Rumors of Sulake cost-cutting

[GommeInc]

I would be inconsolable if they closed the site but I would like to see them make a major, major update. A huge update that changes everything wrong.

Shooting those at the top of the food chain, their marketing division and their localised managers would be quite an impressive update, it's the only way to save the franchise now

[MKR&*42]

- Just thought I'd say that something similar has happened before. They layed/laid w.e off 20% of their workforce back in 2009;

The company that created the popular Habbo virtual world plans to lay off 20 percent of its employees, according to published reports.

Sulake is laying off dozens of its 300 employees, mostly at its worldwide headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. The company’s main business is Habbo, a teen-focused cartoon world where users can create their own avatar characters, decorate their rooms and socialize.

All seems good in that world. In September, the company said that more than 144 million Habbo characters have been created and that the world gets 13 million unique visitors each month. If the user base is still growing like weeds, the question is, why are they making cuts now?

October 9th, 2009

[Grig]

- Just thought I'd say that something similar has happened before. They layed/laid w.e off 20% of their workforce back in 2009;

That's Finland headquarters, which is different. This is effecting international offices.

Sulake CEO LaFonatine also released a statement confirming today's announcement was about letting go of some of the manual functions of the company that do not fit into the new strategy.

[Michael]

Do you think Habbo would have everyone's homepage as habbo.com for all languages, you log in but you can choose a server to play on. Like runescape has it.

[Chippiewill]

Do you think Habbo would have everyone's homepage as habbo.com for all languages, you log in but you can choose a server to play on. Like runescape has it.

There's literally no point in that except load balancing.

[sophiethenerd]

I reckon they are going to majorly push advertising. That is a way that almost guarantees extra cash.


If Habbo did close down, I would not actually be that sad. I almost never play nowadays and only really ever did because of habbox.
However if Habbo did close down, that would be the end for fansites, and that would be a ginormous shame.

[Michael]

Thank you for your tweets, blog posts and messages about the recent changes in staff at Habbo. I would very much like to respond to each tweet, but I think to share here is more efficient. I read all of your tweets. [@]@MOCZHabbo[/@] tweeted and said I should explain the changes. That is a good idea.

We are not closing any Hotels. If anything, we are going to make them bigger. We’re not closing all the offices. We’re moving people around so we can communicate better together and build things faster. We’re not going to stop awarding badges and creating fun quests and offering ways to achieve status in Habbo. We are going to do more of it.

What is happening is very straightforward. We look at where you go in the Hotel and what you like to do. What you like to do, we are going to make more of. That means more games, more ways to make friends, and more tools to communicate with them. We’re going to stop doing the things you don’t like as much. That means less of what you weren’t using anyway. If we try something and you don’t use it, we’re going to take it down and not have people work on it.

We had some great people working on things that were not as popular in the service. So it did not make sense to keep people working on that. We don’t have enough people making the things you like, so we transferred some people over to work on those things, and we’re going to bring in some new people as well.

Keep the tweets coming. We’re listening.

It seems to me that the staff feel more free now, there must of been someone holding them back from being like this before. I'm looking forward to them 'taking down' things we don't like!

http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/2...f_Changes.html

Threads merged by Jordan (Forum Super Moderator): As discussing the same topic

[Andii]

hmm weird lol. . . hope they listen to us about the crappy mods =/

[Succubus]

Well, I hope this doesn't corrupt Habbo as such.

[xxMATTGxx]

Fansites should hopefully have a better relationship, I was actually talking to the Paul (Ceo of Sulake) on twitter a few days before this was even announced/rumoured and he read one or two articles on Habbox that I linked to him in regards of changes between the relationship of fansites and Habbo and of course the fairness of certain fansite rules.

I'm pleased that other members of Sulake staff have actually started following Habbox on twitter ever since I started talking to him. Another member of staff at Sulake have already said there has been interesting developments and discussions on how they can work better with fansites, I haven't got a load of details on that yet but there is more to follow.

So I do hope these changes do improve Habbo altogether and also the link between fansites and them.