Sulake.com

Niko, A Wonder Child in the Eyes of Reviewers and Players

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:19:00 +0200

"Best platformer I’ve seen on the iOS yet." (TheAppReviewer). That says it all about Niko, our recently launched iOS game. Since its release on January 19th, Niko has received tons of positive feedback from players and game reviewers. For instance in Holland, Niko got more than 130 raving reviews on App Store in just 4 days and a local review site iPhoneClub commented: "The truth is, Niko justifiably deserves all the credit and success it has earned!"

Sulake has been running the world's largest social game and online community Habbo Hotel for more than 11 years now, the company is not really a newcomer to the mobile world either. Already back in 2006, Sulake released a few J2ME game titles, such as Habbo Creatures and Habbo Dreams, which brought heaps of fun to the Habbo users. With the increasing popularity of touch screen devices in the past few years, Sulake has also released Bobba Bar on iOS, focusing on real-time social interactions, and Lost Monkey on iOS and Android, which was the first app designed to move the Habbo audience from online to mobile and back again.

And now here comes Niko, a fun platformer combining sling shot actions and amazing level designs, and featuring a cute superhero Niko ("looks like a mogwai and has the stealth of a ninja" according to 148Apps), who has to save his captured friends from the mysterious Otherworld. What makes Niko stand out is the fact that even though the game remains truly faithful to the roots of platformers, it introduces a unique, simple and playful way of leading Niko through the levels. As TouchArcade describes: "you can slingshot, jump and fly through the air to your heart's delight!". However, the most hilarious and apt game review comment about Niko has to be: "If ever, in some odd twist of events, Super Mario met up with Angry Birds, decided to get married and have a child, that child’s name would be Niko." (Unbound Gamer).

Wanna meet Niko the wonder child? Get it now!

PS. See how excited our friend American artist Big Ali is about Niko:

Jamie Woon visits Habbo Finland!

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:23:00 +0200

The rising British soul artist, Jamie Woon, is doing his first solo concert in Finland on Monday November 28th. Jamie visited Finland also in August, when he performed at Flow, a big Finnish electronic music festival.

Since Jamie happens to be one of the favourite artists of Habbo Hotel Finland’s Hotel Manager (and of many users’, we reckon), Jamie was invited to be the special guest star of a live chat held in Habbo. And since Jamie is known as a kind man, he said yes!

So the Finnish fans of Jamie have a great chance to practice their English skills and have a special opportunity to meet Jamie virtually in person on Monday November 28th at 3.15 PM EET in Habbo Finland. The visit will take place at Habbo.fi’s Disco Room.

We hope Jamie enjoys his visit in Finland and in Habbo!

Horses!

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:45:00 +0200

We're very happy to announce that horses have galloped to Habbo! We've seen countless stables popping up all over the hotel grounds and Habbos putting on some riding boots.

Indeed, horses are the first pets you can actually ride on and they come in a variety of colors from chestnut brown to flashing pink. If after those endless rides into the sunset your horse seems a bit worn-down, no worries; you can polish it's image with some new dyes.

The horse's body and hair color can be changed afterwards and even the hair and mane can be given a fresh new style. By customizing your pet horse, the chances of running to an exactly same-looking horse become minuscule. Time to breath in that country air and hop on the saddle. The prairie awaits!

Lost Monkey launched!

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:07:00 +0200

I’m happy to tell you, that we just launched our very first mobile game, Lost Monkey! The app is available to download for free from today, worldwide from the Apple AppStore.

The game follows a mischievous monkey that has lost its way from Habbo Hotel after entering a broken teleport, and ended up alone and stranded on a tropical island. Players must take care of the monkey, entertaining it with mini-games and help it build a teleporter so that it can return to Habbo Hotel. On completion of the game, players are rewarded with the pet monkey in Habbo Hotel. To check out the monkey, you can visit the Lost Monkey space in Habbo.

To find out more about teen mobile habits, we recently surveyed nearly 29,000 teens in Habbo related to mobile usage. According to the results, 89% of respondents have a mobile phone and 51% had a portable media player such as an iPod Touch.

Playing games is an integral part of mobile usage for teens with 78% of those surveyed who own an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch using it for gaming, the second most popular activity after playing music. 94% of those that own an iPhone or iPod Touch prefer to download gaming applications above any other type of app, with those in France, UK, US and Denmark more avid gamers than those in other countries.

We have carefully built Lost Monkey with teens in mind. When asked what they look for in an app, 75% of teens wanted something which was fun to play and 47% wanted the app to have controls, which are simple and easy to use. Teens also wanted an app which was easy to learn how to use (44%). All of these elements have been built into Lost Monkey for the optimum user experience.

If you wish to check it out, just go to App Store & download it! Here you can check a trailer of the game:

Habbo Hotel’s CEO Timo Soininen Steps Down; Paul LaFontaine Appointed New CEO

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:34:00 +0200

Sulake today announced that Timo Soininen will step down as CEO to join the Board of Directors.

The Board has named Paul LaFontaine, previously vice president for Global Distribution at Disney’s Playdom, as the company’s new CEO. Soininen led Sulake for 10 years, helping to build Habbo into a leading teen social community.

“Over the last decade, Timo has been instrumental in evolving Habbo Hotel and Sulake from a small, local start-up to a thriving global social gaming company targeting teens,” said Mika Salmi, chairman, Sulake. “His leadership and vision have been essential to Habbo Hotel’s success. Timo has inspired and developed Sulake’s brilliant international team. We are pleased that in his new role on the board of directors, he will continue to contribute to Habbo’s success in the teen social market.”

LaFontaine was previously responsible for publishing Playdom social games on global social networks and organizing cross company and external promotions. Prior to that, he held senior international leadership positions in eSolar and Ticketmaster.

“Paul’s extensive and relevant experience in consumer Internet, media and social gaming is a perfect match for Sulake,” added Salmi. “His versatile international management experience will help Habbo continue to innovate a unique service dedicated to the global teen market.”

"After 10 years of successful growth, Sulake is now well known for providing a popular, safe, social entertainment destination for teens," said LaFontaine. "I am extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to continue this work with such a talented and creative group of people.”

Soininen will transition the CEO position over to LaFontaine on September 15.

“Getting an experienced leader such as Paul to drive the Habbo brand and community forward is very fortunate for us.” said Soininen.

Showing love and support in a time of need

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:09:00 +0200

The 22nd of July will forever be remembered as a day of tragedy in Norway. 77 people were killed; most of these were young people, teens. At least one of the victims was a Habbo. There is no doubt that this has had a massive impact on the teens also in our community.

A girl who survived the massacre on Utøya said: "If one man can show so much hate, just think how much love we can all create together". This has indeed been true also in Habbo, not only on the Norwegian site, but also in Habbo Hotels around the world. Habbos unite across the globe with one vision, one plan of action: to be even more loving, more supporting and more understanding.

In Habbo Hotels all around the world Habbos are walking around wearing a heart shaped Norwegian flag as a symbol of love and support, both to the victims, the Norwegian people, AND taking a stand against violence and cruelty. Torch parades, 1-minute silences and other tributes have been initiated by Habbos themselves, ways for them to really display their feelings. More than 100 000 loving thoughts and condolences have been received from teens everywhere.

It is evident that the Norwegian mentality that has impressed the whole world goes far beyond the borders of Norway, and all the way throughout our global teen community. Habbo staff wishes to express their condolences to all the victims’ family and friends.

House of Habbo - style campaign launches!

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:50:00 +0200

Today, June 10 ^th we’re launching a global Habbo fashion style competition, in which the users are asked to send us a picture of their top style - competing for the ultimate style guru of Habbo position!

As we at Habbo are hardly the ones to decide who’s stylish and who’s not, we’ve partnered with a bunch of fashion bloggers and fashion magazine editors around the world and we're giving them the task to decide which three competitors have the most creative styles!The competition is launching in all Habbo countries today, and will last until June 21st.

Once the results are out (towards the end of the month), we’ll start working on a global Habbo Fashion Look Book, which will compile all the winners of each country together, illustrating the different (or similar, who knows?!) styles from around the world. The digital book will be ready later in the summer – stay tuned to find out more!

Habbo receives CEOP commendation

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:50:00 +0200

We are very proud to tell that we've received a CEOP commendation (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) for work dedicated to ‘ Safer by Design‘.

A number of initiatives have been set up and pipelined for the coming months including:

Addition of ClickCEOP button to the Reporting Abuse pages of Habbo (done already!).
Creation of a CEOP group on Habbo.com .
Live in-game chats and focus groups with CEOP professionals in the Habbo.com Infobus.
Safety tips offered to Parents

We would like to offer our sincerest thanks to CEOP for recognising our hard work and a big thank you to our own Safety and Moderation teams.

Dragons enter Habbo Hotel!

