure of it

http://www.channel4.com/news/stripte...at-habbo-hotel

It was blown to by journalists and other media.

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Oh snap...

http://mattgarner.net/upload/images/...1/29/d0v9j.png

Also if you watch the video of the news report on that Channel 4 link you posted the man mentions the word in the first 16 seconds.

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Originally Posted by xxMATTGxx

Oh snap...

http://mattgarner.net/upload/images/...1/29/d0v9j.png

Also if you watch the video of the news report on that Channel 4 link you posted the man mentions the word in the first 16 seconds.

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Simply examples of other journalists blowing up the report. Neither of those people wrote the original, and in response to Red, I think the fact that its known that Sulake has assisted in comprehending paedophiles can't be anything but positive. Many services have paedophiles, including and god forbid, Facebook!

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Originally Posted by Abdicators

Simply examples of other journalists blowing up the report. Neither of those people wrote the original, and in response to Red, I think the fact that its known that Sulake has assisted in comprehending paedophiles can't be anything but positive. Many services have paedophiles, including and god forbid, Facebook!

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What report are we talking here? Sulake aren't going to start talking about paedophiles. The whole report which caused the mutes contained the word paedophiles many many times across many websites. My image was taken from the link you posted - The Channel 4 News site.

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The scandal was never anything to do with peadophiles, it was to do with poor moderation of a teen service. No peadophile was ever caught or charged over the period of the scandal.

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It was about people saying sexual stuff to other uses and Channel 4 then said Habbo Hotel has peadophiles. Which is probably a high chance as most services have people like that. Then they talked about poor moderation because it all links together. It was said in the report by Channel 4 which kicked the whole thing off. Sulake then decided to mute the hotel - This then lost them a lot of users if you haven't noticed - Again, this is linked.

Yes, I am fully aware there are paedophiles on many sites and I didn't agree with the c4 report but they still spoke about it! That image isn't examples of other journalists blowing it up :S. It's a screenshot of the c4 report. You can see Jon Snow's head. lmao

Self-inflicted, no sympathy. Someone put it outs of its misery and just shoot Paul/Habbo/Sulake. I would but I'm allergic to stupidtiococcus ignoramaschlamydimbecilio.

I don't think habbo will retain the old users.

9 million users is not a joke. the way they are changing habbo and living in a delusion that habbos are satisfied now, I don't think there will be an increase in the users

Also, I doubt the new users will like anything in habbo at the moment

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Originally Posted by Jake

For god sake, does anybody even want games? I couldn't care less about the crappy games that they keep introducing. Habbo isn't what it used to be and it seems they're really drifting away from what it used to be about, a community!

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Agreed completely even tho I play Habbo raceway a bit ;) lolol but it still shouldn't change the way it is :/ it should be focusing on more clothes more things to get people together like group comps or even better like introduce group games where randomers meet other randomers ;)

The people making decisions are so out of touch it's painful. Putting such a huge emphasis on games screams desperation, especially when you consider that they axed SnowStorm, BattleBall and Wobble Squabble without batting an eyelid not so long ago. Why is it that no one working for the company can recognise that while those games were popular, it was because they were free, fun, multiplayer games which always had a plethora of people dying to play them.

Compare them with that food parachute game designed to disguise the mute, a game where the only interaction is clicking a static button, and you can see the disconnect.

There are hundreds of sites which do flash games better than Habbo, not to mention the Gaming and Race Rooms section of the popular list which offers dozens of user-designed games which are each more creative and interactive that any garbage Habbo **** out.

People have been saying it for a long time but this whole last year has got me genuinely believing that the site won't be around too much longer. People who suffered through terrible update after terrible update over the years have had enough. The mute, the non-existent moderation and community and the fact that the hotel is a ghost-town (even at peak times) are the straws which broke the camel's back.

