EMI label Innocent is set to debut their new boy band ‘365′ in Habbo UK this week. I don’t find this particularly interesting in and of itself, but the contrast between the pre-event coverage this has received and similar coverage the same event would likely receive in, say, Second Life is interesting…and depressing, considering Habbo is at least 30-40x the size of Second Life, with comparably larger cultural influence.
I sometimes wonder if the fact that Habbo is made for kids causes such a big industry blindspot for so many journalists and commentators. I wonder the same thing about Runescape, which is only about 30% smaller than Habbo. I talk to a fair number of people whose positions would normally cause me to assume at least basic knowledge of the virtual world space (VCs looking to invest in it, for instance) that have no idea what either Runescape or Habbo Hotel are. I’d assume their ignorance isn’t willful and results instead from the fact that they simply are rarely talked about in virtual world circles.
I suspect this is a result of the inherent complexity of virtual worlds and the fact that learning about them often requires spending quite a lot of time in the world and its surrounding community. It’s a real problem for our industry in a number of ways I think. The pressure on review sites and magazines to get a review out soon after release is high, and I don’t think it’s entirely fair to judge a world based entirely on the newbie experience, but that’s the situation reviewers are often left with of necessity, and it does a disservice to virtual worlds in general.
The same sorts of pressures lead to similar effects in academic research. Witness how much time Terranova spends talking about World of Warcraft and Second Life, for example, eschewing Habbo, Runescape, and all the rest. Heck, I don’t blame them. I rarely talk about more than a handful of virtual worlds here on the Forge because I don’t have time to do more in most virtual worlds than log in, look around for a little bit, and leave.
It does make me wonder: How skewed is our view of virtual worlds as a result of this tunnel vision? Do any of us have any idea what’s really going on in virtual worlds, given their number, diversity, and dearth of media coverage about almost all of them?
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November 8th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
AM
This is clearly my bias, but I think that sometimes the model itself, combined with marketing, timing, etc, can help drive a game as much or more than the actual gameplay/content. Runescape seems like a great example of this phenomenon. Other times (I would put Habbo in this category), what is going on is not really very difficult to understand. It is definitely possible to evaluate the value proposition of a Myspace or Facebook with a couple of hours. Habbo Hotel is in that same category for me.
I take your point that the tween product category gets totally overlooked. I would extend that out to the straight up children’s products like Disney’s Preschool Online, which have some of the longest term subscription services available on the web. Nearly as long as pornography. Ok, maybe not quite that long.
But, here is the thing about a Habbo: it really is a narrow product. Remarkably successful, strike that, ridiculously successful for the 12-16 year old crowd but it seems to me that it is like cruising the mall for hours on end: ultimately, essentially a kids activity. Thus, a VC looking to invest in virtual worlds that is driving for the mass market will overlook Habbo. I think there is a lesson in there about how virtual worlds can be segmented to great effect but what do I know?
Another reason that I think WoW and Second Life get more attention is that what is happening seems (and that is key) more complicated than what you get in less graphically complicated, less “deep” games/worlds. I mean, pushing furniture together in Habbo to make a piano is not really as interesting as scripting a casino in Second Life. Sure, that piano might get a lot more people to see it right now, but investors are looking forward and high-level ASCII pictures don’t really make their hearts skip a beat.
Anyway, we’ll get a chance to talk tomorrow. Just thought I’d get the ball rolling.
November 8th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
Matt
We’ll talk tomorrow, Alexis, but consider this: If Habbo is a narrow product because of its age range, what does that make Second Life? A far narrower product because of its ‘gameplay.’ Narrow doesn’t have to be defined merely by age, sex, etc. Narrow certainly describes our text MUDs, for example, regardless of the fact that the participants run across gender, age, nationality, etc.
Sulake has taken quite a bit of investment I believe, so it’s not that no investors recognize Habbo - it’s more that most of them have never heard of products like it because the mainstream discussion about virtual worlds focuses only on a small handful of worlds, most of which are not among the more influential virtual worlds.
November 9th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Galleus
I don’t necessarily buy the argument that virtual communities like Habbo get overlooked on the basis of their target demographic. The same might be said of any number of cultural edifices, originally marketed towards a young age group but later propelled into the cultural norm by media coverage or some unique experience that triggers the type of viral word-of-mouth spread that has made and unmade countless Internet memes of late. But the nature of the target demographic generally has little influence on its capacity to engender interest in the popular culture. More in general, punctuated events that can be related to by an audience larger than the original demographic will provide that spark.
Take for example the activities of the 4chan raiding groups and their ilk in Habbo. The first reporting I ever saw on the game was on a local broadcast in Massachusetts, in a human interest piece talking about the “Pool’s Closed!” raids that took place in Habbo, where hundreds of participants blocked access to the community pools throughout the VW. Now, this really does not speak on the general nature of Habbo Hotel, but by spelling out the context of how such a thing took place, the opportunity for the audience (Most of whom I imagine had never heard of Habbo) to relate to the standoff atmosphere at the time was provided.
Whether or not the content provided in the world is targeted towards a specific demographic, and it surely is, the nature of virtual worlds is such that there are tools available to create content of a sort without input from the creators of the game. This should really be something that more developers run with, as it allows their worlds to be utilized in ways they did not dream of, while broadening the scope of potential users the world may appeal to. It’s a scary notion, in a sense, to have thousands of potential “creators”, but given the right amount of restraint and creative tools, there’s definitely an opportunity for sustainable growth and market development.