Habbox

Habbox
Opened:	2003
Language:	English
Hotel:	Habbo.com
Owners:	sierk Jin
General management:	lawrawrrr FlyingJesus __tbl ,jamiexo Rusted!
Website(s):	Habbox HabboxForum HabboxWiki
Twitter:	Habbox

Habbox is an official fansite founded on 3rd July 2003 by Mizki.

Habbox is run by a team of staff across 10 departments and led by the five General Managers, lawrawrrr, FlyingJesus, __tbl, ,jamiexo, and Rusted!

Habbox History

2003 - 2004

Habbox was founded in the Summer of 2003 by Mizki, who at the time was a Hobba.

It started as a small personal project for Mizki but she soon realised that she needed other people to help her with the site. This is where Sierk came to learn of Habbox and he and Mizki soon became good friends. He originally joined the team with the title Web Page Manager.

As Sierk took more of a development role for the site, he was then handed the reins and eventually full ownership of the site, where he has stayed ever since. During this time, he developed new features including the Rare Values team which had a lasting effect on the way Habbos traded.

In 2004, Habbox was chosen to be one of the first ever Official Fansites. Although this status was removed just a few months after (due to an incident between some members and hotel manager Callie), Habbo's community stayed loyal and strong.

2006 - 2008

Losing official status did not have the detrimental effect many users expected, and the loyal community stayed together and kept building.

In 2007, Official Fansite applications reopened and in May 2008, the public were able to vote for new fansites. Habbox was chosen and awarded the new Gold Tier fansite status, alongside two others.

Following the process, Habbo ran a series of fansite awards. Habbox won several awards:

• Best Fansite News
• Best Fansite Features
• Best Fansite Forum
• Best Overall Favourite Fansite

2009 - 2011

In 2009, Version 4 of the site was released, which was a major change to not only the design but to many department structures.

Soon after, Jin (an Administrator on HabboxForum) was quickly promoted through Assistant General Manager, Acting General Manager and Co-Owner, within a few weeks.

In 2010, after almost 5 years of the same system, Habbox got a totally new Rare Values system. The thing which had made Habbox so famous and useful was starting to become out of date and difficult to maintain with such a high volume of new rares to add and value. With the introduction of the built-in MarketPlace on Habbo, the Rare Values staff were now able to keep the basic values up to date as fast as possible and focus their more manual efforts on items so rare and expensive that the MarketPlace couldn’t cater to them.

The Merge in 2010 had a massive impact on all fansites, including Habbox. Habbox had traditionally been a fansite for the UK hotel but now was catering to thousands of new international users.

2011 was another year for big changes at Habbox. In March 2011, the eagerly anticipated Version 6 was released – Version 5 being largely overlooked as merely updates to Version 4, while V6 was a far greater change. A massive team effort was made to successfully release it, and many users commented that was the best layout Habbox had seen.

It also incorporated many brand-new features which no other fansite had seen before, including moveable content boxes, widgets, interactive content and so much more. It was originally planned to merge HabboxLive.com into this version, but a slurry of staff changes prevented this.

2012 - 2014

2012 also saw the launch of HabboxWiki, an enormous resource for all things Habbo and Habbox related. Through the hard work of the Content Design team and members of the community lending their expertise, HabboxWiki is the largest and most comprehensive of all Habbo wiki sites by several orders of magnitude, with meticulous checking and constant updates.

Work began very quickly on Version Seven after the release of V6, with designs being drawn up in 2012, with an original planned release in 2012. Delays due to staff changes (including a management dismissal for publicly leaking the designs!) once again halted the project temporarily and many different people were drafted in to help.

This continued for the next two years, with coders working on the project for a while before leaving as staff or becoming too busy to complete the project. As each new coder would have to get to grips with the varying progress of their predecessors, work was slow.

Much like how Version 4 had became outdated and hindered many departments’ progress or ideas, so too did Version 6 suffer. Simply not understanding code, panels becoming outdated, and faster development from Habbo staff on client features all led to the site becoming more confusing to use and missing various functions.

xxMATTGxx handed over the General Manager reins to Wispur on the 8th of October 2014, and one of the first projects he undertook was hiring new site coders who could dedicate themselves to finishing the project. Soon after, work began again, now moving more quickly than it had before.

2015 - 2017

Version Seven was finally released for BETA users (managers and some select staff members) in Spring 2015.

It had its official public release on 4th July 2015. The 3-year delay left many users feeling underwhelmed, but while the site was far from finished, it allowed many departments to move on while the team of site coders worked on updating features piecemeal and in live updates rather than waiting for an entire site to be drafted.

V7 also brought in the long-awaited merger of Habbox.com and HabboxLive.com – the latter site having been seen as surplus to requirements and even a distraction from people who might otherwise browse the main site.

Wisper resigned in July of 2015 which meant the first ever female General Manager took the reins, Laura, the role she has kept ever since.

On 13th March 2017, xxMATTGxx announced his resignation from all roles and involvement at Habbox, and the full running of the site was handed over the General Management team.

2018 - present

Work on Version Eight of Habbox began officially in November of 2015. Passing through several teams of development and design versions, the final version Eight was released public view on 2 August 2019.

The release came as a shock to the community, who had long given up on seeing V8 after so long since the last release. The General Management team had intentionally kept progress and development under wraps to avoid any potential disappointment or delays to the project before the release, intended to be up and running fully by the time HxSS started.

Version Eight did not launch with many major functional changes, but was mainly intended to be a style refresh to keep the sites modern, clean and functional. A new forum skin and staff panel were released towards the end of the year.

Just a few days after the V8 release it was announced that there would be a change in the fundamental way the General Management team would work: with the (Assistant) General Manager role scrapped and the three existing General Managers (ozad, Sho and lawrawrrr) to equalise their titles and roles. Each General Manager had an area of speciality (lawrawrrr as GM Site, Ozad as GM Campaigns, and FlyingJesus as GM Community), but operated in a looser construct than previously.

As of 1st July 2023, the General Management team changed once again; this time to remove entirely the specialised appellations on the end of the title, and to bring in some fresh faces. The team from that point became lawrawrrr, FlyingJesus, __tbl, ,jamiexo, and Rusted! as 5 General Managers.

Habbox websites

Habbox currently has three websites: Habbox.com, Habbox Forum and Habbox Wiki.

The main site was opened first and was the main hub for all things Habbox. There was also a dedicated site for the Radio, HabboxLive.com, although this was merged into the main website in 2015. The main website provides news and articles, rare values, goodies such as imagers and latest badge/furni scanners, and guides.

In 2004, the forum was opened to provide a place for discussion about all things Habbo and beyond. There are several subforums covering all aspects of Habbo, technology, real life and spam discussion.

In 2012, HabboxWiki was launched, providing a place to gather knowledge about both Habbo and Habbox's history, campaigns, furni and features.

Presence on Habbo

Since its opening, Habbox has had a strong presence on Habbo including the opening of one of the first Help Desks, the Habbox Help Desk in 2003.

The Room Builders team, launched in 2015, is also responsible for official Habbox badge events, including General Fansite Events. The Graphics team regularly designs custom badges.

Discontinued Habbox Projects / Sites

Habbox has had many large projects and departments, whilst popular in the past, many of these services no longer serve a good role within Habbox.

These range from old versions and skins to entire departments which were discontinued mainly due to the lack of demand from the Habbo public, or to be upgraded into bigger and better options. The full list of discontinued Habbox Projects can be seen on the Discontinued Habbox Projects page.