Can we get any more boring ?! Yes, we believe we can. Below is an overview of Sulake’s organisational structure, as presented by Dr. Juha Hynynen (COO) in a November 2006 presentation (as such, things can have been changed):

Headquarters		Regional team¹		Country team
				Ad Sales Manager
Ad Sales Department				Ad Sales Coordinator
Habbo Online Team				Site Producer [Hotel Manager]
SVP of Sales		Regional Director		Country Manager
Finance Department		Regional Financial Controller		Community Manager
Marketing Department		Regional Marketing Manager		Assistant Community Manager
Operations		Regional Community Operations Manager		Player Support

¹Wonder where these regional teams are ? In most cases located in some local office, but we’re not sure on exact regions/locations. Phil Guest is Regional Director for Central Europe [UK, NL, DE, CH], located in London. Simonetta Lulli is for Southern Europe/South America [ES, BR, probably also IT and FR (?)], located in Madrid. Janne Kouri is for North America [US, CA], Jeff Brooks for Asia & Pacific [AU, SG, possibly also JP]. Jouni Keranen was for China, so maybe Russian hotel has its own too, and there’s the Scandinavian countries. Might be Director is in Helsinki, but Finland could be its own entity too, which leaves room for a Director in Copenhagen, Denmark (from where Swedish and Norwegian hotel are controlled anyway these days). We don’t know, but we did warn you it would get boring :p.

Levelling down

Underneath these small crews doing general management, we have our hotels that need to be running smooth and safe, and there had to be ways for (new) users to get help and support on issues, questions, etc.

Moderators

Enter a group of paid moderators (not required to work from the office), with a full set of tools (more here). At least one on duty if hotel is open (closing time of some hotels due to their cost), over time lots more got hired.

Hobba’s

While hotel populations kept growing, more moderation was needed, and moderation faced a lot of questions that were hard to handle for the small amount of paid moderators online, and that were not necessarily the task of the moderators to handle, as experienced habbo’s were well able to handle those. So Hobba’s were introduced (early 2001). A voluntary job for experienced habbo’s with even a little moderation powers. Said to be fairly easy to become one, but there were ranks to climb up, from newbie/starting/silver hobba to gold hobba to superhobba. Also an age limit was in place, going gradually up over time. In 2005 limit was 18 years. Still, players with moderation tools were considered not done in the end (if not by Sulake, there’s still an outside world judging ongoings in their - commercial - hotels), starting January 1st 2006 the program was terminated.

Habbo eXperts, phase I

Tested in Sweden before, but formally January 1st 2006, the Habbo eXperts program was introduced and replacing the Hobba’s. A group of voluntary hotel helpers, usually asked to spend some time in one of the Welcome lounges. Not easy to get in, selections were made, procedures were long - first draw often performed with an application form with questions. They didn’t have any special powers besides - mostly - room overriding (able to enter full rooms), but this did vary a little. In the UK for instance the room overriding was disabled as it was (thought to be) misused, but some eXperts were able to open the infobus; yet not able to use the poll tool, where in Holland it was available.

Habbo eXperts, phase II

May 2007, Sulake constructed a system with more division in the Habbo eXperts program. Different groups were made for Host eXperts (welcoming, general questions), Safety eXperts, Tech(nical) eXperts and Game eXperts (BB2, Snowstorm, or for events/games). Teamleaders were installed, and a teamleader for the whole group of eXperts. Hotels worldwide had their own variations on which groups they introduced, implementation, if they assigned different (public of private) rooms for teams etc.

Phase II didn’t get introduced worldwide, Laurensh1 and Star-Fighter created an overview with all details concerning implementation of the program:

							†	Notes
Australia	x	x	x	x			31-07-08	No game group, but used for eXpert events, a teamleader in place.
Brazil							21-08-08
Canada	x	x	x	x	x		31-07-08
Denmark	x	x		x			14-08-08
Finland							31-08-08
France	x	x	x		x		??-07-08	Tech badge for combined Safety/Tech group.
Germany							31-07-08
Italy	x	x	x	x	x		30-07-08
Japan	x	x	x	x			??-??-08	Own set of ‘G(uide)’ badges.
Netherlands							31-07-08
Norway	x	x		x			??-07-08
Russia							??-08-08	General teamleader (badge) in place (roksi).
Singapore	x	x	x	x	x		31-07-08
Spain							??-??-08	Spanish eXperts were called ‘Lincus’, different badge.
Sweden	x	x		x	x		30-07-08
Switzerland							29-07-08
UK	x	x	x	x	x		09-07-08
USA	x	x	x	x	x		31-07-08

The Welcoming Party, phase I

Even with the Habbo eXperts program, phase II, in place in some hotels (and not in others), the ‘Welcoming Party’ was introduced, early 2008. Join the group (a group like any other group you could by then create on Habbo), and inside hotel you get invitations to go to new users that answered yes to the question if they'd like to be helped/welcomed. No fullfeatured program or anything, lots of people still wondered how it came to be, if this wasn’t taking the job away from Habbo (host) eXperts. In the end it proved to be the nearing end of the eXpert program.

The Welcoming Party, phase II - Habbo Guides

July 2008, UK hotel announced (first, other hotels followed with new version) the eXpert program was coming to an end, and v24 introduced some updating to functionality of the Welcoming party/group and is now known as the ‘Habbo Guides’ group. Rewards are given for new players that stay in Habbo and continue to be your friend, as a whole set of badges, ultimate level for a selected, and handpicked few.

The following list gives some information about the amount of people that need to be helped for the Guide levels. First are the levels, then there is the total of people to be guided. In the end are the steps to the next level.

Bunny:

1 person guided;

Bambi:

3 people guided [+2];

Otter:

5 people guided [+2];

Badger:

10 people guided [+5];

Fox:

25 people guided [+15];

Lynx:

55 people guided [+30];

Buffalo:

90 people guided [+35];

Bear:

120 people guided [+30];

Eagle:

160 people guided [+40];

Owl:

200 people guided [+40].