Habbo Hotel

While watching Second Skin, I noticed in one of the fact segments that they flashed the names of many MMORPGs. One of them—Habbo Hotel—caught my eye, because when I was in middle school I used to play this game a lot (middle school was a weird time, don’t judge me).  In the game, people create avatars and navigate them around a fictional hotel. In user-made rooms, the player can play games such as “Falling Furni,” which is basically just musical chairs, with the winner of the game receiving a piece of furniture that they can furnish their hotel room with. The avatars the players use to navigate the hotel can either be a reflection of themselves, or they can be someone completely different. For example, a lot of the players created an avatar that looked like a baby. Players took these roles very seriously; for example, one time I tried to enter a room as a baby (I can’t believe I’m telling you all this), and another one whispered to me, “wtf there can only be one baby in here I’m going to kill you.” Well, I thought this was actually hilarious and I knew that they would not actually be able to find me in real life, but the player’s actions show that he was so obsessed with his role in the game that he did not want other people encroaching on his territory.

People in the game were also obsessed with having the most material possessions. This reminded me of when Melissa talked about the items in her inventory in WoW. Unless the furniture, household items, carpets, and wallpaper were won in games, players had to use real money to purchase them online. Therefore, the players valued them greatly and cluttered their rooms with items to the extreme. These players were also so greedy that they spent a lot of time playing games in order to get even more items.

I do not really know any other people who played Habbo Hotel, but I can say that when I played it, I lost track of time so quickly that for a while I did not even realize that I would be sitting in complete darkness with only the eerie glow of the computer screen keeping me company. That is how it seemed for the players in Second Skin as well. Luckily for me, this gameplay only took place for one year and then I was able to step away from it. Hopefully, these players will be able to do the same in the future. I know not all gamers are like this, but for the ones that are, this gameplay does not seem so healthy.