Reinventing Habbo

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Reinventing Habbo

How a social play service is

renewed and improvedOsma Ahvenlampi


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2Osma Ahvenlampi - ION 2008 - Reinventing Habbo

Copyright Sulake Corporation 2008

Osma Ahvenlampi

CTO, Sulake Corporation


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Sulake


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Process improvement


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Measurement


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No tech here (this time)


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Osma Ahvenlampi - ION 2008 - Reinventing Habbo


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Habbo is..

Social, free-form play

Meet and make friendsVirtual world


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Social Play


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Habbo Countries


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20082007

Habbo in April 2008

2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 20062001

97 million registered Habbo-characters! Source: Sulake Statistics

Please check www.sulake.com for

up-to-date stats
http://www.sulake.com/


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Company Fact Sheet

97MM registered Habbos (Apr 2008)

10MM monthly unique visitors worldwide across all Sulake properties (Dec2007)

2.7BN monthly page impressions across all Sulake properties

Key Metrics

Habbo (casual virtual world for teens)

Sulake Solutions (virtual worlds for third parties)

IRC-Galleria (social networking site acquired April 2007)

Business Units

Year Founded 2000

Offices Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland

15 country offices globally

Employees 275 full-time equivalents, 190+ full- and part-time moderators

Investors Taivas Group, Elisa Oyj, 3i Group, Balderton Capital, Movida Group (SoftBank)


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Free to play, pay for stuff

plus advertising


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8 years since launch

Isn't that kind of old?

For a computer product, yes

For a social experience, NO


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Agility

History

Business

Learnings

Design

Development

Scrum

Reaction time

MethodsMeasuring

Content

Web

Opportunities

Plans


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A brief history


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Mobiles Disco - October 1999


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Text messages for powerups


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User-defined play


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In the beginning...

Ad-hoc development Topline measurements only

Total registrations

Peak concurrent users

Processes oriented for launch and operations


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Habbo Countries


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Development waterfall

Plan, Design, Implement, Test Oops, broken

Fix, Test, Fix again

Start all over again


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Isn't there a better way?


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Developing on the web


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Web is an idealdelivery platform

It's everywhere

Zero install, instant access

Heavy lifting on server ironwhere you can easily tell what's going on


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Not just for the browser

It's the model that matters Minimized friction for access

Updates are free

you're delivering bits anyway,

might as well make them new Nothing to ship

Why would this be for casual games only?


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And what's casual, anyway?

Demographic

56% Boys 44% Girls

65% are 13-16 years old

90% go to school / study

Usage peaks after schooland on weekends

63% go toHabbo every day

70% heard about

Habbo from a friend

come to Habbo forsocializing with friends

55% spend on average15 hours per month

Habbo Usage


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Web has its demands

Networks change

PCs are not a platform you can control

Dependance on a multitude of third party pieces

Hardware, OS, browser, ISP, network weather, regulators

Can not expect to be able to execute on a rigidlong term plan due to changing conditions


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Find a better way

Incremental

IterativeScrum


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A team at a time

Six months later, whole company


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Monthly development milestones

then..

bi-weekly milestones,monthly rollouts to all markets


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Productivity can outstripplanning capabilities

Prioritization issuesNew features vs focused experience

Understanding users' desires


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Research

Online surveysBrand research

Live measurement

InterviewsVideotaped playtesting

Two-week followup


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Change the approach

Focus on the unique stuffIdentity play

Free-form playMulti-player fun

Strip away ancillaries


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Benchmark with A/B tests

now how would you do this one offline?


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Live measurement

Segmenting, splitting to components Averages lead astray

Find the leverage points, make them KPIs

Eg; what's the point of most impact in your

conversion funnel

Predictive, rapid reaction metrics

Hours or days anything slower is near useless


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Launched in November 2007


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http://www.habbo.com


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Big changes still to come5 more updates this year alone


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Measure everything

Conversion rate up 50%


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We churn out patcheshow is that bad?

We test more alternatives this way

Aim to churn them out and measure even faster


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Minimum cycle time=

Maximum productivity


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Long term plans

slow you downDistraction to short-term focus

Cause you to miss rapid evolutionMental lock to choices made without all the data

EXCEPT

If your success is based on others,eg platform providers


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Roadmaps are traps for

mismatched expectations

37signals: Signal vs Noise (paraphrased)http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/694-you-dont-need-a-product-road-map
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/694-you-dont-need-a-product-road-maphttp://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/694-you-dont-need-a-product-road-map


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Still, have to have some plans

Next couple of iterations work for us

Just bulletpoints and mock-up images

Expect it to change significantly

Details and commitment just-in-time

Work on just a few items at a time

Release as soon as possible

k


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Make sure we canmeasure the effect

Collect data pre-change

Analyze, describe to teamPost-release surveys every month


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Collaboration across company

Marketing cycle same as development Community cycle faster

Same key measures for all work

Weekly re-assesment of performance


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About those surveys...


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Wrap-up


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Plan that way, too


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Feedback mechanisms all over


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Measure the right things


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Put resources to understandingthe data gathered


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Thank You!

[email protected]

www.sulake.com

www.habbo.com

Documents

Reinventing Habbo