For years people within the fansite community have been discussing, debating and trying to deliberate into what the future has in store for fansites. Habbo has at the same time been extremely vague over what has been happening over the previous couple of years. Ever since the merge, the fansite community has crashed. Habbo no longer cared or integrated fansites into the game, something which in the past was viewed essential with fansites having prestige
.
This leads to the question of what’s next for fansites? When talking to a member of Habbo staff last year, Doelee (a key player in the interaction of Habbos and fansites on Habbo Singapore), she said she didn’t have a lot of information seeing as it was no longer her domain of work and sadly had no idea for their future. For former UK players, the removal of Ludus meant that it was essentially the end of staff seeing fansites as significant. Although current front-of-line staff see fansites playing a role within the Habbo community, they don’t see it as key, choosing instead to develop other aspects of the game to bring the community together such as various mobile apps as Niko. Staff seem to not mind posting fansite events, however little has been done and will be done in the near future.

Such actions by staff members have dealt a huge blow to existing fansites, even those more which are developed and have been thriving on Habbo for years. With things such as the marketplace, news and many other aspects now being on the Habbo site, the role of fansites has diminished and so are those willing to visit them. This has led to Habbos to mostly visit fansites when they are forced to by giveaways and other similar materialistic purposes. Some say this is because Habbos have become much too materialistic; however, the reality is that it is not Habbos that have become materialistic, but Habbo compressing fansites from all angles making it ever more difficult for those who work on them to get people interested in what they do. This accounts for the sharp decline of interest in fansite radio and other factors.

Questions are also arising whether Habbo have been going for unfair choices on fansites, going against the quite open voting methods of the past. The last two fansite inductees were not chosen by the players themselves, but rather by Habbo, making people angered and start question the process of this selection. I have myself been in the gist of such fansite pickings and will say that it was only done due to the owners constantly mailing Habbo and bugging them on a near-to-daily basis until they were finally inducted. As for fansite voting happening in the near future, that looks extremely unlikely, particularly when Habbo were satisfied on keeping a closed fansite on their list for months before realizing that it was non-existent. What’s more is that there is an irregular pattern on fansites within the international sphere, with some international fansites being allowed to post unreleased furniture, whilst those on Habbo.com are barred in doing so, giving an unfair advantage.

So what’s for fansites in the future you might ask? Well, it appears to be a very murky future with popularity continuing to decline if fansites themselves do not do anything innovative and not break an area that Habbo doesn’t cater for. As for staff support, with no official fansite e-mail that looks unlikely to become an easier process. Also, expect the misunderstanding on the concept of fansites by moderators to continue, where they will still view some as “scam sites”, which makes some question the moderator training process. Tell us what you think by commenting below!

Powered by WPeMatico

(No Ratings Yet)