Gm, community! Muumiopappa here.
It’s already been over a month already since we launched the Habbo Avatars project and I know a lot of you have been waiting for more information about our long term vision. As promised, I want to talk in a bit more detail about that.
In this blog I’ll be covering the following:
- Additional features for genesis avatar owners that we’re planning to add to Habbo.
- An idea that I think is very interesting: creating a brand new, separate, NFT-based Habbo where owning a genesis Habbo Avatar gives you significant benefits. We currently have nine Habbo servers, so this would be a theoretical tenth server.
- Collaborations with other projects and collections.
- Habbo merchandise that is exclusive to avatar and portrait owners.
Bringing NFTs to Habbo
One really cool thing about NFTs is the exclusivity of owning one. While many of them offer great utility, like, for example, big hitters such as BAYC and CryptoPunks, they are also nice pieces of digital art that many like to show off.
Being able to display this sort of art in a digital space like Habbo is a feature I’m really keen to implement. There’s already a way to display graphics in Habbo using what the Habbo team refer to as an ‘MPU’, so one idea is to repurpose and improve this feature so that you’d be able to display NFTs from whitelisted collections in your rooms. I want you to be able to create your very own digital art galleries in Habbo!
Then, you can see from the website that we plan to do some sort of drop for owners this month. Bringing NFT furni to Habbo allows you (and others) to own digital items in a way that hasn’t been possible up until now. I am a passionate believer in this sort of ownership and how good it can be for consumers. I actually wrote a blog on this subject, you can read it here. This first Habbo furni drop will be a test, of sorts. It will be an item that can be used in Habbo and that is stored in the blockchain. The idea is that you’ll be able to sell the furni on OpenSea or keep it and use it in Habbo.
As well as NFT furni, I also see the potential to introduce rooms in Habbo that are only accessible if you own a Habbo Avatar, or even a specific NFT from another collection. Imagine having a Cool Cats-themed meet up room, or a jungle-themed room for CyberKongz owners. We want Habbo to have spaces where NFT owners can meet up easily!
All this being said, we’re very keen to not change the Habbo experience in a way that is disagreeable to the current community of players. This brings us nicely to the next topic.
The potential for a separate, NFT-based Habbo
We’ve seen lots of really good ideas about how to approach integrating NFTs into the game from both the Habbo Avatars community and the existing Habbo community.
A recurring theme is that people are worried about mixing two separate communities and NFTs affecting Habbo gameplay issues in a negative way.
One way to get around this issue could be to create an entirely separate server, or hotel, that’s only accessible by people with a Habbo Avatar or a Habbo Portrait, or by owners of NFTs from other specific collections. This is just an idea — the design process hasn’t started so it may be accessible to a much wider audience. Regardless, owning a genesis Habbo Avatar will bring huge benefits in the NFT-based Habbo.
Given that owning a Habbo Avatar is reasonably pricey itself, our thinking is that we might be able to do things we can’t on the nine servers we have currently. One idea was to give all inhabitants of the NFT server access to every single furni line we’ve ever made. Maybe we wouldn’t necessarily give everyone everything at once, but one idea I had was to rotate the selection of furni available, and that this would eventually include everything from the Habbo back catalogue.
Since we need to be careful to not change the current Habbo gameplay too much, my thinking is that any ‘play to earn’ features would be focused on the NFT server. How I envision this working is that players would be able to earn, obtain or win NFTs on this server, but then be able to use them in all ten Habbo servers.
There could be several ways you might actually earn NFTs on this separate server, but as rooms are the key part of the Habbo experience, rewarding players who build cool and popular rooms could be the ones most likely to get NFTs. While it’s still too early to commit to this sort of play to earn mechanic, it is certainly something we’ve been discussing here over the past few weeks.
The ideas presented here are just that: early ideas. You should consider them as a starting point for the design of an NFT-based Habbo. I’m keen to see what sort of ideas the Habbo Avatar community has about how a standalone hotel might look and what sort of things you, as an owner, would like to see there. I want to emphasise that myself and the NFT team, along with the Habbo team will be listening to feedback. Nothing is set in stone yet.
If either the Habbo NFT community or the existing Habbo community are strongly against some of the design decisions for this new, standalone Habbo server for NFT owners, I’d be happy to go back and take another look. Since we’re making a game for you, the community, I want to involve you as much as possible. As well as the Habbo team listening out for feedback about NFTs and their integration into Habbo on Twitter I encourage you to share your ideas in our Discord server and on the Habbo NFT Twitter account.
What happens now
My plan is to continue the implementation of the 2021 features and perks we’ve already listed on our website, while also thinking about what other NFT-focused features we could add to the existing nine Habbo servers. My goal is to get these extra things done in the first half of 2022.
While the above integration is taking place, early next year I plan to finalise the designs for the NFT Habbo server. We have started building the team for this standalone Habbo server but it’s too soon to say when we have the team ready. It’s also super, super important to understand that development of this server will not affect development of the Modern Habbo client.
Collaborations
Embedding Habbo into the metaverse as it exists today is something myself and the rest of the team are super keen to do. There are so many other NFT and blockchain-based projects that are doing really exciting and interesting things at the moment, and we’re in active discussions with a couple of them.
Ideally I want your avatar to be a key to other virtual spaces, but I also want other NFTs to have utility inside Habbo, whether that’s in Habbo itself or an NFT version of the game. Collaborating with other projects is a brilliant way to do this, of course.
I’m looking forward to sharing more news about partnerships and collaborations as the project progresses and matures. As said, we have two big collabs in the pipeline, and if everything goes well there we can announce them very soon.
Merchandise
Lastly, exclusive merchandise is something I’m really keen to make available to avatar and portrait owners. While we may also release Habbo merchandise for everyone to buy at some point, I also want to release some that is only available to the holders. The exclusivity of owning one of our NFTs will be obvious in many ways when you’re online in the metaverse. However, owning something physical is — in my opinion anyway — just as cool. I am so proud of my Bored Ape hoodie; it’s exclusive to BAYC NFT holders.
Therefore, I’d like to have a Habbo Avatars-only merchandise store for this purpose. The obvious choices for merch would be hats, hoodies, and T-Shirts. But who knows what other sorts of merch we could release?
Long term goals
Anyway, all in all I hope this gives you an idea of just how ambitious our plans are, and how I see us moving forward in the long term. I’m excited not just for how this will increase the utility of Habbo Avatar NFTs, but also Habbo as a game and a product. Blockchain gaming and integration of NFTs into games is still very fresh, and I’m excited about the prospect of injecting new life into the Habbo brand and giving it some extra visibility.
We have the green light to start working on scoping this, so these are not just ideas but actual goals that we would like to achieve. When we have clear development milestones in the form of a roadmap, they’ll be shared with you.
Exciting times ahead, for sure!