Fri, 20 May 2011 08:30:00 +0200

OMG! According to recent info, hoards of dragons have just landed in Habbo.com! So, for those of you who are not that into getting yourself a typical pet, e.g. a cat, a dog or say a crocodile, can now add some excitement to their lives and get a dragon as a pet. Sure, there’s a danger that the creature can burn your eyebrows – but taming a dragon is such an achievement, that it just might be worthwhile taking the risk.

The dragon is now available if you’re a VIP member in Habbo.com. However, we are working on moving them to a more permanent spot in the Pet Shop very, very soon!

It’s Habbovision time folks! Miraculous performances, bizarre outfits, and wild shows!

Thu, 12 May 2011 07:25:00 +0200

What a thrilling week it has been as the long awaited yearly Eurovision Song Contest reaches the final stage, the grand finale on Saturday May 14th – woop woop!

Which country will have the most astonishing outfits & show? Who are the sexiest guys and gals competing this year? Who will have the most outrageous performance?

As we think the contest is such a remarkable, yearly phenomenon, we wish to celebrate the occasion also Habbo-style, in Habbovision!

Among various other Habbovision activities taking place this week in the communities around the world, we’re also organizing a global vote in Habbo, so the users can vote for their favorites. The voting is organized at the local Habbovision Düsseldorf arena, and the first polls, in which the users could vote for their favorite performer in the semifinals, were already out in the beginning of the week. The second polls for the second semi finalists went out today, and the final vote for the favorite finalist is out on Friday May 13th. And, as it goes in Eurovision, you cannot vote for your own country. Interesting to see whether the Habbo user opinion will match with the opinion of the rest of the Eurovision voters…

Habbo.com is challenging the users to form a band and to create their own band videos, from which the users can vote for their favorite Habbovision artist!

Get ready for the exhilarating performances and finals on Saturday, and check out the Habbovision happenings in Habbo!

Habbometre: The Gaming Evolution

Wed, 11 May 2011 11:24:00 +0200

"Interaction and content are key, and it doesn't have to be free"

Gaming is at the core of Habbo Hotel – the community loves to play, share and create games, so for this edition of the Habbometre we asked almost 40,000 Habbos about the way they play and the things that are important to them when gaming.

Making games social is something that has become a hot topic recently but it’s something the Habbo community have been focused on since day one. As our recent survey shows, interaction with friends is a very important part of gaming for almost half (48%) of those questioned with a further 34% considering it to be somewhat important. Alongside interaction, the community are very much involved in the creation of games with 18% actively creating content on a regular basis and 32% doing it sometimes. Teens from Spain and Italy are most creative with 28% and 25% respectively creating their own content ‘all the time’, this compares to only 9% in Portugal.

More traditionally, gaming has often focused on a console or handheld device, but with the evolution of social gaming and user generated content, the PC or Mac has become a very important gaming device for 59% of those surveyed. The next most popular device for gaming was the mobile phone with half of those in the survey feeling it was a ‘very important’ device for playing on. Handheld gaming devices proved least popular with 17% feeling they weren’t important at all and only 26% stating that the devices were ‘very important’. With the growing number of tablets in the markets, this figure is very like to change in the near future.

The shift towards social gaming and user created content is reflected in the fact that when gaming online, 46% of those surveyed felt social networks were very important gaming destinations with 59% saying the same for online communities (such as Habbo Hotel). Only 17% felt that specific gaming websites were a very important destination.

Whatever the platform or device, the Habbo community are open to spending money on their game play and the freemium model of gaming is being embraced by gaming fans. So while social gaming can be free to play, there is equally an appetite for additional content, access or add-ons that gamers are happy to pay for. Almost half (44%) of the Habbos in the survey were happy to occasionally spend small amounts of money on gaming, with an additional 19% happy to save up and spend regularly. Australian teens are most open to spending with 76% happy to spend some money, compared to 48% in Sweden.

Get your own Volter font now!

Mon, 09 May 2011 07:51:00 +0200

Volter is a custom-made typeface for the original Finnish version of Habbo Hotel. Sampo Karjalainen drew it in June 2000 using Apple's developer tool ResEdit. The typeface was created to strengthen the distinctive pixel look and feel of the Habbo world. The pixel typeface comes only is size 9, has two weights, plain and bold, and contains a set of pictograms. The typeface has a wide look, with contrasting narrow i's and l's. A peculiar detail is the seriffed uppercase I in an otherwise sans-serif typeface.

During late 2010 it became clear that, as displays become ever-higher in resolution, a single-size pixel typeface would no longer be able to serve Habbo Hotel in all situations. Despite the love we (and some of our users, image from fansite Puhekupla) have for Volter, and the unique history it has with Habbo Hotel, we needed a new scalable font that would be legible on different display devices and resolutions. We also wanted to have the possibility to use text in different sizes for proper typographic contrast and hierarchy. After looking at different options we picked Ubuntu Font Family - a high quality open source outline font optimized for screen typography. It's highly legible on small sizes but scales up easily to headline sizes as well. And it’s freely available from Google Web Fonts.

As we recognize the important value that open source has given also to Habbo Hotel's development over the years, and the information and opportunities free internet resources have provided, we wanted to mark this day with a small contribution of our own:

Today, we release our own font Volter in its original design using the SIL Open Font license, which allows the fonts to be used, studied, modified and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold onwards. The Volter font has, as often happens, been downloadable from various locations on the internet for some time, but never before with a legally reusable license. We hope this release will come useful to someone whose design needs a small, legible "pixel style" font for that inimitable 80s retro computer style.

Download Volter font.

When considering the use of Volter in your own work, please review the text of the license. To assist your evaluation, the following Creative Commons-like terms may be useful:

permits
Distribution, Reproduction, Embedding, DerivativeWorks

requires
Attribution, Notice, ShareAlike, DerivativeRenaming, BundlingWhenSelling

Visual representation

Royal Wedding Craze in Habbo Hotel

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:18:00 +0200

The whole Europe has been anxiously following the Royal Wedding fizz throughout the spring and so have we in Habbo Hotel! As a tribute to the wedding, we’ve also joined the love festivities, and the whole community is waiting for the magical ceremony to take place on Friday April 29th in Westminster Abbey, London.

To get the users on the wedding mood, Habbo has launched a wedding range, including fancy clothes and wedding furni, and the community is filled with wedding & love related activities and competitions. Various happenings are taking place in different countries, i.e. Habbos have been asked to create their own greeting videos to Will & Kate. The users can also write their best wishes to the happy couple in Habbo Hotel’s very own Westminster Abbey.

These are only a few wedding activities going on in Habbo this week, stay tuned in Habbo Hotel to check out the latest wedding fads!

On behalf of the whole community, we wish many happy returns to the sweet Royal Couple, Prince William & Catherine!

Virtual goods are today’s collector items

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:01:00 +0200

In the UK, Marketing Week magazine recently published the results of a survey into trends around young people and collecting, conducted by The Marketing Store. In response, I wrote to the magazine to share my view on the way collecting has evolved as young people grow up, rather than it becoming extinct. I thought it would be interesting to share the letter here.

The survey showed that books are the item most collected by children aged 6-11. Beyond the age of 11, the report findings stated that interest in collecting begins to drop off as the audience become teenagers and shift their interests online. The places young people hang out in may change as they grow up, but collecting is alive and well among teenagers – but today, it’s increasingly digital items that they swap.

Virtual goods have created an incredibly strong social currency online, something that can be witnessed firsthand in Habbo Hotel. The teenage community has created its own economy where they collect and trade everything from a virtual birdbath to jukeboxes. It’s an economy that is thriving with around 1.4 billion items being traded between Habbo users in 2010. The behavior once displayed in the playground of collecting items has grown up and moved online.

For brands to enjoy a strong level of acceptance and advocacy with collectable goods, they need to allow people to exert their individuality through their collections. This is exactly what brands are doing in Habbo Hotel, creating in essence virtual content and giving it to teens for them to express their creativity in their own spaces however they see fit.

In a recent partnership with Capri Sun, the Habbo community was offered the chance to collect branded virtual goods by engaging with Capri Sun both online and offline. The limited availability of these items quickly made them highly collectable and much sought after by teens creating a new social currency that young people are only too happy to collect.

Habbos All Around the World Marching for WWF’s Earth Hour!

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0200

It’s Earth Hour time folks! As during the previous years, Habbo Hotel is yet again participating in the global WWF Earth Hour campaign by encouraging the communities all around the world to learn about the issues of climate change and to take a stand by signing up for Earth Hour.

The first Earth Hour was held in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when millions of individuals and thousands of businesses turned off their lights for one hour to take a stand against climate change. Since then, the campaign has grown to a notable worldwide phenomenon, being celebrated all over the world every year. The previous, 2010 event was the biggest ever; 128 countries joined Earth Hour, and iconic buildings and landmarks all over the world switched off for the hour.

To celebrate the yearly, important environmental event, Habbo Hotel is filled with different, Earth Hour supportive activities all over the world throughout the week. All of the activities, ranging from creative video creation competitions to recycling events, hype up on Saturday March 28th at 8.30pm to a worldwide candle march throughout the virtual community.

