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Habbo Hotel is a virtual community, owned and operated by Sulake Corporation, that combines the two concepts of a chat room and an online game. The original conception of Habbo Hotel, Mobiles Disco, was created as a small project by two young Finnish men: Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä. It was intended to promote a rock band called Mobiles. The pair later sold their project to the Finnish telecoms giant Elisa Oyj.

The game is centered around Habbos, virtual representations of its members. Habbos can be dressed by each user individually using pre-supplied virtual clothing. Each character has a different name, and is identified solely by this name. The service's other focus point is virtual furni, which can be bought by Habbos using credits bought via a variety of methods, including SMS, home phone, and money order. This furniture can also be traded between users.

The service began in 2000 and as of October 2006 has expanded to 26 countries, the latest Hotel opening in Russia.

History

The major launch of the service in Finland was in August 2000. At the time, it was dubbed Hotelli Kultakala, Finnish for Hotel Goldfish. The company soon decided that a more neutral name for the service would be required to attract larger recognition. The word Habbo was chosen following the submission of a team member.

The second member of the Habbo brand was launched in the United Kingdom in January of 2001. Since then, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow, and Habbo Hotel is currently one of the largest non-violent online game communities on the Internet, operating in 19 countries.

Features

To play Habbo Hotel, one must first create an avatar. The sign up process includes the selection of a desired Habbo Name and Mission (A brief description of the user, displayed underneath the Habbo's avatar). The newly registered Habbo now has the option to choose from a variety of clothing, shoes, hair and skin colour. Once the person is finished registering, he/she is transported to a screen known as hotel view. These options, and the mission option can all be modified at any time.

In the Hotel

The chatrooms that make up each Hotel are large, computer-generated graphics that use isometric projection. There are two main types of rooms: Public Rooms and Guest Rooms. Public Rooms are rooms common to a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms differs from hotel to hotel. Guest Rooms are fully customisable rooms made by Habbos. The variety of customizations are endless; many examples include nightclubs, gaming rooms, trading rooms and even whole houses. There are templates for the size and shape of the rooms, which can be painted and filled with virtual furniture.

Habbos can send messages with each other via use of the Console. The console also allows them to keep track of who is and who isn't online. A Navigator allows Habbos to choose between a public or guest room. The navigator holds lists for a Habbo's own rooms and his/her list of favourite rooms, as well as a search feature enabling searches by room or the room owner's name.

Furniture for guest rooms can be purchased from the Catalogue. Catalogue items can either be purchased with credits or traded between Habbos. Credits must be purchased with real currency. Habbo Hotel offers various payment methods that differ between countries. The Catalogue contains a wide selection of items. Every so often, expensive, rare items are offered for sale in the catalogue for a short period of time. There are also seasonal items available at respective times throughout the year; for example, on Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, Olympics and Christmas.

Habbo Club

Habbo Club is a popular subscription in Habbo Hotel that offers additional benefits unavailable to non-members. Some examples include a wider array of hairstyles and clothing, a special rare piece of furniture for each month of subscription, additional guest room layouts, member-only Public Rooms, three extra dances, and more. There have been many cases of discrimination against non-HCs, mainly because HCs are stereotyped as being rich and powerful.

Two very useful features of Habbo Club include the Chooser (accessed by typing ":chooser"), which lists all occupants of a room, and the Furni command (":furni"), which lists all the furniture within a guest room. Members of Habbo Club are also able to turn their badges on and off at their own discretion. There are two badges available - one is for those who have been a member for under 12 months and one for those who have been a member for 12 months or more.

Activities

Trading/Casinos

Many Habbos engage in the collection of rare furniture. This furniture is originally sold in the Catalogue for a limited time (usually 1 week). However, this furniture can also be obtained by winning competitions, both official and those run by fansites. Habbos also attempt to collect as much furniture as they can, by way of trading with others. As demand increases or decreases, certain pieces of furniture increase or decrease in value, and this enables Habbos to profit from the sale of particular furniture at particular times.

Habbos also build virtual casinos and bet their furniture there in efforts to win more furniture. Although these casinos are discouraged by hotel staff due to the potential for Habbos to be scammed, most hotels have not explicitly banned them and hence many Habbos engage in the practice anyway. Methods that a casino can scam a customer include providing vague rules and instructions (for instance, in Blackjack, not specifying whether the house wins ties, or if there is a limit to how many "cards" one can draw), or by kicking customers out after they pay furniture to the house (but before they receive payout). The casinos operate by way of virtual dice furniture, with a modified version of blackjack being the most common type of game played.

Some Habbo fansites also produce lists of rares known as rare values, which are used by some Habbos to gauge the supply and demand and hence value of each individual rare.

Roleplay

Roleplay is also popular in the hotel; and takes many forms, usually vastly different between hotels. Some players form virtual mafias, where other players can join and participate in raids against other mafias. These players are usually required to change their avatar's appearance to a uniform, and change their mission to one indicating their membership in their mafia, as well as their rank. Habbos generally join mafias in order to earn furniture, but these groups are well known for trying to avoid payment.

