One of the recent entries into the Metaverse space typified by Second Life is Habbo Hotel. Habbo’s niche is the teen market. It’s arguably a sort of MySpace alternative. It started in Finland, but is rapidly spreading to China, Brazil, Russia, and of course, the US. You can read more about the success of Habbo here.
Well, given that I’m supposed to be researching these things, I figured I’d better go see what it’s all about. It requires a minimal registration and no installation of client software. The whole thing runs as a Shockwave movie. That’s simple on the one hand, but I think imposes some serious limitations on the environment. More on that later. You also have to create an avatar, but the options are extremely simple. And all the avatars look 8-years old.
This was maybe the first reality disconnect for me. The market demographic is the late elementary to middle school crowd. The Habbo home page looks like it could be a Tiger Beat magazine cover. But these kids are desperate to be “big kids”. That’s the whole Teen magazine appeal, right? Makeup, 17-year old heartthrobs, things that make you feel as cool as you think your big brother or sister is. But the graphics in this space are reminiscent of old Windows 95 Magic School Bus games I used to play with my toddlers. And the avatars all look like little kids.
However, the in-world chat is totally teen. Chaotic, heavily lingo’d, trite, and even what might be described as giggly. Boy did I feel like a fish out of water in this place. And what’s more, despite only being an observer, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my in-world little-boy persona made me some sort of child predator. I kept expecting the FBI to show up at my door. This feeling was exacerbated by the receipt of two unsolicited offers of friendship in the first few minutes I was there. I rejected both as a matter of conscience, but then worried that I had wounded some poor kid’s fragile ego. But maybe the offers were just from real predators, or maybe FBI agents. Somehow that rationalization was comforting.
Anyway, the ability to move and interact in this space is extremely limited. I think a lot of this is a result of the choice to make all of this Shockwave based. You are stuck with a single camera angle. There’s no 1st person type experience. You are a scene observer, but you happen to be one of the characters you can see. This makes it very difficult to project yourself into the space. This is more video-game than metaverse.
There is real commerce. You can buy currency and use it to buy toys, clothes, and activities. You can get a room at the hotel which you can decorate as you would your bedroom at home. But the commerce is unidirectional. You buy stuff. But there’s no opportunity to sell, have a job, or otherwise accumulate wealth. There are also a lot of in-world links that open up browser windows to other sites soliciting teen dollars for different activities or goods. The links were innocent enough, but I think are intrusive to the desired in-world immersion experience.
I think that the appeal of this sort of environment is probably limited. The concept of age-specific metaverses is doubtless marketable. But in my opinion, the specific instance of Habbo is not viable once the novelty factor wears off. It’s ultimately too primitive and “uncool” for the older kids. And probably too mature to appeal to the younger kids who are not yet ready to make these sorts of social connections. But if nothing else, it may be an ideal place for predators to meet nice FBI agents.