Habbo Hotel users can easily sign up to Earth Hour on the Habbo Earth Hour group page by becoming a member of the group, and by signing up in the Earth Hour widget provided by WWF. The group page discussion forums are open for discussion regarding the subject, so the users can talk about the topic.

Let’s all make the 2011 Earth Hour the biggest ever!

New official Habbo Youtube channel launched today!

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:43:00 +0200

We’ve just launched a new official Youtube channel today to share all kinds of Habbo related videos, made both by our users and us as well!

You can browse through various videos on the channel, including the latest Habbowood movie trailer competition videos we’ve received from many countries, and the recently published new “Inside Habbo” introduction video. Check out also the celebrity stuff :)

Most importantly, we’re happy to have now an ‘official’ channel to share the many, creative videos our talented users all around the world have made! This is updated all the time, so please subscribe to keep up with the latest Habbo videos!

Exciting stuff there, definitely worth checking out!

Dazzling new talent in Habbowood trailer recreation competition!

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:47:00 +0200

Last week has been buzzing around the 2011 Academy Awards, and to celebrate the best films of 2010 we launched Habbowood, a movie trailer reproduction competition in Habbo! To help our users create as creative films as possible, we launched a Habbowood furni line, which includes e.g. theater curtains, a movie projector, a popcorn machine, and, off course, a black limo. And that was all the help we gave them, and quite frankly, the quality of the trailers we’ve received has totally blown us away!

The competition idea was to recreate a trailer of ones favorite movie of 2010 in Habbo. Throughout the competition we’ve seen astounding ‘Habbonized’ productions including for instance a trailer of the movie Inception, Black Swan and Paranormal Activity, to mention just a few. As the competition was launched in all Habbo countries, we saw various different versions of the trailers in many countries.

Besides fame, the winning directors have received a full set of the Habbowood furni as a prize, and all the actors got a badge for their input in the trailer. Huge congratulations to all the winners of the competition around the world!

This is not the first time we’ve searched for new director talent in Habbo – the last Habbowood was held in 2007. In that campaign users were asked to produce movie scripts from ready-made building blocks, and boy they did: Habbos created over 700,000 animated short films!

Habbowood 2011 continues with different activities taking place in the countries, ranging from a film poster creation competition to movie scene recreation competitions.

Here are a few top trailers from the latest competition:

Advertising gets social.

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:00:00 +0200

Over the past year we’ve started to challenge some of the traditional marketing paradigms in our hunt to find ways to truly engage people though social media. We’ve always known in Habbo Hotel that interruptive formats based on the old school way of gaining attention have little relevance or place in a social realm. In our search for an alternative we’ve discovered ways to involve and engage people that we believe can be applied equally well in a service like Habbo Hotel as well as Facebook or Youtube.

Social media is challenging the fundamentals of marketing communications, seeing established models like Awareness Interest Desire Action (A.I.D.A) evolving to fit this new marketing environment. In its place we are starting to see the emergence of a new model that puts the consumer at the heart of the communication and provides a means to spread the message to peer networks and beyond. We term this model A.I.R.A, which stands for Awareness, Involvement, Recommendation and Amplification.

As before, the process starts by raising Awareness but the way in which this is done today is much more viral in nature and requires some thought upfront. As humans we love discovery and by creating a way to discover your brand, it will likely result in much higher levels of engagement and word of mouth rather than just shouting from the sidelines for attention.

Discovery leads to interest and in turn greater brand Involvement, which can come in many forms. For example, teenagers in Habbo Hotel like to dress their avatar with a branded effect that they can wear around the hotel. For the recent Sims 3 launch this included introducing the iconic green plumbob to our community, which was worn by teens at many of the parties organized by friends in Habbo Hotel.

An involved consumer is much more likely to lead to Recommending the message to their friends. This recommendation today is often a conscious action though in the near future it’s just as likely to be automated as the tools for using the social graph develop.

These recommendations are Amplified across people’s friends networks, which in turn raises awareness to more people activating the same cycle spreading the message further afield.

This is all interesting theory but what does this really look like in practice? At Habbo we’ve developed the 3 P’s model of Engagement Advertising to deliver great results for our advertisers.

The first P is for Person, who we place at the centre of a promotion in the form of giving them content we know they will be interested in. For example with the recent release of Paramount’s Megamind movie we seeded the Habbo community with an avatar effect that allowed teens to change their head to that of Megamind himself. What started out with a few blue heads popping up in Habbo Hotel quickly spread throughout the community.

Creating the optimal environment for brand discussions is done in Habbo Hotel by creating a meeting Place, the second P of our model. This is either sponsorship of an existing high traffic place in Habbo or a fully customized environment designed to reflect the core brand values.

The final P is Peer Influence, which we generate through initiating events and activities that truly engage the target audience. You’ll notice that I say initiate and not organise, the beauty of social media is that it’s infinitely scalable though you have to give the network effect a little nudge to get it going.

At Habbo we’ve used this new model to great effect. Not only is it simple to understand it delivers great results for our advertisers. Remember that Megamind blue head effect? We published it in the Habbo catalogue without telling the community and it was used over 9 million times globally in one weekend.

Millions of teenagers roamed the hallways and rooms of Habbo Hotel wearing the Megamind blue head and having fun in the process. What was perhaps even more impressive were the many discussions going on along the lines of ‘hey that’s cool, what is it and where can I get one?’

Now if that isn’t social advertising, what is?

Habbometre: Safer Internet Day

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:57:00 +0200

To mark Safer Internet Day 2011, Habbo Hotel’s February edition of the global Habbometre poll asked over 36,000 teens from around the world about their online behavior. The teens were asked what they think about online safety and identity, providing valuable insights into how young people view their virtual lives.

Fitting with this year’s Safer Internet Day theme “ It’s more than a game, it’s your life”, Habbo asked its community whether they behave the same online as they do in real life. Just over a quarter of respondents (26%) stated that their behavior online and offline doesn’t change. The remaining respondents felt that their behavior was different ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’.

Even though a quarter said that their behavior does not change online vs. offline, only 16% of teenagers surveyed said they use their real name on all social networks. This suggests many teens split their identities across a mixture of online networks. In France this figure drops to only 3%, compared to the Netherlands where 34% say they use their real name on all social networks.

Refreshingly, more than half of teens (56%) are as aware of their safety online as they are in the real world. Spanish teens were least aware of their online safety, while French were most. The survey also highlighted young people as having a strong appreciation and awareness of their friends’ privacy with 82% stating that they have never used somebody else’s online identity without their knowledge or permission. Teens from Finland were most tempted to use a friends’ identity, with 16% admitting to doing it at least once.

The Habbometre is a monthly poll of Habbo users globally. Check out the previous Habbometre posts.

Check out also the Safer Internet Day 2011 video:

Habbo virtual goods sales hit all-time high in December

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 06:50:00 +0200

I am very pleased to announce that last December was the best month of Habbo Hotel ever in user metrics but also in terms of revenue: Habbo's December user revenue was 4.5M€ ($6M) from virtual goods only.

Full year 2010 was also the best ever both in user metrics and in revenue: Habbo user revenue in 2010 grew by around 25% vs 2009.

For a snapshot of pretty impressive 2010 Habbo annual metrics please see our CTO's earlier blogpost.

As the Habbo Hotel product is in great shape and we have pretty exciting new things and improvements coming out this year, we expect to grow our revenue in 2011 at the same pace and to further improve the company's profitability.

Habbo Hotel is all about users and their creativity. So, a humble Thank You to all our loyal Habbo users from all over the world - you guys make Habbo the great place it is!

Habbo Hotel's Record Year 2010 in numbers

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 01:42:00 +0200

The year 2010 was a special one for Habbo Hotel as last summer we turned 10 years old. That's a respectable age for an online games product, but, we believe, only a nice beginning for our Habbo community of player-created games, activities and entertainment, as Habbo Hotel continues to grow. To mark an end to the anniversary year, we looked up some total figures, below.

Peak monthly active users, MAU: 8.7 million (December 2010, MAU=users who log in at least once a month), out of over 42.5 million unique active player characters (habbos) over the whole year, and 199 million ever registered. Most of these activities happen on the stand-alone habbo.com and our local sister sites such as the Spanish-language habbo.es, though the Facebook applications also are a popular access point at 2.6M MAU (out of the total above). Habbo Hotel's core audience is a relatively narrow teen demographic segment: according to Facebook Insights statistics, 51% of our users are 13-17 years old, with a further 30% falling into 18-24 segment.

Total time spent: 400 million hours played over the entire year. 16.5 million users spent over 10 hours each, and an average paying user spent 93 hours playing with their friends or creating new experiences, many of them exceeding even this number by a large margin. The most active thousand players had Habbo Hotel on their computers 10 hours per day all through the year.

Virtual items exchanged between users: 1.4 billion, about five times as many as bought from the game catalog over the year. The player-to-player marketplace is a core piece of Habbo Hotel's unique atmosphere, and many of the most popular player-created spaces are dedicated to item trading.

