Fansites

The Fansite Badge

Fansites are websites set up by fans of Habbo. Habbo has had many fansites over the years of varying success. Official Habbo fansites organise badge events and live events for Habbos to play on the hotel. They must follow the Fansite Policy as set out by Habbo.

There have been many changes to the 'status' of a fansite. Originally, a group of hand picked fansites were labelled 'Official' by Sulake. Later, Sulake decided that all fansites should be equal and removed all mention of Official Fansites for a time, but every three months fansites were placed through a quality assurance audit to ensure their accordance to the Fansite Way, since renamed to Fansite Policy.

'Official' fansites have since returned. For a time, applications would be open twice a year for owners or admins of fansites who feel they have the potential to become official to apply, and Habbo Staff would shortlist around 12 fansites to gain official status. Also, existing fansites who wanted to remain official must re-apply. Otherwise, they would not be considered by staff for whether or not to retain official status - like in the case of Habbo news site Puhekupla who were supposedly not informed that they must re-apply. The admins thus failed to do so during the March 2014 applications, resulting in it being dropped as one of the Official fansites. Puhekupla regained its official status the next time applications were opened in Fall 2014 but later dropped out again.

Current Official Fansites

Main article: Official Fansites

In December 2016 Habbo Staff announced that the number of Official Fansites would be reduced to five, meaning six of the previous fansites were guaranteed to lose their official status. The five fansites who were to keep their status were announced on Twitter on December 23, 2016. Since then, fansite numbers have fluctuated due to the closing or merging of several fansites with official status.

The current official fansites are:

• Habbox
• HabboQuests
• Fuusio
• RPG
• WishHabbo

Fansite Events

These are some of the badges designed by Habbox Graphic Designers that have been turned into Habbo badges.

Each fansite is tasked to organise an Official Fansite Event every so often. These were previously chosen to be in conjunction with worldwide celebrations such as Valentine's Day and similar seasonal holidays, but have since been changed to a monthly rota of events with the fansites themselves choosing the theme for their event slot. These events are usually in the form of a maze or a game, and if completed successfully, the user would be awarded a badge. Habbox Graphics usually submit a badge design and to be turned into an official badge distributed to users if approved by Habbo, otherwise badges that have been pre-made but not used in the .com hotel (perhaps made for badge events on other hotels) can be selected.

Before regular fansites events were implemented, each official fansite had a Fansite Week dedicated primarily to them, and had three events throughout the week in which different badges could be won from each of them.

Controversy

Many Habbos have been critical of the ways Official Fansites have been chosen over the years, often very vocally. This was especially prevalent when the list of Official Fansites was much larger, as having a higher quota meant that quality and content could vary dramatically from one site to the next.

In late 2012 when results for fansite applications were released, the team of HabboSecrets felt extreme unjust to the fact that such a popular site that most of the community depended on were denied official status, and thus staged a blackout. Furthermore, it was also brought to light that fansites that allegedly offered hacking information became official. Many tweets came through with the hashtag #HSBlackout, and the way that official fansites were chosen was heavily scrutinized.

In 2014, after HabboKingdom, ThisHabbo and HabboSphere were let on the official fansites list again, they were attacked heavily by some of the Habbo community. In particular, many were sceptical about HabboSphere and had accused it of being established solely for Proms, its owner, to organize the Official Fansite Events.

HabboCentral acted on the changing of their layout after their exposure.

A Habbox Forum user had also revealed that HabboCentral stole layouts from a retro fansite, an act that was against the Habbo Way and therefore the Fansite Policy. HabboCentral moved their domain from .net to .org and announced their decision to make a new layout. Later on, in 2015, the site announced their closure.

Perks

To distinguish fansite owners in-game, three administrators from each fansite receive a special badge. Fansite owners also had a one-off three months of Habbo HC subscription free of charge which never happened again. Official Fansites that adhere to Sulake's quality standards are also added to the exclusive mailing list, where they can receive news on upcoming events, features, sneak peeks of upcoming furniture releases, and much more. These fansites may also promote their events on-client, and have their fansite advertised through official events and even by Habbo staff.