Habbo Hotel

Habbo Hotel is a virtual chat room and online game, created by Sulake Corporation. Habbo Hotel started as a project by two Finnish twenty-somethings, Sampo Karjalainen and Aapo Kyrölä. The first project was named Mobiles Disco and it was intended to promote a rock band called Mobiles. The site soon gained popularity and Karjalainen and Kyrölä started to think if it would be possible for it to have financial success as well. They sold the idea to the Finnish telecom giant Elisa through advertising agency Taivas. The first real hotel, Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish) was launched in August, 2000 as a part of Elisa's portal.

The first step abroad was to build a Hotel in the UK. The team decided that Hotel Goldfish wasn't a suitable name, but a more neutral name is needed. Someone came up with the name Habbo which was then chosen.The first member of the Habbo brand, Habbo Hotel UK, was launched in January of 2001. The third hotel was soon launched in Switzerland. Since then, the Hotel chain along with its user base has continued to grow, and right now Habbo Hotel is one of the biggest non-violent online game communities on the internet, operating in 16 countries.

Contents

1 Features 1.1 In the Hotel 1.2 Habbo Club 1.3 On the site 2 Moderation of the hotel 2.1 Moderating staff 2.2 Language 3 Additional Information 3.1 Claims against Sulake 3.2 eBay 4 List of Hotels (External Links)

Features

Habbo Hotel features customizable avatars known as "Habbos". They operate in nearly the same manner as the avatars on Furcadia and other such online games. The customizable options are limited to skin color, hair style/color, shirt, pants, shoes and a mission or descriptive line that displays below the character's avatar when clicked on.

In the Hotel

The chatrooms are large isometric structures that usually feature furniture, lighting and beverage dispensers. There are two main types of rooms: Public Rooms and Guest Rooms. Public Rooms are those that supposedly could be found in a normal hotel, including lobbies, a kitchen, pools, lounges and a theatre. The selection of public rooms will differ from hotel to hotel. Guest Rooms are fully customizable rooms made by Habbos and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. While many are just rooms to talk in, others create nightclubs, gaming rooms, trading rooms and even whole houses. There are templates for the size and shape of the room, which can be painted and filled with furniture (known as "furni"), all of which is purchasable from the catalogue (see below.) In either room type, the words of a Habbo will appear above their head in a long, one-line thought bubble that is colour-coordinated to match the colour of their shirt.

Habbos can keep track of their friends through the Console, which allows Habbos to send and receive messages to each other. It also allows them to keep track of who is online and which room they are in (though it will only say "in guest room" if they happen to be in one.) There is also a Navigator which allows Habbos to select a public or guest room to enter. The navigator holds a list for the Habbo's favourite rooms and also has a Search feature, enabling them to search for a particular guest room, either by room name or owner's name.

Catalogue items can either be purchased with credits or traded from Habbo to Habbo as long as they are in a guest room which allows trading. Credits are bought by paying actual money (usually by credit card or mail order) to Habbo Ltd. Habbos can purchase a wide selection of items for their guest rooms from the catalogue. They can also purchase cats and dogs to occupy their room(s). Every so often, rare items will be sold through the catalogue for a period of twenty-five days. There are also seasonal items released a month in advance of such days as Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Furni, as well as credits, Habbos and guest rooms cannot be transferred from one hotel to another.

Habbo Club

There is an exclusive service within Habbo Hotel called Habbo Club, which is usually referred to as HC due to the badge that appears beside one's Habbo. A monthly payment of 25 credits enables a Habbo to access more choices and colours for clothing, hair and room layouts. Members are also able to jump the loading queue when logging into the Hotel; whether or not this actually works is highly questionable. Additionally, the Hotel provides the Habbo with a new rare item for each month of the service. The rares appear in a certain order until the 12th month, when the HC badge changes colours from bronze to a shiny gold. After the 12th month, the rares given each month restart from the 3rd month's gift. Since late 2004, no new Habbo Club gifts have surfaced. Each additional month requires an additional 25 credit payment. Once membership runs out, Habbos are able to keep all gifts and rooms created by the service but will not be able to use the additional styles.

On the site

Habbo has its own newsletter, Newsie, which can be read from a direct link on the front page. The newsie will highlight any important events coming up, any changes to the site, the latest competition information and various poems and creative input from Habbos and Hobbas alike. The list of events in 2004 skyrocketed to the point that a separate Events section was created to keep track of all that was going on. Events have include Meet And Greets with Hobbas and Staff, safety lectures and furni giveaways by Staff members.

There are various competitions held in the Hotel; the most notable being the Funky Friday competition. Open only to residents of the Hotel's country, Habbos can phone in and answer a question while providing the ordinal number (in a way, a serial number) of their Habbo. Each competition ends and begins on Fridays, hence the name. The winner usually receives large amounts of credits or rares.

In a recent swing to be more interactive, Habbo Hotel has started a weekly poll and several staff-run games within the hotel.

