Habbo Hotel manager checks in 2

That's particularly striking, Haro said, given that the vast majority of users are between 13 and 16. There are exceptions, as Haro said that in Japan the game is unusually popular with older housewives. But for the most part, the game appeals to users at the time when they are just building their identities and experimenting with the social aspects of life outside their immediate surroundings. However, once those users get driver's licenses and have places to go and other things to do, Haro said they tend to lose interest in Habbo.

The company has analyzed its users into a variety of categories, with labels like "habbohotel coins," "achievers," "loners," "creatives," and "traditionals," with most of them split in similar proportions between boys and girls. However, different regions tend to produce different types of players. In the USA there's a wealth of achievers, while Japan is rife with loners, and Finland has an unusually large percentage of traditionals.

That global success has also led to some problems for the company. While 70 percent of Finnish players were keenly interested in having foreign friends, Japanese users complained that their hotel was overrun with Finnish players. The company eventually had to use IP-screening to block Finnish players from the Japanese hotel in order to let that community grow without being pestered. Across the board, Haro said only about 44 percent of the teen users of Habbo Coins have positive attitudes toward foreigners.

Haro said Habbo Coins is about open play, and the company is trying hard not to define what the product is about. But more than anything else, the company wants the users to dictate what happens with the game. For instance, there are no predefined rewards for any actions in the game. Every bit of positive feedback comes from other habbo credits users, and that has led to the creation of a wealth of unintended games.