Habbo (Formerly Habbo Hotel) was my hang out when I was in my teenage years. Now in my 30s, I have well and truly outgrown the platform, and really only log in once every few years for a brief nostalgia trip and wonder what I am going to do with the rooms and rooms of furniture I have accumulated. While still purportedly aimed at the teenager demographic, which makes this next bit kind of surprising, but Sulake in recent months has aimed their sights at the NFT market. The studio recently made 11,600 collectable avatars made available for people to buy via OpenSea, along with cheaper portraits and furniture.
Together with media platform Azerion, Sulake this week announced that the first stage of the “Habbo Hotel metaverse” has been completed, allowing owners of NFTs from the Habbo Avatars collection being able to play in-game. Those who hold these avatars will also receive new perks including Habbo Club and Builders Club memberships and exclusive NFT furni items.
As of writing, the floor price for the Habbo Avatar NFTs are 0.15 ETH, which translates to approximately $489.73 USD – therefore parents be warned that these will cost substantially more than your teenagers normal Habbo Club membership. And this is just the floor price, with some of them being sold for many, many times over that price.
I for one, don’t understand NFTs as an investment or fad, and other game developers looking into it have received negative attention from their communities. My personal recommendation would be to steer clear of these unless you know what you are getting into – as even if you are a user of Habbo – things like making Habbo avatars and more have been available in-game since the very beginning.