Moderation of the hotel

Moderating staff

Habbo is moderated by special Habbos called Hobbas, or guides. There are two types of Hobbas--moderators and guides. On every hotel except for Habbo Hotel US, the Hobbas are moderators. Due to certain US laws, volunteers cannot be moderators.

Moderating Hobbas: Any Habbo that is over eighteen years of age and has been on a hotel for a significant period of time with no large ban records is eligible to become a Hobba. There are four levels of Habbos: Silver, Gold, Super and Staff Member. The Silver Hobba stage lasts around two weeks while the Hobba is still monitored to make sure they are acting within their bounds before being promoted to a Gold Hobba. SuperHobbas look after several Hobbas at a time, much like a section manager in an office building. All of these positions are volunteer only.

Guide Hobbas: On Habbo Hotel US alone, the Hobbas cannot be able to ban users from the site according to US law. Instead, the special guide system was created. In this system, a Habbo User who has been a Habbo for 90 days, has had no bans, has bought furniture from the catalogue, and owns three guest rooms may become a Hobba. These Hobbas receive the same silver badge as the moderating Hobbas of other hotels. The applications to become a Hobba on the US Hotel were closed only a few days after opening on December 17, 2004 due to a technical error allowing uneligible Habbos to receive a badge. They have not yet reopened. Hobbas, before May, were able to send text alerts to Habbos and mute them; however an error with the updating of a new Habbo version caused these powers to be lost. There are many Habbos who are upset with this system as the staff who run Habbo Hotel US do not seem to have advanced this system any further. Instead of having Hobbas to back them up, the 25 or so paid "MODs" and staff of Habbo US must deal with all problems themselves.

(All hotels): A Staff Member is a user who has been hired by Habbo Ltd. to moderate and promote good Habbo ideals as well as work on one of the various staff teams behind the Hotel. High-level Staff Members include the Hotel Manager and Head Hobba. Hobbas have a silver or gold (depending on the type of Hobba) badge reminiscent of a six-pointed sheriff's badge within a circle. A Staff badge is a goldenrod-coloured diamond containg the words "HABBO STAFF".

Originally, one account named Moderator was used to handle the most important Staff duties, but as of late 2004, to handle the workload, the hotels have several accounts starting with the letters (and dash) "MOD-". The amount of moderators varies per hotel. Moderators carry the Habbo Staff badge and usually keep them on to avoid being confused with imposters (if, indeed, it is possible to register an MOD- account.)

Language

There is a filter in place to block certain objectionable words and phrases. It has become to be known as the Bobba Filter, due to its replacement of all offensive text with the simple word "bobba". In recent times, Habbos have become increasingly irritated by the filter, which has been known to filter out normal portions of speech, such as "My thoughts exactly!" or "looking to trade a red rug" due to the words "sex" and "drug" appearing in the respective phrases (see bolded portions.) This has led to various people avoiding the filter by adding periods between letters and resorting to more leet options, which has in turn caused more and more words to be filtered. Different hotels use different words for their Bobba Filter; the level of censorship varies from hotel to hotel as well, with the UK Habbo Hotel having, in many user's minds, the most ludicrous amount of censorship possible.

Additional Information

Claims against Sulake

Since Sulake is a fully profit-driven organisation, fingers have been continuously pointed at the 'exploitation' of young children throughout the hotel. It is commonplace for many children to spend 100's of dollars on graphical 'furni' items which do not exist, and has lead to many parents complaining of the addiction their child suffers. With the continuous risk of virtual furniture being lost to scammers and keyloggers (obtainable from 'fake' cheat sites) There have yet to be any inquiries into Sulake's operation.

eBay

Many Habbos have attempted to sell their accounts on eBay, sometimes making up to $400, though this is highly illegal. It seems Sulake Corporation has been unable to curb the current situation, no matter how many warnings they give out.

List of Hotels (External Links)

The current "hotels" are:

• Habbo Hotel Australia (http://www.habbohotel.com.au)
• Habbo Hotel Canada (http://www.habbohotel.ca)
• Habbo Hotel Denmark (http://www.habbohotel.dk)
• Habbo Hotel Finland (http://www.habbohotel.fi)
• Habbo Hotel France (http://www.habbohotel.fr)
• Habbo Hotel Germany (http://www.habbohotel.de)
• Habbo Hotel Holland (http://www.habbohotel.nl)
• Habbo Hotel Italy (http://www.habbohotel.it)
• Habbo Hotel Japan (http://www.habbohotel.jp)
• Habbo Hotel Norway (http://www.habbohotel.no)
• Habbo Hotel Singapore (http://www.habbohotel.com.sg)
• Habbo Hotel Spain (http://www.habbohotel.es)
• Habbo Hotel Sweden (http://www.habbohotel.se)
• Habbo Hotel Switzerland (http://www.habbohotel.ch)
• Habbo Hotel UK (http://www.habbohotel.co.uk)
• Habbo Hotel USA (http://www.habbohotel.com)

Sulake Website:

• Sulake Corporation home page (http://www.sulake.com)

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