Other players form roleplay groups based on movies such as Star Wars. In these groups, Habbos take on the role of either a Jedi or a Sith. These groups then engage in virtual raids (or combat) against each other. The habbos taking on these roles try to roleplay in their character as much as possible (e.g. act how a jedi would) Such raids usually involve players using phrases such as "force lightning" or "*punches*", to indicate that they are attacking another player (since it is not possible to use weapons in Habbo Hotel, unlike other MMORPGs). Such raids often drive Habbos to break the hotel's rules, and hence leads to numerous bans, for offences such as swearing and harassment.

Games

Games in Habbo Hotel are typically games of skill and chance. Since most games in the hotel offer prizes such as virtual furniture, they tend to attract many people who unwilling, or are unable to pay for furniture in real currency. Most of these games are legitimate and fairly operated, while others are run by scammers with ulterior motives.

Falling Furni

Falling Furni is one of the most common games; played on all hotels, usually with slightly different rules between regions. The aim of the game is simple: the owner of the room drops virtual furniture, usually chairs, and the Habbos playing must try to sit on these chairs. The key point of the game is the fact that the owner deliberately does not drop enough chairs for every participant. At the end of each round, those Habbos without a chair will be offered the chance to either pay to stay (often abbreviated as p2s, this is where the player pays the owner an amount of furni to stay in the game), revenge (often abbreviated to rev, this is where the players pays the owner (often more than the cost of pay to stay) not only to remain in the game but to remove another player), or to be kicked from the room (in games where lines are short, there is also the option to line, or get back in line via a doorway rather than be kicked out of the room completely.) This process continues until there is only one chair with only one Habbo on, who will usually win a prize from the room owner. The game is very similar to musical chairs.

Revenge

Revenge is a quiz type game which is also extremely common in the hotel. As with most games, it is played with multiple players at once. The host of the game will ask a question from a specific category (often chosen on suggestions from players or from rolling a dice) such as mathematics or general knowledge. The first person to answer the question is allowed to choose one player to remove from the game. That player is then automatically kicked from the room.

Costume Change

Costume is different from the other games in that it involves changing one's avatar's appearance. The host of the game will choose a topic, and the players participating in the game will all leave the room and change their avatar's appearance to suit this theme. They will also change their mission to explain what they have dressed as. When they return to the room, the player deemed to have worst matched the criteria will be kicked from the game. This is determined through a number of means - the opinion of the host, voting of the other players, or voting of the people waiting in the line for the next game.

Racing

Another popular game is racing. In these games, groups of players (usually 4-6) are seated in a line next to each other. The objective of the game is for the players to move their avatar to the opposite end of the room and back again in the shortest possible time. At the end of each race, the slowest player is offered the same options as in falling furni and revenge above. This continues until there is only one player remaining, who usually receives a prize. A unique part of the game is the ability to "buy spaces". This consists of giving the room owner a piece of an amount of furni, in exchange for making the distance he or she must cover shorter. Some races involve moving through an obstacle course, and may even span several rooms connected by teleport furni.

Quests

Quests are usually held by Habbo staff, but are sometimes also run by fansites or other players. The objective of a quest is to get to the end of a series of rooms. This will usually be done by a combination of sticky notes and room passwords. The players participating in the quest will enter the first room (usually without a password). This room will contain a sticky note with a question or instruction written on it. Once the player has answered the question or performed the instruction (which will usually also produce an answer), they use the answer they retrieved as the password to the next room of the quest. This process continues until they reach the last room, where there will often be a sticky note with instructions on how to enter the competition.

Mazes

Unlike mazes in real life, Habbo mazes are usually very different. To complete them, Habbos must go through a number of rooms filled with furniture to reach the end room. If furniture appears to be hiding the next chair, you must find what spot to click to reach the chairs. Most maze owners do not reward winners for completing the maze, but some do, or host a maze race from time to time. These mazes are often hard to construct well, meaning that many mazes on the hotels are either too easy or impossible to complete. This is made more difficult by the various bugs in the Habbo Hotel client.

Charity and Community Service

Habbo Hotel has often recognized and promoted localized charities and organizations that benefit young people. Most notable being the use of the Info Bus, an information centre in the form of a virtual bus, where advisors from different organizations come online to meet Habbo users and discuss certain topics. Some of the organizations that have taken advantage of this innovative mean of communication with young people have include UK based FRANK, Finland based Hubu, and UNICEF. Info Bus sessions often involve discussions about a given topic, a chance for Habbos to ask advsiors questions, and sometimes the advisor may be able to set-up a quiz/polling booth for the Habbos inside the bus to participate in.

Some Habbo Hotels take the opportunity to further educate their users about Internet and Online Safety using the Info Bus, in sessions mostly run by the Habbo Staff or Moderators.

In 2006, the UK based Habbo Hotel promoted charities and organisations such as YCNet (a network for Young Carers in the UK), and the 2006 NSPCC Campaign "Don't Hide It".

Pets

Habbo Hotel also allows players to purchase virtual pets. These pets age one "year" in the hotel for each real life day.

