Do you reckon the amount if users that have dropped since 2010 is to do wi Habbo getting old with not much to do, the remove of .co.uk combining to .com, the bad press reported resulting in the mute or something else?
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Do you reckon the amount if users that have dropped since 2010 is to do wi Habbo getting old with not much to do, the remove of .co.uk combining to .com, the bad press reported resulting in the mute or something else?
I would say a mixture of what you have said yes. Habbo is getting old and there's not alot of events within the community and alot of older users are leaving. The merged ruined Habbo so they lost alot of users left at that point and possibly about bad press and parents deciding that they don't want their children on the website anymore.
Habbo lost a lot of players when old habbo was replaced fully with the beta, then the merge and the new staff. I don't think the scandal caused much - and if it did - the players slowly returned.
I started habbo.com after merge, I can't affirm anything, but Global Mute was not good, lots and lots of people quit and now are slowly returning....
Back in 2006-2007 Habbo AU would hover around 4-5,000, before the merge that had dropped to between 1-2,000. I think the radical change in the way the community was managed lost a lot of users, they were removing well loved features and it just went down the pan really. I remember it basically falling apart as soon as the first version of the Homepage we see now came about.
The mute has been proven to lose Habbo members
I do wish it still was how it used to be, those were the days. Habbo need to give users more of a say really, make Habbo something to talk about, make people look forward to logging on, something to help get the users back up. I would love to see a full Hotel again.
I think it would be fair to say the entire time Paul was CEO the company was run completely into the ground and members dropped loads due to his lack of tact of any sort.
Quite a lot of my old friends left when the Shockwave client was finally removed, very few returned - none of them still play today...
i think it's because their player base is just getting old and I don't think theres much of an attraction for new kids to join because theres a lot more variety in what you can do online in terms of social/gaming compared to what there was in 2005
habbo's decisions also play a factor in it, they've made it cater to 12 year olds by making the filter mandatory, I cant even string a sentance together without bobba coming up
I can imagine a new teenager signing up, trying to say a filtered word then just closing it because of how ridiculous it is
yup it's because the players are getting old and new players are not finding habbo that interesting
who are we kidding, just open the games section and it looks like a freakin trainwreck..top rooms are arcades and shops or some irrelevant rooms. Habbo has nothing interesting to offer
I remember the days that you could go and work for places, nowadays everything is automated and nothing to do. I thought the new CEO after taking over Paul LaFo would have made some drastic changes by now.
Everything seems to be slowing down, and has done for years. Hopefully it revives itself or it'll just slow down till it makes a stop (and that'll be the end :P)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Futz
i agree with this, when i was 12 in 2004 there wasn't much to do on the internet besides msn so this was what me and ALL my friends played, like literally all my friends played habbo. you ask a 12 year old if they played habbo now they more than likely wouldn't know what it is.
12 year olds these days are so preoccupied with facebook, twitter, instagram all these social websites that connect them with their own friends from school and where they live, they'd never think of going on a website to talk to random people they don't even know. if they really wanted to do that, they could do that on all their other social media websites they have accounts on already.
I still use Habbo because I have grown up with it, and it was always a source of entertainment. I disliked the merge and can't often find good conversation anymore. If I was a new user, I would have given up already.
There still seems to always be lots of people online though.
Like others have said, back when I was a kid in like 2003/2004/2005 - it was a much more different than it is now. These days you have a world overtaken by Social Media sites such as Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/ & so much more. Chat Rooms are an after-thought, like who uses them?
Back in my day it was MSN & Habbo Or Runescape. Our generation have gotten older, I am 20 years old and I visit Habbo once every like 4 months. The generation now and in the future will not need Habbo because they have Social media sites which is available to them. Habbo just has no place in our current day.
I am just happy I grew up in it's era :)
Bottom line, yes. It's on its moneymaking days now, because they know the product hasn't got an awful amount of time left. It's likely they'll milk it for all its worth, shut it down and then open up something different which doesn't have the whole pedo credibility about it. Channel 4 ruined them, the merge ruined them, the mute ruined them, it's a mixture of their own doing really.
I think habbo should have a retro week (as in old school!)
I was gone since Mid 2011, when I returned mid 2013 the number of players had dropped too much.
There's no carnis, tripping is impossible & trading doesn't look too active aswell.
Still casinos/fansite events which seem still fairly active, but honestly it seems to have been channel 4 which ruined Habbo.
I don't think that one report from Channel 4 'ruined' Habbo but I do agree it seems to have had a lot of changes which aren't for the better. I went on Habbo a couple of weeks ago to see how it had changed, and its changed lots, firstly being that there was only 1,000 people online during the peak time which would have been unheard of once upon a time, none of the old major rooms existed where you could have good conversation, theres none of the old RPs and it just seems so empty.
