Comments on: Understanding Virtual Worlds…?

by: Galleus

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 12:11:13 +0000

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.

by: Matt

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 05:20:21 +0000

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.

by: AM

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 04:13:32 +0000

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.