Sulake To Begin Talks To Reduce Workforce By Up To 2/3

[xxMATTGxx]

I was reading the Habbox twitter account and noticed two tweets that got me thinking "Have I missed something?" and these tweets are:


PaulWalla (CEO)

Habbos, a few questions abt staff changes and effects on Hotel. All hotels stay open, site remains free, more games & more classic features

Habbo Community is the only priority for Sulake now. All energy goes only into making Habbo great.

I then Googled search Sulake on the news section then found this:


Breaking: Sulake To Begin Talks To Reduce Workforce By Up To 2/3

Sulake, the Finnish creator of the Habbo, has announced it is starting a cooperation procedure - a Finnish legal procedure that must be followed after a large round of layoffs. Sulake currently has around 90 employees, and the potential layoffs will affect a "maximum of 60 people." Negotiations with employees will begin November 5th.

“The 12 language versions of Habbo Hotel will continue running as usual, but there will be considerable changes in the business operations” Sulake CEO Paul LaFontaine states.

“The competition in the market is fierce, and to keep the Habbo Hotel service running, it is necessary for us to make savings. Habbo Hotel returns to its roots and we will continue to entertain the millions of monthly users visiting the service. Sulake will also carry on developing the recently launched Habbo gaming platform, as the platform allows us to offer the Habbo users new, high quality content.”

Sulake has had a rough year. This summer the company received extremely bad press on Channel 4 for the company's failure to police their platform. Habbo is targeted at pre-teens and teenagers, but pornographic and violent messages were apparently rampant, leading to some news sites calling it a "paedophile haven."

Before the piece on Habbo Hotel aired, Balderton Capital exited their 13% investment in the business at zero value. Later that June, 3i, the largest investor in Sulake, also exited their 16% share. Sulkake has raised over $35 million to date. The main shareholders in Sulake include Taivas Group, Elisa Group and the company’s founders Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä.

But Habbo has seen some sort of rebirth in recent months at the company level with their new API, allowing third party developers to create games for the platform. Their goal is to leverage their existing userbase to become almost like a mixture of Steam and Facebook's gaming platforms, complete with in-game purchases, achievements, and social features. Sulake would then take 20% share of the games' profits, beating the industry's average 70/30 split with developers.

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/10...ce-by-up-to-23

There is also an interview with Paul LaFontaine which can be found here:

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/10...aul-lafontaine

[lawrawrrr]

Wait so they're going to have 30 staff running 12 hotels?

HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?

No wonder they're all dried up on ideas...

[Red]

Another one? Which means he isn't going to want to devote any staff to running comps/articles/interacting on the hotel.
'that they expect to see much more third party games and apps within Habbo.'
No one wants to go down in this direction :S These games don't suit habbo at all and they are all a pile of rubbish.

[karter]

no hope for habbo now lol

[xxMATTGxx]

Remember Osma Ahvenlampi? (ex-chief technology officer) Used to work for Sulake but left either last year or this yearIf I remember correctly well he just tweeted this:

[CrazyLemurs]

At least if they remove everyone they can employ some new, CAPABLE staff.

[MKR&*42]

Well, Habbo is screwed.

I'm sorry but this is a bloody ridiculous idea... that's just under 3 staff for one hotel and is COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE. The man is doing everything possible so that the revenue this year matches the record made last year (hence why everything in this habboxween event is actually costing you money IRL if you want something out of the catalogue) and it truly is showing how desperate he is getting.

I've actually 'face palmed' IRL about how badly this is going to affect users. Why is the man not gone yet? He is a buffoon and hasn't had people interact the community so he doesn't know what we want... here's a clue, it's not more crappy games from third parties.

[Richie]

Another one? Which means he isn't going to want to devote any staff to running comps/articles/interacting on the hotel.
'that they expect to see much more third party games and apps within Habbo.'
No one wants to go down in this direction :S These games don't suit habbo at all and they are all a pile of rubbish.

I agree, some of the games are fine though like snowstorm and fast food but then you have those stupid car games that aren't even related.

[xxMATTGxx]

At least if they remove everyone they can employ some new, CAPABLE staff.

I don't believe that is their plan, they are reducing the number of staff and then keeping it like that and only hiring if needed. They aren't going to get rid of X amount of people and then replace them with others.

By reducing the workforce, Sulake will be able to have a longer term view with more solid financial footing. "We can call our own direction now in terms of future investments," says LaFontaine, rather than having an immediate need to raise funding.

[MKR&*42]

If anyone's interested, they said something about it on their blog as well; http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/h...-to-its-roots/

Launched over 13 years ago, Habbo Hotel was one of the first online communities. Since then the market for online communities has changed considerably. Habbo has always been for teens and we are aware that continuous development and renewal is key to successfully serving the teen audience.

Habbo is going back to its roots. It has always been a place to meet and enjoy time with friends. We are going to focus specifically on the features and services that makes finding new friends and sharing with old friends enjoyable. This means new features, fresh themed entertainment and a variety of games. And we will keep elements of the service Habbos have always loved.

As we increase our focus we are going to streamline the business. The Sulake organization will be restructured to better serve the community needs. These necessary changes will allow us to maintain Habbo as an iconic and safe service for our users.

Bold makes me want to rage because of how full of crap it is?