I do agree that Sulake are trying to make as much money as they can, but I doubt Habbo is making much money these days, they've got (or did have) offices and staff all around the world which can't be cheap, they don't seem to have as many marketing/ad campaigns as they used to which was what they were making their money on in addition to sales which seem to have dropped most people are 12 year old non-members when I was on :P
Its been going down for years now, and it can only get worse. I think it needs to return to its roots and become less corporate, more community-oriented where older members can take up positions within the organisation for example. Its a shame really, looking back I used to spend hours on the game when I was younger, but as people said social networking has really grown and Habbo's no longer a big thing unfortunately. But at least Habbox lives on and is its great old self.
The mute ruined habbo
I mark the decline of Habbo as starting as early as 07 when the new clothing was implemented in November of that year. After this date, the updates only seemed to clutter the hotel and staff listened less to what the users had to say. The Beta and merge were both major setbacks for Habbo as users strongly protested the implementation of both, yet Sulake continued to move forward.
Paul Lafontaine, the CEO of Habbo in 2011 and 2012, was the final nail in the coffin. He continued to update the hotel with fixes and add-ons that were neither necessary nor requested. Finally, the mute destroyed much of the population as concerned parents were led to believe that their children's safety was being jeopardized. I believe the decision to mute the hotel only worsened the issue as many Habbos looked for alternative games or sites to satisfy their interests.
As a result, a lot of the 'big players' decided to leave the hotel. This had a chain effect on the rest of the population, as many of the famous Habbos were responsible for sustaining user enthusiasm by hosting events or maintaining fansites. Today, Habbo is a cesspool of trolls and 'dating room' noobs who wreak havoc across the hotel. There are few users left who have any faith in restoring Habbo, we've mostly just given up.
Overall, people have just moved on. The original Habbo generation are now in their early to late twenties and want to start careers or families. People just don't have time for the game anymore. To be honest, I've been losing interest for quite awhile now and pretty soon I'll feel like moving on too.
Personally, I think the merge has had a massive impact. I remember always coming onto habbo to 4,000+ people and that was just habbo Australia. The scandal would of lost a few of the younger players but I think they will return.
lmao definitely not thisQuote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
if you go to alexa and look at the stats you can see that the user traffic has only gone downhill, the players ain't returning buddy
The hotel does seem much more empty these days I have to say, sad really.
In my opinion, from the big mute thing, the players did return. If the user traffic did go down, it's another reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by karter
It's unlikely teenagers will stop playing over something like that, unless of course their parents made them to...
The mute was a month long period of inactivity. When the hotel was unmuted, of course users came back but the mute had a long term effect. Users are leaving because they're getting bored and growing out, and new users are not finding the game interesting. This is causing the traffic to go downQuote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
I joined in early 2011 so I can't really say anything about the merge, but the mute definitely made habbo lose some of its users.
Habbo needs to be advertised more, it's very quiet and hard to find for other people. People don't know about it. It needs to be advertised on TV to teenagers and it needs to be advertised online too such as Facebook. Habbo should build a good social media & marketing team for this. It's not as easy as that but it would be lovely to hit 10,000 one day.
I've never understood why habbo got a reputation for being so bad that people actively hid it from their friends, if they could find a way for it to be considered cool then they would be on to a winner.
For me it was the merge which killed habbo, I don't know why, but too much changed too quickly for lots of people and they all left!
Try Google Trends and use Habbo. YOu'll see.
Well I guess people see it as a game for younger kids. Something like Club Penguin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yupt
Its a toughie trying to figure out why users fell. One way to look at it is that Habbo was a 'popular craze', and as with all crazes, the interest eventually died, but that seems too easy of an answer. I think blaming the mute is too easy as well. I mean, numbers were low even before the merge.
For me personally, I've grown up with Habbo over the last 11 years and when I come onto the computer I log into Habbo like I log into Facebook (formerly myspace) and Twitter. Whether I pay much attention to it or not, its a habit.
I think Habbo now, as an actual product, is much better than when I first joined. The client is clear and easy to use. Wired is potentially the best furni Habbo ever added, groundbreaking. Rideable Horses are great, as are Badge Display cases, etc, etc, etc. I can only dream about how good Habbo would've been if it'd been like this in 2002. The only change over the last few years I really didn't like is the most recent catalogue they added, though I do like its search feature.
The issue for me with Habbo lies with the community. It is way too segregated and the "community feel" of old is gone. Most the people I knew from 2002-2009 are long gone. You get your casino people, your fansite people, your roleplayers, your games players, etc. No one really mixes and I don't find people are particularly welcoming. In fact, Habbo isn't a welcoming place at all anymore. For example, you go into a 18+ room and what do you get? One big showing off/ p*ssing contest. Most of the time, seemingly never ending, boring conversations about weed and drugs. If I was new and walked into one of these rooms for the first time, I know I'd log out of Habbo and not look back.
Came onto the hotel tonight, seemed very empty for a change.. Usually does be much more online, most rooms were empty plus even my room was quiet too for the time I was on. It went from 26 downwards to nothing. Sulake would really want to do something while they can. Surely they can see the drastic dropping in players.. Hmm, hope they do something!