Average revenue per paying user: over 22€. As Habbo is free-to-play, most players do not spend money in the service. Those who do, use it primarily in order to create custom content, spaces and activities for their friends and other players. In exchange, they gather fame, respect and experience of hosting events - or simply enjoy the rich customization available through the for-pay virtual goods. 75% of all paying users find this enjoyable enough to choose to buy again at a later stage. Payment options range from 1€ one-time SMS messages to monthly credit card subscription packages.

Habbometre: Teen Holiday Celebrations

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 01:31:00 +0200

For this month’s Habbometre, we wanted to take a seasonal spin. Of course not all countries in December eagerly await the arrival of St Nick, Santa Claus, or another man in a red suit, but with an HQ in Helsinki (and Lapland just a sleigh ride away) we thought it would be interesting to see how teens around the globe are celebrating the holidays. 61,610 Habbos in 33 countries took part in our third Habbometre poll; the findings – as ever – provide an interesting insight into global teen behaviour.

As you would expect, spending time with the people closest to them forms a big part of the holiday season for teens. 42% of Habbos globally most look forward to spending time with family while 21% most look forward to spending time with friends at Christmas time. However, critics of commercialized festivities will note that receiving presents is, for a significant amount of Habbos, the thing they most look forward to at this time of year. Countries where a significant amount of Habbos most look forward to receiving gifts were:

•    Switzerland (29%)
•    Germany (27%)
•    Brazil (24%)
•    UK and Sweden (23%)

This desire for presents is less surprising when you see how lucky some Habbos are (and how generous their friends and family can be!). Globally 33% of Habbos receive 2-5 presents. But in some countries, some Habbo users are much more spoilt. British Habbo users, for example, are given the most. 19% receive more than 30 gifts, whilst 65% receive between 11 and 30 presents.

Generosity is not only reserved for family and friends. Many Habbos also donate money to charity during the holiday season. 67% of Habbos have donated money at Christmas – 22% of which donate every year. Habbos in the Philippines and South America are the most generous. Some users never donate to charities at this time of year; according to these stats the least charitable countries are:

•    Sweden (38%)
•    Germany (32%)
•    Finland, France and Switzerland (29%)

Time with family, gifts and fun are all aspects of the holiday season. But of course, for some Habbos religion is also a very significant part of the celebrations. However, only 49% of Habbo users globally recognise the importance of religion – 17% at this time of year and 32% consider their religion important all year round. Religion is most important for Habbo users in the South American countries and Italy. Religion is not an important element of Christmas celebrations for 66% of UK Habbo users or 58% of Finnish users.

The Habbometre is a monthly poll of Habbo users globally. The previous two Habbometre poll subjects were music and movies. Let us know if you’d like to find out more about the results, and Happy Holidays!

Introducing Wired: User Created Games on a whole new level!

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:41:00 +0200

This autumn we launched an exciting new feature in Habbo Hotel, which we call “User Created Social Games”. Habbo is now taking things further with the launch of a new line of virtual items called Wired.

Wired gives our users the chance to turn their existing virtual items (or, “furni”) into something completely new. With Wired, our users can basically program their furnis to have all new functionalities and uses that were never possible before. Users are able to activate, open up, move and completely remake their rooms with simple triggers like pressing a button or standing on a switch.

The Wired furni enables our users to make their own games, set passwords for accessing rooms, set welcome messages for other users and much more. It has really been exciting to see what has been created so far; our users are using the furni to really push the boundaries of their world in new and creative ways we didn't even imagine!

The Wired furni contains three different sets:

1. Triggers that activate Effects. The Triggers let you define what needs to happen for an Effect to take place.
2. Effects, e.g. a TV turns on or off, a door opens up, a lamp moves left, or a message is shown.
3. Conditions that can be set up for the Triggers to work. The Conditions are the criteria that need to be met before a Trigger can be activated, e.g. a user needs to stand in a certain spot, or a furni needs to be placed in a certain location.

To simplify this, it’s basically: Trigger + Effect (+ Condition) = Wired! It's as simple as that.

Also a set of Add-on furni is made that can be used with the Wired: switches, tiles, firegates, moving spheres etc. Some ready-made packages have been made that give you the total set to make certain functional combinations possible, like password doors, directional controllers etc.

Here’s one user made video so you can check out how Wired works:

INTRO VIDEO

Here's also a great example of how a user has used the Wired furni to create a Guitar Hero game out of them :)

Habbometre: Movies - where teens are watching films

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:53:00 +0200

There are lots of reports about how the movie industry is impacted by technology – this blog shares a lot of useful info on the subject. For this month’s Habbometre study we looked at how teens are enjoying movies – where do they go to watch them, are they paying for films online and what other technologies are helping them enjoy the latest flicks with friends. 27,135 Habbos in over 30 countries took part in our second Habbometre poll; the findings– as ever – offer a really interesting snapshot of teen movie watching habits:

•    The majority of teens watch 1-5 movies a month (39%). 23% watch 5-10 films a month:
=> Only 3% globally say they never watch films
=> Those 17 and older watch more than 20 movies a month (19%, vs global average of 17%)

The study shows how often teens are watching streamed or downloaded movies – and crucially when they are paying for this type of content:

•    46% of teens download or stream movies at least sometimes
•    30% ‘never’ download or stream
=> Teens in Denmark and Germany are the least likely to stream or download films; Italian and Spanish teens are the most likely
•    42% never pay for downloaded or streamed movies. This compares to 17%, 9% and 14% who pay ‘always’, ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’.
=> Austrian (58%), Swiss (64%) and Australian teens (56%) are the most likely to pay
=> Teens from Italy (68%), Denmark (62%) and the Netherlands (58%) are most likely to never pay

Although the internet and new gadgets are being used to watch films, the cinema is still where teens watch a lot of ‘talkies’:

•    The cinema is still a popular teen pastime
=> 25% visit the cinema a few times a month
=> 13% visit the cinema a few times a week
=> 11% visit once a week
=> Boys go to the movies more often than girls. 63% go at least once a month, compared to 58% of girls
•    Teens in Singapore (39%) the UK go to the cinema most, on a monthly basis

Movies are being enjoyed throughout the house, on different screens:

•    Most movies are watched on the family TV or DVD player (64%)
=> Teens in Australia (82%), the Netherlands (82%) and the UK (81%) are most likely to watch films in this way
•    55% of teens watch movies on a TV/ DVD player in their room
•    54% of teens watch movies on a laptop or PC
•    35% of Australian teens watch movies on an iPod, iPad or portable device that isn’t a phone. This compares to a 19% global average.

The Habbometre is a monthly poll of Habbo users globally – we ask about different subjects every month. Check here for our October post on the music industry.

It gets better also in Habbo Hotel!

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:52:00 +0200

To support the widely spread ‘It gets better’ anti-bullying project aimed at gay teenagers, we decided to provide the Habbo users also a chance to show their support for the campaign and to discuss the important issue in the Habbo community.

The project was first launched after several American gay teenagers took their own lives after being bullied at school for being gay. The ‘It gets better’ project has provided LGBT people a channel through which they can share their own stories about being a gay teenager and how things really have gotten better as they’ve grown older. Everyone who wishes to tell their own story or just show their support for the project can upload their own video on the site, and so far there are already hundreds of videos uploaded. The project's YouTube channel has so far gained over 2 million views.

The group page on Habbo.com has also been very busy throughout the weekend, and since it’s launch on Friday, there are already close to 5,500 members in the group, and the figure is rapidly growing all the time. The group members are given an ‘It gets better’ support badge, which will be shown next to the their Habbo character in the virtual community. The discussion forum of the group is filled with tens of pages of conversation surrounding the topic, and people are also telling their own experiences regarding the matter.

The issue has been widely discussed in the US and in many other countries as well, and it has received lots of attention within the media. The supporters of the project include hundreds of people, ranging from countless celebrities to President Obama.

As most of Habbo Hotel users are teenagers of whom many may have similar negative experiences, we thought that this is definitely a topic worth discussing about also in Habbo.

Teen superstar Emily Osment to visit Habbo Hotel prior to MTV European Music Awards

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:10:00 +0200

Emily Osment’s fans are getting a special treat this week, as the American actress and singer-songwriter will do virtual visits to several Habbo Hotel communities. The exclusive visits are arranged just prior to the European Music Awards (EMAs) on November 7th where Emily will appear as a presenter.

The visits will be arranged on November 3rd as follows:
4.00-4.30pm CET: Habbo.pt (Portuguese)
4.30-5.00pm CET: Habbo.de (German)
5.00-5.30pm CET: Habbo.it (Italian)
5.30-6.00pm CET: Habbo.fr (French)

During the visits Emily will meet her fans in specially designed virtual spaces. To attend the VIP visits, just log in to the local Habbo Hotel site and follow the instructions on the main page!

