Quick take:
- Habbo’s Web3 hotel will be dubbed Habbo X.
- Sulake plans to focus on play-to-earn and tokenomics.
- Players will be able to own their virtual rooms and create their own play-to-earn games.
Finnish social entertainment and video company Sulake is bringing the popular online game, Habbo, to the metaverse with a fully integrated Web3 server, dubbed Hubbo X, later this year. This comes after Habbo started introducing NFT features on the platform in January.
Founded in 2000, the company is known for the creation and development of Habbo and Hotel Hideaway games, which were popular online hangouts for teens in the early 2000s.
Before metaverse social gaming platforms like Roblox, Decentraland, and The Sandbox, there was Habbo, a virtual hotel and multiplayer experience where players – represented by personalised avatars – can design rooms, roleplay in organizations, and even buy and sell decorations known as “furni” and other items.
Currently, there are over 120 million user-generated rooms in the nine Habbo language communities and 850,000 monthly active users.
In a game design reveal, Habbo outlined its plans to focus on play-to-earn and tokenomics, where players will be able to buy, own or resell NFTs issued in-game. Players will also be able to own their virtual rooms and avatars as NFTs and create their own play-to-earn games.
At launch, Habbo X will be will serve as a space where the Habbo and NFT communities can socialise. The last hotel, Habbo Turkey, was launched in 2012 for Turkish speakers.
“Habbo has always been at the forefront of creating virtual communities for social gamers and creators, and we want to spearhead this with the adoption of the new blockchain technologies,” said Valtteri Karu, CEO of Sulake, in a statement. “Our goal is to keep Habbo as a social pioneer of the endless possibilities available in the Web 3.0 metaverse.”
Digital entertainment firm, Azerion, acquired Sulake and the Habbo franchises in January last year.
“The launch of Habbo X will come as a result of our efforts to introduce new and existing Habbo residents to the innovative features made possible due to Web 3.0 technology,” said Jurriaan van Teunenbroek, vice president of games and content at Azerion, in a statement. “With this new technology, we can reward our Habbo players and content creators in a way that was not possible before.”
Like other platforms from the early internet era, Habbo is beginning to realise the value of its pre-metaverse status. For instance, IMVU began in 2004 as an avatar creator in AOL Messenger, but it has transformed into an avatar social metaverse platform with over 7 million monthly active users.
While Habbo isn’t as popular as it was in the mid-2000s, perhaps its involvement in Web3 could help return it to former glory.
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