Moderation/Guidance

Office staff

Each branch of Habbo Hotel has an office associated with it. Operated by Sulake employees, this office is the workplace of the respective hotel's senior staff. These staff generally include a 'Hotel Manager', or Content Manager, who oversees the hotel as a whole by communicating with the players through newsletters, creating competitions, and managing the content of the website; a Community Manager, who is responsible for moderation and guidance throughout the virtual community by managing in-game Moderators and Habbo eXperts; and a Country Manager, who manages the business side of the community such as sales, finance and administration.

Office staff may also consist of player support staff, who respond to queries sent via contact forms by players; and pixel artists who create the vast amounts of imagery used both in-game and on the community's website.

Moderator staff

Habbo Hotel's moderation is covered by paid moderator staff. Moderators are police vetted Sulake employees who work from home. Office staff moderate the hotel during local office hours, and are relieved by moderator staff outside these times. Moderators will always have the prefix "MOD-" in their account name and have a Habbo Staff badge.

Moderators utilise in-game commands as well as a separate web based tool known as Housekeeping. These tools allow moderator staff to send messages to Habbos in the hotel, which appear as in-game popups. These prove to be effective in preventing minor infringments of the Habbo Way, the guidelines that govern the community. As well as this ability, moderator staff can also kick Habbos from any room, mute them (prevent them from talking), and ban them from the hotel entirely. Bans are placed on individual Habbo accounts, however, many more serious offences are punished by a Macromedia Shockwave ID or IP address ban.

Habbo eXperts

Habbo eXperts are commonly known throughout the hotels as Habbo Xs. This recently devised system is designed to present Habbo Hotel as a welcoming environment to new members. This is done through the selection of a number of regular Habbo players of any age, who are known to have a solid understanding of the Habbo Way and the Hotel in general. These players receive a special badge to identify them to new players. Habbo Xs are expected to be found in the Welcome Lounge public room for new players to approach them with any questions they may have about Habbo Hotel.

In July 2006 a new type of Habbo eXpert was introduced on the UK website, appropriately named "Safety eXperts" or "Safety X" for short. They differ from the original eXpert program in that they provide internet security advice, rather than an introduction to the hotel.

The system, although praised by many, is also disputed by some Habbos as a form of favouritism, with many Habbos well known within their respective communities being selected for the program. The system has not yet been implemented on all hotels worldwide, however is in operation throughout all English speaking hotels.

Hobbas

Hobbas were volunteer Habbo users who assisted with moderation of the hotel. Hobbas were split into three groups - silver, gold, and super - each of which had different levels of powers. Hobbas received many of the same commands as moderators use, as well as access to a limited section of Housekeeping. Hobbas applied for their voluntary position through the Hotel websites, and had to meet selection criteria, including a minimum age of 16 (which was changed to 18 in early 2004) in order to file a valid application. The application process also involved telephone interviews, as well as a written contract between the individuals and Sulake Corporation.

Due to staff concerns, the Hobba system was removed permanently, worldwide on December 31, 2005. All Hobbas and ex-Hobbas were given a special Hobba Memorial badge in memory of their services to the hotel.

Language

Habbo has a filter in place to replace certain objectionable words and phrases. It has become known as the Bobba Filter on the most prominent hotels, due to its replacement of all offensive text with the simple word "bobba" (various hotels, mainly those not in English, use a different word). Replacement applies anywhere from benign words like "poop" and "ass" to highly offensive words, phrases and even websites. The filter also stops people from giving out personal information, mainly phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The level of censorship varies from hotel to hotel, and is applied discretely. In some cases, for example, words such as "harbl," "mantrain," and "AIDS" while not outwardly malicious, are censored for more specific reasons; in the case of said examples, for their association to and usage by certain large groups of Habbo users who occasionally blockade parts of the hotel and hinder Habbo users. Because Habbo is a dynamic site, many different events may occur which affect the filter accordingly.

Habbo Way

The Habbo Way is a simplified version of the hotel's Terms and Conditions. It is similar between hotels. It is a generalized ruleset that is easier to refer to than referring to a section of the Terms and Conditions (and also avoiding legalese). The Habbo Way covers points such as swearing, hacking, asking for personal information and trading Habbo furni for items in other games (such as RuneScape or Neopets). These rules also extend to cover specific scenarios, such as blocking and disclosing the full names or instant messaging accounts of Sulake staff.

Sponsorship

As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbos Hotel often attracts sponsorship from outside entities. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians and bands (such as The Veronicas, Gorillaz,Skye Sweetnam and Evermore), as well as corporations (such as Lego, Garnier and Starburst).

External links

Current Hotels

There are currently 26 Habbo Hotels in operation:

Other links

• Sulake Corporation

References

1. http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/hotel/pets/
2. Frontier Touring - "The Veronicas Habbo Hotel Appearance". Retrieved 3rd July 2006.
3. Sulake.com - "Gorillaz live at Habbo Hotel". Retrieved 3rd July 2006.
4. SkyeSweetnam.com - "Skye Chats LIVE on Habbo Hotel". Retrieved 3rd July 2006.
5. Habbo Atlas (Finnish). Accessed 7th October 2006.

• Finnish brands
• Virtual reality communities
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