Emily Jordan Osment is an American teen actress, singer-songwriter and voice actress born in Los Angeles, California. After working in several television films in her childhood, Emily gained fame for co-starring as Gerti Giggles in Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. Emily went on to co-star in the Emmy Award-nominated Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana as Lilly Truscott as well as the series movie, Hannah Montana: The Movie. She also starred as Cassie in R. L. Stine's: The Haunting Hour Volume One: Don't Think About It and most recently the Disney Channel Original Movie, Dadnapped as Melissa Morris.

Emily expanded her repertoire into pop music and more recently alternative/indie rock where she has recorded teen pop hits like "I Don't Think About It," "If I Didn't Have You" alongside her Hannah Montana co-star Mitchel Musso, and most recently "Once Upon a Dream."

Osment's debut album, Fight or Flight was released October 18, 2010 via Wind-up Records, and will feature lead single "Let's Be Friends", which was released August 30, 2010.

Teens demand better leisure spaces

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:20:00 +0200

We just finished a worldwide photo competition in the Habbo Hotel communities globally! We did the competition in cooperation with Lomography, and the idea was to take a pic of your favorite hangout place. The quality of the images we got was overall very high, and the winning photo came from Italy. The lucky winner will be getting a Lomography Spinner 360 as a prize for the best shot. You can also check out the other finalists here. Congratulations to the winner!

Prior to the contest, we did an interesting survey in Habbo, concerning the same subject – teen hangouts. Over 50,000 members of the Habbo community were asked to share their views on ‘the world as they see it’ and the places they hang out in during their free time. According to the survey half of young people around the world believe that more needs to be done to give them places to hang out safely.

Teenagers from Norway, Finland and Singapore are most satisfied, with more than half of those questioned saying they are happy with the amount of places they have to spend time in. In Brazil, 30% of young people stated that there are no safe places for them to hang out in during their free time, with a further 44% believing that there were some places, but not enough. 20% of teens in Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK also feel that there is nowhere suitable for them to spend their free time.

54% of teenagers around the world said that there are places near their home designed specifically for young people to spend time in, but 42% feel that more needs to be done. 15% of those questioned claimed that they had nowhere to go in their free time that is specifically designed with young people in mind

When teens are provided with their own places to spend time in, they are prepared to protect them. If they saw the places they hang out in being vandalized, almost three quarters (73%) of those questioned would do something to stop it, with the majority (40%) most likely to contact the relevant authorities. Teenagers from Austria and the Philippines were most likely to step in and confront a vandal whilst teens from Finland and Ireland are least likely to get involved to protect the places they hang out in. Those surveyed in Japan are most pessimistic, with 18% feeling that their peers never respect the places they have to hang out.

Friends (76%) and freedom (51%) were ranked by teens around the world as the most important aspects of a good hang out space. Whilst Italy may typically be viewed as one of the most family orientated nations, teenagers from the country were most likely to hang out in open spaces rather than at home. This compares to France where more than a quarter like to hang out most in their own homes. Although 27% of the teens questioned choose to hang out in public spaces because they have nowhere else to go, more than half do it because they like being away from their house or school.

Beyonce smells better than Britney according to UK teens

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:09:00 +0200

It’s really important for us to fully understand the teen audience – by doing so we can develop a better Habbo Hotel experience for our users. We also work with brands who want to create experiences for teenagers within Habbo; by fully understanding our users we ensure that any branded experience will add something positive to the environment!

Recently we ran a quick study to see what Habbo.com users in the UK think about fragrances. 1,400 teenage girls took part in the survey, which revealed how engaged this audience is in perfume and fragrance products. For transparency we should mention that Harajuku Lovers, has worked with Habbo in the UK to create a virtual experience.

Clearly a lot of teenagers want to smell nice and are happy to use their own money to purchase a fragrance. 92% of those asked use a fragrance, of those, 68% use a fragrance on a daily basis. Over half (53%) buy their own fragrance.

If a teenager is saving money in order to buy a new fragrance, then what influences this purchasing decision? Unsurprisingly perhaps, the smell is the most important aspect. This might seem obvious, but it’s important to recognise that teenagers care about quality of experience, over price. 66% of teens are influenced by the smell when buying a fragrance, versus 6% who are influenced by the cost.

Celebrity perfumes are a big market – and British teens are clearly receptive to this. 12% of teenagers are influenced by celebrity endorsement. The top ten, most influential celebrities according to this study are:
1.    Beyoncé
2.    Britney Spears
3.    Avril Lavigne
4.    Kylie Minogue
5.    Jordan
6.    Kate Moss
7.    Jennifer Lopez
8.    Hilary Duff
9.    Mariah Carey
10. Jade Goody
11. Halle Berry

So it seems Beyonce smells best, where British teens are concerned!

Habbometre: Music makes the world go around

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 09:56:00 +0200

We’re introducing a new regular source of information, The Habbometre , here on our blog. Every month we’ll run a short study of Habbo Hotel users to find out what teenagers around the globe think is hot, and what they think is not – which we’ll post here.

The reason for doing this is by getting a better understanding of our users we are able to create a better user experience. We want to share the results here, as we think it will be pretty interesting to see a snapshot of the different teen opinions around the world.

47,000 Habbos in 33 countries took part in our first Habbometre poll, which looked at where teens are finding out about music. The findings reveal the dominance of the internet on teen listening habits, the continued challenge for media owners to monetize this digital listening, and the rise of social recommendations. Interesting stuff!

Of course it’s no surprise that teens are using the internet to access music, but the study shows that though some teens are willing to pay for music they are the minority:

- 33% of teens prefer to download music without paying for it
=> Young people in Chile are the least likely to pay – 51% favor this approach
=> 20% of UK and 21% of US teenagers download music without paying
=> 21% of teens prefer to purchase downloaded music
=> Record labels in Australia will be pleased to learn that teens favour the paid-for approach; 37% of Australian teenagers would pay-to-play

- A fifth of teens (20%) still buy CDS
=> Teens in Sweden (40%), Germany (37%) and Denmark (35%) are the most likely to buy a CD
=> 26% of teens favor streaming services
=> These are most popular in the Netherlands (53%), Finland (45%) and Belgium (46%)

So what influences the type of music teenagers listen to?
- Interestingly Radio and TV are still the dominant music taste makers. 38% of teens take music recommendations from these traditional channels
- 28% are influenced by what their friends are listening to and recommending
- 18% are influenced by what is in the music charts
- Only 9% are influenced by magazines and what they read online

Today’s teenager is connected with friends online and the Habbometre shows the power of social recommendation:
- 78% of teens use social networks to share recommendations
- Only 23% never use social networks to recommend music to friends
- Finnish teens are the most likely to share recommendations (88%)
- German (51%), Swiss (46%) and Austrian (45%) teens are the least likely to use social networks to recommend

Recommendation is clearly playing a bigger role in how entertainment content is shared – and streaming services, and group playlists – such as Spotify – make this even easier.

What’s most clear from the Habbometre is that teens love music and new technology is allowing them to find, enjoy and share this more than ever before!

Introducing Battle Banzai, the first User Created Social Game (UCSG)

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:46:00 +0200

We’re very proud to announce that Habbo Hotel has launched probably the world’s first “user created social game”, Battle Banzai. Apparently this is also the first time the abbreviation UCSG is used ☺

Battle Banzai is a continuation to Battle Ball, a multi-player game introduced in Habbo Hotel back in 2006.

Battle Banzai is a strategy game that can be played in Habbo Hotel users’ virtual rooms with four teams of up to five players. The goal is to bounce on all the tiles and capture as many as possible. If you bounce three times on one tile, it will lock so other players can't steal it. The team with the most tiles wins!

The new super-cool feature in Battle Banzai is that the players can make their own Battle Banzai Arenas with Banzai Furni (e.g. Banzai tiles, gates, scoreboards, a timer) and host their own games. The idea is to make up own rules and create the actual playing fields; the power is completely in the user’s hands! That’s user creation at its best ☺

Highly addictive stuff, you better check it out in a Habbo Hotel nearest to you!

Will virtual goods and micro-transactions save media content?

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:21:00 +0200

Maybe. Or maybe they won’t, if media companies don’t get their strategies straightened out soon.

A good tactic is to not think of virtual goods as a licensing play, because there is no real evidence that branded virtual goods increase the overall spending or paying percentage in a generic game. The reality is, when it comes to artificially-introduced, branded virtual goods, sometimes they make the game publisher less money than normal, since there are royalties to be paid to the IP holder, legal expenses and opportunity costs.

The best thing media companies can do is to be more aggressive in testing different business models. Partner with various, established digital companies and learn the behavior and buying habits of the massive user base of social, casual and free-to-play games. For example, media companies can monetize their media house traffic or subscriber bases by promoting the games and virtual goods and strike revenue share deals with the game publishers on new converted users. Sulake has had very good results from deals like this and we continue to look for similar opportunities to grow our business.

It is important for a media company that wants to introduce and monetize its IP in games to understand that concept design and implementation need to be executed thoughtfully so their contribution adds real value to users. A well-known, real-life brand doesn’t automatically transform into more sales and great content. For example, a virtual t-shirt with the image of a celebrity doesn’t necessarily work well in a multi-user game environment where the characters are not as big as in real-life and thus not terribly visible.