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Originally Posted by HOSKO02

Agree with all these points made, would add that smaller hotel fosters better community. Post-merge and post-BETA, mad account deletion and the creation of a flagship website did nothing for the community. Going on a 2am GMT used to be where you'd find the most interesting of nightcrawlers in their scripted rooms with plenty to say about real topics, the ebb and flow of peak times etc added life to the hotel, now it's just all the New World players on in peak time.

The account deletion and removal of public rooms was a big guillotine to the very heart of the hotel, one of the sites strengths over sites like Facebook, Twitter, IMVU, Second Life etc was its history. The public rooms were the greatest familiarity to returning members, and it was already repping 5+ years before YouTube showed up. The website survived when titans like Sims Online and Coke Studios fell, paralleled by other popular sites of similar age (Runescape, Neopets). The rooms created in the early years held social memes, trends in pop culture, showed the stretches of design Habbos could apply to the then limited furni range, it was the historical iceberg beneath the surface, the maze of creation and past communities held in time, all gone. And all the photos? Well instead of pursuing the scripted ones, a small portion of what were the thousands of others, each one an in-game capture of life on the hotel, they wiped them all, again, ignoring users.

/rant. The point is here, for those outside of the hotel, it's a silly game they can't understand an affection for, but for those that got lost in it a few nights a week, built entire friendship bases, knew all there was to know and did their best to be involved and create, they were the lifeblood, loyal users retained community relations - not swathes of T driven newcomers, but it is this audience that has had all the attention and direction of the hotel since then and will, inevitably, continue to have as long as it is profitable.

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Perhaps one of the most significant posts that has been written about this entire topic over the last 12 months. Hit the nail on the head! Maybe then, Habbo has already dug the hole for its grave and is slowly lowering itself in, unable to stop it? Eking out the last of its lifeforce (and profits) before it ultimately closes down? It's very possible.. the complete destruction of its history was a thought I had not really thought all the way through, and I agree that it was a significant loss that I hadn't truly appreciated. I also agree the merge was terrible, but with dwindling numbers they had no choice. Shame they decided to merge and wish the problem away instead of actually doing some work with real significance..

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Originally Posted by :Act

Habbo has already dug the hole for its grave and is slowly lowering itself in

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Exactly, but then the question becomes, will they put so much into this new venture and really discontinue the hotels? Surely they can't be that blind to the user base, which is now even more international,. but given their past, I wouldn't put it past them

under-21....

seems i'm not allowed to play

I don't get the point of games in a game. I played the games like once and haven't played them since :/

Will

Can someone enlighten me as to WHY they merged the hotels? Do we know?

From what i've been reading over past few months followed by the news that half it's users have left, Sulake seems to be in serious trouble.

But then with their poor customer service (as i've found out, a long term user completely left in the dark) they've brought it on themselves.

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Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

From what i've been reading over past few months followed by the news that half it's users have left, Sulake seems to be in serious trouble.

But then with their poor customer service (as i've found out, a long term user completely left in the dark) they've brought it on themselves.

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Totally 100% agree!

They've brought it on themselves and instead of listening to the older more experienced players they completely turned their backs. They focused on profits, which is all well and good but there comes a time when you need to spend some money in order to make it back.

I've always said Habbo could learn from Runescape as they have done outstanding updates.. increased their fan-base and ultimately created a family atmosphere with its players. They listen to suggestions posted and make changes accordingly to the game. If Habbo were in control of Runescape they'd have started selling gold, unmoderated everything so everyone would bot, hackers scammers everywhere, gambling and no updates other than items which you could buy.

In all honesty I couldn't give a **** about Habbo anymore. Awful game ran by morons - moderated by morons too!

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Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

(as i've found out, a long term user completely left in the dark) they've brought it on themselves.

