For those of us who are already in our twenties, we fondly remember another era of the Internet. The 90s and early 00s witnessed a completely different form of the Internet. Less corporate, much more human, composed of what people did with it. The Internet of blogs, MMOs, and smaller social networks. Something that seems to be coming back, at least in part.
Yesterday, Monday, June 17th, it was announced that Habbo Hotel would return. Its original launch. Under the name Habbo Hotel Origins, it will be launched with the appearance it had in 2005, and it will be released on Tuesday, June 18th, although they have not given an exact time when the servers will be available. Although they will be available throughout the day.
Habbo Hotel was launched in 2000 by Sulake Corporation Oy, a Finnish company, as one of the first examples of metaverses. With users in over 150 countries, it is still active today, but modern versions have focused on aspects such as casinos and NFTs, something that has clearly alienated the original community of the game. This has caused them to lose a significant part of their original audience.
The developer Sulake has been restoring the game for six months after finding a lost version of the game on a deteriorated server. Habbo Hotel Origins will function differently from Habbo Hotel, as they aim to maintain the simplicity, charm, and magic of the original, which means that there will be no NFTs, casinos, or any gambling allowed within the game. That doesn’t mean the game is not for players over 18 years old, though.
In Habbo Hotel Origins, there will also be a radical change: the InfoBus Park will become a democratic forum where players can vote for changes to the game. And as long as Habbo Hotel Origins remains self-sustainable, the company is committed to keeping it online. So, if you feel nostalgic for Habbo Hotel and believe that another, less corporatist Internet is possible, this is the time to prove it. A hotel every time.