There are even more things media companies can learn and adopt for their future business models. Most important is the principle of allowing people to enter the world for free – to browse the content and buy items they see value in. Free-to-play (and pay) engages users so much more than asking them to subscribe to a service or make another big commitment beforehand.

Furthermore, it’s always better to have users buy virtual goods with their own money through micro-payments, as you are not so dependent on advertising dollars. But as an alternative, media companies can get more involved in working with advertisers to have users interact with the ads to earn credits (offers). Media companies have always been great experts in advertising, but there’s still much they can learn from companies like Peanut Labs or SuperRewards; companies that are good at driving engagement with virtual goods and rewarding the users through advertising.

The virtual goods business overall is growing rapidly and there are many studies to prove it. But just like all the overly positive mobile gaming reports earlier in the decade, in my opinion, some of these studies are too optimistic. Sulake just recently announced its best half year sales ever. I would say that our success as a ten-year-old company in the business of virtual goods with 20% revenue growth over the last year provides a pretty good overall reflection of what is happening in the industry. It is true that only a minority of web users still buy virtual goods, so the massive growth in this business is imminent.

Sulake Reports Best Half Year Result

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 02:08:00 +0200

Sulake, the parent company of Habbo Hotel (that's us!) today announced its best-ever half year performance in the company's history. Our H1/2010 revenue reached €29.8 million (IFRS), a 20% increase versus 2009 first half. During the same period, the company EBITDA result improved by 63% to €3.5 million, with solidly positive operating cash flow.

Naturally, we are very excited to be able to tell great news like this. This performance is thanks to systematic work in developing our operating model, cost savings and most importantly, continuous focus on developing the Habbo Hotel product and community. We expect to continue on the same track, and have yet to fully utilize the potential of social networks as a source of growth.

Habbo Hotel serves over 15 million unique visitors from more than 150 countries in 11 different languages. Our players spend a total of 45 million hours playing Habbo Hotel each month.

We're challenging you to help the disaster victims in Pakistan

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:54:00 +0200

As most of you may have heard, Pakistan has been hit by a terrible natural disaster. The Indus and 5 other rivers have flooded, destroying villages and cities and rendering 20 million people homeless, and 10,000 dead (and counting). The United Nations has called this the worst natural disaster of the decade. More people are affected by this than the 2005 Asian Tsunami, 2006 Kashmir earthquake and 2009 Haiti earthquake COMBINED.

Sulake has taken part in the aid by donating to Unicef. We challenge all companies (and individuals as well) in our industry to donate to the aid! There are of course many channels to do this, Unicef is one of them - to support Unicef, simply navigate to http://www.supportunicef.org/.

10th Anniversary of Habbo Hotel

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:58:00 +0200

As you probably know, this year we are celebrating the 10 ^th anniversary of Habbo Hotel. In the past decade Habbo has come a very long way and grown from a hobby project to the global community it is today. To show exactly how we’ve grown over the years, we’ve put together this short SlideShare presentation:

Habbo Hotel: 10 Years Old

(The texts shows better in Slide Share)

We were also really excited to see how Habbo fits into the 2010 Social Networking Map created by Flowtown.

The map is an updated tribute to a map of online communities created in 2007 by XKCD and shows how much our online world has changed and how big a player Habbo Hotel now is within the context of the world’s online communities and social networks.

We’re proud of how far Habbo Hotel has come and look forward to the next ten years.

Young people identify with an online community almost as strongly as with their own family

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:37:00 +0200

Here's an interesting press release, which was released yesterday by HIIT (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology). It was already covered by some international media, so if you prefer to read it from an "independent source", check out e.g. CNET.

Young people identify with an online community almost as strongly as with their own family

Teenage online community users feel part of their online community almost as much as they feel part of their own family. An international study of the users of teenage online community Habbo reveals that users identify more strongly with the online community than with their neighbourhood or offline hobby group. The study is based on a survey with 4299 respondents from United Kingdom, Spain and Japan. All three nationalities yielded similar results.

The study was authored by Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta, a researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT (currently a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo), and Professor Pekka Räsänen from the University of Turku, Finland.

The authors point out that peer groups are important for the development of adolescents' identity and values. The study addresses the question of whether online groups are standing in for traditional peer groups that are thought to be weakening in some developed countries. The results confirm that online groups can act as strong psychological anchoring points for their members. The authors conclude that games, social networking sites and other online hangouts should be seen as crucial contexts for today's youths' identification and socialisation experiences.

The results also suggest that in relatively young information societies such as Spain, online groups are more often "virtual communities" consisting of relative strangers. In mature information societies such as Japan, online groups are more likely to be a way of keeping in touch with family and friends. This may influence the experiences that youth receive from online groups in different countries.

The study, titled "How do young people identify with online and offline peer groups? A comparison between United Kingdom, Spain and Japan", is published by the Journal of Youth Studies, the leading international scholarly journal focusing on youth research.

Habbo is a popular teenage virtual world developed by Sulake Corporation. It has 15 million monthly unique visitors from over 150 countries, according to Sulake. The site is available in 11 local language versions and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. 90 percent of Habbo users are between 13 and 18 years old.

For more information:
Dr Vili Lehdonvirta
tel. +81 90 7818 4470
e-mail: vili.lehdonvirta(at)hiit.fi

Professor Pekka Räsänen
tel. +358 50 567 2230
e-mail: pekka.rasanen(at)utu.fi

Habbo Hotel Partners with Capri-Sun

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:26:00 +0200

Last week we announced a new advertising partnership with Coca Cola in the UK. The partnership sees a cross promotion of Habbo with the Capri-Sun brand on-pack and in-game including a heavy weight advertising campaign.

70 million packs of Capri Sun will be Habbo branded and 1 in 10 packs include a special virtual badge that can collected on Habbo.com. The on-pack advertising drives customers to a landing page on Habbo, where they will be able to access ‘The Capri-Sun Summer Theme Park’ branded room.

Habbos will also be able to join a Capri-Sun fan group where they can interact and see previews of prizes and exclusive content. The community will have the chance of winning monthly limited edition bespoke Capri Sun goods as well as prizes like Nintendo Wiis and iPhones. Through this partnership with Coca Cola, we are delighted to be able to offer our community access to new and exciting content whilst reaching Capri-Sun’s target audience.

This is a great example of a campaign where a brand enters the social-space of consumers and genuinely adds value to their experience and enjoyment by becoming part of the conversation on Habbo.

Habbo Hotel & NSPCC charity campaign collaboration chosen as the ‘Best Use of Social Media’ at the NMA Awards

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:36:00 +0200

The NSPCC provides a manned phone line called Childline for youngsters to call when they want to speak to someone. The charity’s biggest challenge is getting its message across to teenagers, and this campaign looked to address that. Habbo worked with the charity to develop a series of programmes that connected with and involved the young audience.

Working together, Habbo & the NSPCC developed the world’s first virtual design agency – The Idea Agency. Through this agency, the teenagers themselves developed the promotional materials to connect with their peers; rather than have adults try to develop something that may or may not connect. Each month a member of the Habbo community was recruited to run the virtual business and answer various design briefs to great success.

The campaign resulted in record numbers of group membership and hundreds of thousands of visitors to the virtual agency. The group’s guest book received over 2,000 comments and there were over 1,000 discussion threads on the design topics. Most importantly, as a result of the activity, a five year decline in the call rate to Childline was reversed.

You can check all the NMA Awards winners here.

Habbo partners with MTV

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:00:00 +0200

We’re happy to tell you all, that last week we announced a media partnership with MTV in the UK! The deal covers a new content and advertising partnership with MTV Networks International (MTVNI) owned by Viacom Inc. The partnership follows a successful collaboration last autumn, focused around last year’s MTV Europe Music Awards and builds on similar strategic partnerships with MTV in Belgium.

Habbo and MTV Networks International will cross promote content and exchange advertising space in an agreement which represents a strategic partnership for both companies. The tie up will see Habbo run its first ever TV advertising campaign in the UK whilst it will also be the first time that MTV Networks International has partnered with a virtual world.

Two specially commissioned Habbo ads will run on MTV’s UK channels from 4 ^th of June and will be complimented by advertising on MTV.co.uk. Within Habbo Hotel, MTV has its own fan group and virtual studio where Habbos can get an exclusive virtual MTV web poster.

The group will provide fans with the latest news and gossip about the MTV celebs that will be coming into the MTV studio in Habbo to chat and launch exclusive competitions. The Habbo community will also be able to host their own MTV parties to share the fun with their friends!

Virtual thieves caught in Habbo Hotel Finland

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:24:00 +0200

As we all know, phishing and scamming is a common problem for most internet services around the world. Even though we do our best to keep Habbo Hotel as safe as possible for its users, it is unfortunately also a target for many scammers and hackers. But Habbo users should not worry too much, because by remembering just a few simple safety rules, you should be safe! More about that below.

