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Habbo Hotel developer Sulake has said that the creativity of its users is the reason its lead IP still courts 11 million monthly active users when many other online worlds have failed.
"If you look at some of the other social games, they’re driven by the game developer," said Sulake’s executive vice president of Business Development and Communications Teemu Huuhtanen, in an interview with Gamasutra. "So even though in Habbo you can get to a new level and gain achievements, it’s really more based on the fact that users can create the games and different things to do."
"No matter how we try to be creative, they always come up with better and more creative ways," he added.
Huuhtanen also told the website that making user-friendly developer tools available to consumers to allowing them to make their own minigames was key to Habbo Hotel’s enduring success.
"There was the tremendous effect of not having just one kind of official game, but thousands of different customized games based on one idea," stated Huuhtanen. "So obviously, that creates so much more to do in the environment, and the users have to buy the tools to create the games."
The Sulake executive also suggested that Habbo Hotel has benefitted from Facebook’s act of introducing consumers to the concept of social gaming in an online space.
Still, Huuhtanen is confident Sulake has managed to better Facebook with regards to gameplay."We kept our eye on the ball," he concluded. "We are a social game, because Habbo is all about synchronous play – you interact with other real people. Most of the Facebook games you really don’t interact with other real people other than you’re asking for help or you want somebody to be your neighbor."
