Pioneer in Online Social Community-Building and Free-to-Play Sandbox Gaming Celebrates Two Decades of Creation and Innovation with over 316M Registered Avatars and 500M Rooms
Helsinki, Finland — October 15, 2020 — Social entertainment company Sulake is celebrating a huge milestone this year – Habbo is 20 years old! The game first appeared in late summer 2000, and now hundreds of millions of players later, finds itself in the year 2020 still with a solid fan base that has grown up with the IP.
One of the original free-to-play virtual communities, Habbo’s focus on providing a safe and fun online space for self-expression held wide appeal for tweens and teens in the 2000’s and 2010’s. However, now the demographic tracks a bit older (young adults over 19 years make up 71% of the current player base) as the player base has grown up with Habbo and many have returned to the game during various COVID-19 lockdowns.
Throughout the course of its long and illustrious history, Habbo has celebrated widespread international success with 9 language versions and over 316M registered avatars in over 115 countries, creating over 500M rooms. Multiple awards have been showered on the service, including Fast 500 EMEA (2005), Best Community Site, Site of the Year (MetrixLab, multiple awards from 2006-2015), Global Safest Social Network (the European Commission, 2011) and the Nokia Foundation Award (2008), but the Habbo innovation doesn’t stop there. It was also one of the first online virtual communities to secure numerous advertising partnerships with over 300 brands from a wide variety of sectors and major celebrity features. These include musical artists Pink, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Ozzy Osbourne and blockbuster films such as the Harry Potter series, the Twilight series, Fantastic Four and many more.
“Habbo was a true pioneer in terms of from such a humble beginning in 2000 to what we’ve seen in its growth and change over the past two decades,” said Sulake CEO Valtteri Karu. “We’ve been excited to see so many players sticking with us and returning to the game during lockdown and participating in our 20th birthday events. We’re planning for this year to be followed by an even bigger year in 2021 – the next 12 months are full of exciting new developments for Habbo. That’s all I can say right now, so stay tuned!”
About Habbo & Sulake
Sulake is a social entertainment company focused on providing a safe and fun online service for self-expression through its games, Habbo and Hotel Hideaway. Sulake was founded in 2000 by a small team of passionate people and now after 20 years, Habbo is still one of the largest virtual communities in the world, reaching players all over the world each month. With paying customers in over 115 countries and over 850,000 active users a month, Habbo continues to be a hugely popular and globally recognised brand.
Sulake’s mission is to enable its users to meet new people, make friends and give them a place to create and share their user-generated content in fun virtual surroundings. Dutch media and technology company Azerion has been a majority stakeholder since 2018, with long term shareholder Elisa Oyj still retaining a minority stake in the business. Sulake is also a leader in ensuring online safety for children. www.sulake.com