Yesterday, the Finnish police announced that it is investigating a series of internet crimes that are related to Habbo Hotel and its users in Finland. The police has found out that several suspects have put up e.g. fake Habbo sites to steal other users' user names and passwords, and have used these to steal virtual items. The police also made several house searches yesterday and confiscated many suspects' computers.

Sulake assisted the police in the investigation, and our aim with this is of course to catch the wrongdoers, but also to spread the word that it really is illegal and against our rules to put up scam sites or Habbo retro sites, or in general to even think about doing stuff like this!

Bear in mind these few simple safety tips:

1. Keep your user name and password to yourself: whether it is in Habbo or any other service. Habbo staff never ask for this information, so if you are asked to give this information, you are being scammed!

2. Be sure where you sign in: There are many unofficial, retro, scam etc. sites that might look like Habbo, but they are not. Never try to sign up to these, unless you want to get robbed!

3. Keep good care of your information security: keep your anti-virus software up-to-date all the time and be careful when downloading files from the internet, they might contain malicious code with keyloggers etc.

4. If you have any issues or questions: Please check Habbo Safety Group pages for more safety information and if necessary contact Habbo Staff via Habbo Help tool of your local site.

Habbo Hotel Spain recognized by users and specialists with two Chavales Awards

Thu, 27 May 2010 03:17:00 +0200

It is my great pleasure to announce that Habbo Hotel has been recognized with some awards in Spain – and not just one, but two awards!

Habbo was awarded in the category of “best ICT private initiative” in the first ever Chavales Awards , which the Industry, Tourism and Commerce Department delivered. These awards grant eight prizes, two per each category, given by Chaval.es’ users and a professional board. It has been really exciting because Habbo was awarded in its category by both users and experts.

Furthermore, Chavales Awards aim to reward the best projects meant to boost the right use of ICT among the younger users, and this is one of Habbo’s main premises. For this reason, Habbo celebrates this award with enthusiasm. The award recognizes that Habbo Hotel is a secure environment for teens where they are able to meet friends. Innovation is also one of our daily priorities in order to deliver the best platform and virtual goods to have fun with a rich user experience. We work to deliver our users with a suitable environment capable to teach how to manage themselves in the real world through a virtual world.

User Awards:

Best child site:
JUEGASPEQUE by IRONIKA KEYWORD MARKETING S.L.

Best education site:
RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE by RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE

Best ICT private initiative:
HABBO HOTEL by SULAKE

Best ICT state initiative:
LAS TIC Y LA SEGURIDAD EN LA COMUNIDAD EDUCATIVA by FUNDACIÓN CTIC, GOBIERNO DEL PRINCIPADO DE ASTURIAS

Professional Board Awards

Best child site:
PORTAL INFANTIL CLAN EN RTVE.ES by TELEVISIÓN ESPAÑOLA

Best education site:
RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE by RECURSOS PARA NUESTRA CLASE

Best ICT private initiative:
HABBO HOTEL by SULAKE

Best ICT state initiative:
ABRED, A UN CLIC DE LA ESCUELA by ABRED

Miley Cyrus Announced Global Habbo Runway Winner

Mon, 17 May 2010 01:24:00 +0200

Habbo Hotel’s global fashion designer competition Habbo Runway has now its winner: chosen from thousands of designs globally, and making its way through the local community voting, and the main judge Miley Cyrus’s critical review, the winner is Habbo name “ Rykz” from Singapore.

As the winner of the global competition, Rykz will get his design included in the international Habbo Hotel cloth catalogue. In addition to the huge fame this will bring, he will also win lots of virtual prizes, including a whole year Habbo Club VIP membership and a full set of Habbo Runway furniture.

The winner Rykz commented:
“My design was inspired by the main character of Final Fantasy VIII. The fur (artificial, of course) caught my attention and besides we don't have clothes with fur in Habbo, so I decided to design one with some added style from my real-life fashion.”

Main judge Miley Cyrus commented Rykz’s winning design:
“It’s such a hip street-style outfit, with just the right kind of jacked and jeans combo, the chain key ring, and matching sneakers. It’s just really cool!”

Check you the winning design here.

Download a press image:
Habbo Runway winner on catwalk
Habbo Runway winner clothing

About Habbo Runway
Habbo Runway is a global fashion event, during which millions of Habbo Hotel users take part in various beauty and fashion related activities and events. The campaign’s highlight is a global fashion design competition where teens around the world get to design their own clothing lines, with the winning designs included in the Habbo clothes catalogue. The global competition is judged by teen fashion icon Miley Cyrus.

Measuring a game economy

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:06:00 +0200

We've always believed that the true source of excitement in Habbo Hotel comes from its users. The stuff we build into the product is fun yes, but what our players invent as they explore the opportunities is truly something else! It never ceases to amaze us how imaginative experiences people come up with using the different tools and help from their buddies. The way they combine different things and come up with activities and behavioral patterns we did not anticipate, or even dream of, is just astonishing!

Accordingly, one of our most important tools for identifying ways to improve Habbo Hotel is to focus on what exactly our players are doing with features already there. Boy, there’s a lot to look at…

Recently, we've developed several features related to a smoother working player-to-player market for furni. As most Habbos know, furni trading is a popular activity, and while we've always had features to enable trading, players have to try hard to participate in it. As all free markets, also the Habbo secondary market has been difficult to succeed on, and only a few players have fully mastered trading. Some of the most active players in fact collect market data in order to publish it on their own sites to help the market work better - a big job, and we thank them for that!

As trading is so popular in Habbo, we wanted to make it more approachable and easier to understand. Thus we developed the Marketplace where players can bid for different items. We also started publishing information about the value of items exchanged there. However, as the original trading activity has a lot of fans as well, we didn't want to ignore that either. Now, these two markets together are several times larger than the sales of new virtual items from the Habbo furni catalog. On some days, furni changes hands over two million times.

How could we then value this trading activity? Or as we've asked in one of our introductory demo videos already a long time ago: is an empty pizza box really worth as much as a fireplace?

Since most trading doesn't happen against one common currency, this is not an easy question. We decided to tackle it anyway, by analyzing each day two million trades and evaluating the value of each of them based on the historic value of each item. We take those trades where buyer uses only Habbo coins as a currency, which helps us determine the market value for a subset of all of the traded items. This also helps us iterate over the rest of the trades to identify value for more items, and we repeat the process until everything has a value. And of course, we then repeat this process every day, in order to set a value for all items.

Some of this data is now being used inside Habbo to display price development on the Marketplace. We're continuing to develop this information, in order to make it more accessible to players, old and new, and help them develop their in-game activities further.

Oh and by the way, a fireplace is more than twice as valuable as an empty pizza box.

We are currently looking to hire a new research analyst into our User Insight team based in Helsinki, Finland. The specific focus in the position is the statistical analysis of the user base, both from collected metrics data as well as our continuous user surveys. If you are qualified and interested, I recommend to take a look at our job posting and send in an application!

Sugababes Touring Habbo Hotel

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:44:00 +0200

- Sugababes tours seven countries in three hours!

The world famous girl trio Sugababes are doing a world tour in the world’s largest virtual world for teens, Habbo Hotel on February 23rd. To celebrate the release of their new single “Wear My Kiss”, the band will do an exclusive visit in the Habbo communities in seven countries, including Spain, Germany, Italy, France, UK, Netherlands and US.

To meet up and chat live with Heidi, Amelia and Jade, check in to your local hotel on Tuesday February 23rd at these times:

4.00 pm CET    Habbo Spain
4.20 pm CET    Habbo Germany
4.40 pm CET    Habbo Italy
5.00 pm CET    Habbo France
5.20 pm CET    MIZZ magazine fan meet and greet in UK
5.40 pm CET    Signings / In4Merz visit
6.00 pm CET    Habbo UK
6.20 pm CET    Habbo Netherlands
6.40 pm CET    Habbo US (9.40 am PST)

Download a press image:
Hires
Lowres

EU Commission Report on Social Networking Services out today

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:50:00 +0200

Today, on Safer Internet Day 2010, the EU Commission has published an extensive report about the safety approaches taken on by the EU Safer Internet Principles signatory companies. Sulake, with its products Habbo Hotel and IRC-Galleria, is proud to be part of this group.

The individual evaluations of the services can be found on the EU Commission’s site. As you can read from the Sulake report, we can honestly say that our safety approaches are currently (and have always been) on a rather good level – of course there are always places to improve and we work constantly to do more on this front.

Furthermore, even though we feel that Habbo Hotel belongs to the safest services on the internet, our players are using many other services that may not be equally safe. Thus, we feel that especially the user education is of utmost importance and we strive to work with different organizations and governmental bodies to cover this area in a proper manner.

The Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU shows an excellent example of cooperation and goodwill of all the signatory companies – not to forget the contributing organizations and researchers. We hope that many new services and companies join this initiative.

Let’s keep up this good work!