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It's the simple things they're overlooking that really grind on the quality of the hotel and reveal their values. All the furniture with desc_1214 names ads_1800 etc show a complete disregard for the look and feel of past releases and general upkeep, and as you mention, long-term users rarely get any mail, offers or anything to reward that loyalty. Where is the '200% True Habbo' 10 year loyalty badge? Simple updates like that would go a long way, but instead we're bombarded with a new catalogue range every month

I wonder if Paul read this thread about it :P

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I was reading some fansite forums and saw comments on recent blog posts talking about our announcement of the games API. The discussion was about how we are trying to change Habbo. First tip for Habbos, never believe what you read on a blog. Unless it is this blog of course! But even then read everything with a very careful eye.

The reason we built the API is that we hear very clearly how popular Snowstorm, Wobble Squabble & Battle Ball are in the Habbo lore and imagination. We all know that putting games into the Habbo universe is fun if they fit they play style that Habbos enjoy. Witness Fast Food. Very straightforward game, still gets a lot of play and it works well. Habbos enjoy it, the numbers show it.

We also know that it would be better to have 15 games as popular as Wobble Squabble in the Hotel. As not all games made are as good as a game like that we have to introduce 100 games to the site and Habbos pick the 15 great ones. Expecting anyone to build a perfect game every time is not how the world works.

So like any problem we asked ourselves how we could introduce 100 games to the service, and the only answer that made sense was to partner with 3rd parties to allow them to introduce games via an API. The major well known social networks do this and the app stores on your smart phones are built on this. This is how content is made in sufficient volume to allow users to pick and choose the winners. So we are doing that.

There are two points to consider, first about Habbo Hotel, and next about very creative Habbos who may want to program their own games. In Habbo Hotel the staff are going to focus on Community, Friending Tools and getting the spirit of Habbo back in “Old Habbo” top form. We’re not going to be building games. As for creative Habbos who aspire to be game designers, now the API is open to YOU. That means a few of you can get together, rebuild Wobble Squabble and put in on Habbo. And you can take advantage of our agreement with developers meaning you make the majority of the money that the game creates. Not a bad deal.

Which brings me to a final thing to consider. Habbo is about friendships. Playing games together is part of making friendships richer and more long lasting. So more games means more chance to share experiences. As we try more of the 100 games and you see one that is not to your taste, pass it by. Try the next one. In the meantime the Staff will be working with developers and more importantly spending the majority of their time in Hotel and with you to bring back Old Habbo.

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http://blog.habbo.com/2012/11/30/som...rom-paulwalla/

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Originally Posted by xxMATTGxx

I wonder if Paul read this thread about it :P



http://blog.habbo.com/2012/11/30/som...rom-paulwalla/

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Now we need someone to rebuild battleball..

Well its clear investors have pulled out, and they really have no choice but to turn to these third parties. He has it spot on when he said snow storm, battle ball and wobble squabble were well loved games that 'fit the play style'. But does he really think the new games and the many more that will be introduced will do that? No they do not. They do not fit the habbo style and that is the main problem. Fair enough if other social networks have games, but we have all made our hate clear for merging habbo with twitter and facebook. It just doesn't work. As for habbos making games? What even ... :S
Habbo is about making friendships but I find these games don't do that. In the past snowstorm and battleball did, because you could choose teams and play with your friends. All those features seem to be missing in the newer versions. I find most games like fast food to be isolating :S I can guarantee that none of these 100 games will be to my taste.

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Originally Posted by Red

Well its clear investors have pulled out, and they really have no choice but to turn to these third parties. He has it spot on when he said snow storm, battle ball and wobble squabble were well loved games that 'fit the play style'. But does he really think the new games and the many more that will be introduced will do that? No they do not. They do not fit the habbo style and that is the main problem. Fair enough if other social networks have games, but we have all made our hate clear for merging habbo with twitter and facebook. It just doesn't work. As for habbos making games? What even ... :S
Habbo is about making friendships but I find these games don't do that. In the past snowstorm and battleball did, because you could choose teams and play with your friends. All those features seem to be missing in the newer versions. I find most games like fast food to be isolating :S I can guarantee that none of these 100 games will be to my taste.

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I think it will be the best interest for the games developers to make a game that we actually like, as they get money if we buy the perks for it.