Some background of the principles:
The Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU were signed on 10 February 2009 by 18 major social networking service providers active in Europe, and joined by 2 further signatories in June 2009. All signatories, except Giovani.it, provided their self-declarations to the European Commission by June 2009. The evaluation report of implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles presented today is based on an analysis of the companies' self-declarations and actual testing of the respective sites from end of October to beginning of November 2009.

Connecting Habbo Hotel to your social circle

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:44:00 +0200

This is my first post to the sulake.com blog, and what an exciting topic it is! Just before Christmas we made it possible to play Habbo Hotel inside Facebook, and share the fun with your real-life friends in addition to people you've met inside Habbo. Today, I'm happy to tell that we've extended this idea further, and now you can share Habbo with your friends and connections over Twitter, Yahoo, Windows Live, Hyves and other networks, too.

I want to use this opportunity to explain what you can do with this, and why we think it makes Habbo more fun. I'm also going to address one concern I've heard repeated since we launched this feature.

As our loyal players can tell you, Habbo can be a great, fun way of meeting people outside of the constraints of the real world, and many have made lasting friendships with other people they might have never otherwise met. Habbo Hotel is also a place where all kinds of activities, mostly invented by other players, happen every minute. Where else?

The flip side of this freedom created by anonymity is that it's not always easy to find your real life friends inside Habbo Hotel, and many players may not even realize they're mingling in a place where people they know are also active. Yet feedback from the Habbo community tells us that it's best enjoyed with friends and people you know you have common interests with.

Linking the real life and Habbo Hotel together is a way to bridge these things together. By logging into Habbo Hotel using your social network identity, you make it easier for you and your friends to come together.
As an added bonus, it's one less password to keep safe.

But what about anonymity? Habbo has always been anonymous, and we've advised our users to never reveal their real life identity to strangers.

This remains true even today. Your name will not be shown to other players unless you're already friends with them outside Habbo Hotel, and both of you want to share Habbo Hotel to your social circles. If you do not want to connect your social network and your Habbo friends together, you're welcome to continue using Habbo Hotel the way you've done before - and nothing changes for you.

We are constantly seeking for new ways for our users to maximize their Habbo experiences. More updates coming soon!

Finland’s leading business media names Habbo Hotel “top of the decade”

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:45:00 +0200

Now that we’ve reached the end of the first decade of this millennium (this is controversial I know!), many news outlets have started to evaluate the tops and flops of the past ten years. As Habbo Hotel and our company Sulake were founded almost exactly ten years ago and we’ve worked our way to the top during this time, we are of course expecting to be on many of these lists!

One recent media that did a tops & flops list was Kauppalehti, the leading business daily in our home country Finland. Among their Finnish tops for the decade were: the coming of the Euro currency, Linux OS, the internet, Google, China, Marimekko, and of course Habbo Hotel! The justification for our spot was the internationalization of the product and huge growth in users, i.e. success in general.

On the flip side, among the Finnish flops were (just mentioning a few not so local ones): the IT bubble, Y2K, George W. Bush, and the decline in alcohol taxation.

Unfortunately the story seems not to be posted online, so can’t link to it here ☹

Habbo.es wins award in Spain

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:40:00 +0200

The Spanish State Secretary of Communications and Information Society is celebrating the 20 years of the .es domain. Therefore, 20 websites have been selected as the “Best Websites of the last 20 years”. Habbo.es was one of the awarded domains and I was privileged to be the one to pick it up at FICOD 09, the international fair of digital content that takes place every year in Madrid.

The more than 4 million unique users that visit Habbo.es each month guaranteed this award. Security and creativity are essential in our work in order to offer a suitable environment to our teen audience. But what users in Habbo.es love the most are the different activities and agreements we reach to turn the Hotel into a dynamic and enjoyable place in which Habbos can chat with their favorite artists, meet brands or receive prizes.

There are currently 1.1 million registered .es domains. The “Best Websites of the last 20 years” awards take into account the work of private and public companies that promote the Information Society in Spain. Accessibility, innovation, the number of users and the support for the Internet development are also some of the points that the judge has valued to select the following websites from the 100 that were submitted for the nomination:

•    www.habbo.es
•    www.20minutos.es
•    www.aeccjunior.es
•    www.aena.es
•    www.castillalamancha.es
•    www.arsys.es
•    www.cocacola.es
•    www.elmundo.es
•    www.gallinablanca.es
•    www.guggenheim-bilbao.es
•    www.meaztegigolf.es
•    www.serviweb.es
•    www.simyo.es
•    www.vodafone.es
•    www.nestle-tv.es
•    www.nickelodeon.es
•    www.oscarvelazquez.es
•    www.pulevasalud.es
•    www.rtve.es
•    www.seg-social.es

Children’s Rights Day 20th anniversary celebrations in Habbo.fi

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:23:00 +0200

This autumn we ran a very exciting campaign in Habbo Finland, related to the UN Children’s Rights Day 20th anniversary, held on November 20th.

The campaign was done in cooperation with a bunch of goodwill organizations, including Unicef, Save the Children, Mannerheim League for Child Welfare and EOPH (Life tastes better without drugs) to mention a few.

The main theme of the campaign was naturally children’s rights and how well young people are aware of them. We e.g. looked into the teen knowledge of children’s rights by organizing a survey in Habbo, and found out the Finnish youth are well aware of their rights as under 18 year olds. We also arranged a competition concerning the same topic and the chosen 13 participants who answered correctly to the competition questions were able to take part in a chat in Habbo with the Finnish Speaker of the Parliament, Mr. Sauli Niinistö.

The goodwill partners organized chats related to the topic in Habbo during the one month campaign, so that users could discuss the subject in more detail with the organization representatives . All the campaign activities were promoted on the campaign group page.

The main celebration day, November 20th, started with a chat with Mr. Niinistö in Habbo, where the users could ask him about different issues related to children’s rights. In the afternoon we welcomed three Finnish artists, Jyrki 69, Signmark and Paleface for a visit in Habbo, and Ice Café, the room where the visits were held, was completely packed throughout the evening. We’ve also just created a compilation video of the Children’s Rights Day activities; you can check it out on YouTube. In Finnish only I'm afraid!

Latin American Idol celebrations in Habbo

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0200

As a continuance to the Idol campaigns we’ve had so far in Habbo US & FR, we’ve this autumn agreed on a partnership with FremantleMedia Latin America and Sony Entertainment Television, to bring the Latin American Idol to the huge LatAm Habbo audience of over 10 million users! The Idol campaign started in habbo.es in September, and will continue throughout the autumn, until the fourth season TV finale of the show on December 10th.

Latin American Idol is the first version of ‘Idols’, which unites more than 20 countries in one big talent competition with participants from the whole region and in which habitants within the whole region can vote their favorite candidate by phone.

As part of the Idol celebrations, there has been created a branded Idol stage within the virtual world, and two new Idol furnis will be launched each week throughout the competition. There is also a campaign group page created for the show, which only a couple of hours after opening gained over 5,000 members. Currently there are over 46,000 members, more joining each day. It seems the Habbos are as excited as we are of the show ☺

The last 7 finalists are coming for a visit in Habbo every Friday, after they’ve been eliminated from the competition, so Habbos will have an exclusive chance to meet the stars! So far we’ve had one of the competitors, Rolando, for a visit, and on Friday November 11th we’re getting the next one – looking forward to see whom that’l l be!

Tokio Hotel touring Habbo!

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:09:00 +0200

Fans in a frenzy: Tokio Hotel the four-man rock band from Magdeburg, Germany, will fire up their fans in Habbo starting on September 26th. The band members, already familiar with Habbo from their previous visits, will do an exclusive five-country tour in Habbo. The tour starts from Germany on Saturday, then moves on to Italy, and to US on Sunday, and finishes in Spain & France on Tuesday Sept 29th. You can check out the exact schedule below.

Tokio Hotel members Bill, Tom, Gustav, and Georg will not only chat about their latest Single “Automatic” in the world's largest youth community, they will also answer questions about their lives as famous rock stars, their worldwide success, and their private lives.

Some basic info about Tokio Hotel if you happen to be a rare person not knowing the band: just a year and a half after their discovery, the four-man band landed at the top of the German charts with their debut album “Schrei”. Their climb up the ladder of success continues with powerful rock sounds worldwide: the world-famous band’s new album is called “Humanoid” (Release October 2nd), and the first single, “Automatisch”, was released on September 18th.

Along with a Bambi in the category National Pop in 2005 and the Echo for best newcomer in 2006 and 2006, the band has also already been internationally recognized with the MTV Europe Music Award 2008 as Best Headliner as well as the Best Newcomer Award in the US at the MTV Video Music Awards 2008.

Schedule for the visits:

Saturday September 26th
3pm - 3.45 (CET) Habbo Chat Germany
4.15pm - 5pm (CET) Habbo Chat Italy

Sunday September 27th
11am - 11.45am (PST) Habbo Chat US

Tuesday September 29th
5pm - 5.45pm (CET) Habbo Chat Spain
6pm - 6.34pm (CET) Habbo Chat France

For further info on the visits, check out the local Habbo group page in Italy, Germany, US, Spain & France.