Habbo Hotel is still open. Its turning point came in June 2012, when a Channel 4 News investigation found sexual chat on a platform aimed at users as young as 13. Its Helsinki-based owner, Sulake, muted chat across the site, and UK retailers including Tesco, Game and WHSmith pulled Habbo gift cards. Dutch company Azerion bought a 51% stake in Sulake in 2018 and the remaining 49% from Elisa Oyj on January 25, 2021. Habbo moved from Flash to a Unity client at the end of 2020, and on June 18, 2024 Azerion announced Habbo Hotel: Origins, an adults-only recreation of the 2005 hotel. It never closed. It shrank, changed hands and finally went back to its own past.
Habbo at a Glance
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| June 2012 | Channel 4 News investigation; Sulake mutes chat site-wide | Channel 4 News |
| 2018 | Azerion takes a 51% stake in Sulake | Azerion press release, 2021 |
| December 2020 | Habbo’s move from Flash to Unity enters open beta | Sulake press release |
| December 31, 2020 | Adobe ends Flash Player support | Adobe end-of-life page |
| January 25, 2021 | Azerion buys the remaining 49% of Sulake from Elisa Oyj | Azerion press release |
| June 18, 2024 | Azerion announces the launch of Habbo Hotel: Origins | Azerion press release |
The Hotel With Its Own Economy
Habbo was never really a game in the usual sense. There was no quest and no finish line. You made a pixel avatar, got a room, and filled it with furniture, known as furni, bought with Habbo Credits. The furniture could be traded, and the rare pieces became a currency of their own. People queued in lobbies, ran their own games inside rooms, and built reputations on what they owned and who they knew.
That is why the question “what happened to Habbo Hotel” usually comes from people remembering a place rather than a product. It belonged to the same after-school internet as MSN Messenger: a space for talking to people your own age with nobody older watching. That feature was also its weakness, and in 2012 it caught up with it.
June 2012: The Channel 4 Investigation
Channel 4 News, read September 11, 2026, reported that it had found “pornographic sexual chat” on Habbo, a site aimed at children as young as 13, with evidence of “little or no moderation” and possible grooming.
Sulake’s first answer was a number. Its chief executive told Channel 4 that Habbo’s moderation and safeguarding “includes employing more than 225 moderators, tracking some 70m lines of conversation globally every day on a 24/7 basis.”
Its second answer was the one that defined the story. Sulake muted the entire site, so that nobody could chat at all. For a platform whose whole point was chat, that was the equivalent of switching off the lights. When chat returned, Channel 4 reported, users had to pass a safety quiz first, and Sulake called for a “Parental Advisory Summit” with parents.
The commercial damage was immediate. Channel 4 reported that Tesco, Game and WHSmith withdrew Habbo gift cards from sale, and that Tesco said it had “no plans” to resume selling them.
This is the part of Habbo’s history that nostalgia pieces tend to soften. The mute was not an overreaction to a rumor. It was a response to a documented report that a platform aimed at young teenagers was not protecting them, on a scale its moderation could not keep up with.
What Happened to Habbo Hotel After 2012
New owners
Sulake stayed in business, but it stopped being the independent Finnish tech story it had been. According to Azerion’s own January 25, 2021 press release, read September 11, 2026, Azerion had held 51% of Sulake since 2018 and that day agreed to buy the remaining 49% from Elisa Oyj, making Sulake wholly owned.
The same release is the most recent official size figure available. It said Sulake’s games, Habbo and Hotel Hideaway, had close to 2 million monthly active users across 115 countries, and that Sulake had 96 staff in Helsinki. Note what that figure covers: two games, combined, as of January 2021. It is not a current number for Habbo alone, and we have not found a newer official one.
Leaving Flash
Habbo, like most browser worlds of its generation, ran on Flash. With Adobe ending Flash Player support on December 31, 2020, Sulake had to rebuild the client or close. In December 2020 it announced that Habbo’s transition from Flash to Unity had entered open beta. The move kept the hotel open, but it also meant that the client people remembered was, technically, gone.
That is the same fork in the road that finished most Flash-era sites. Habbo took the expensive path and rebuilt.
Habbo Hotel: Origins, the 2005 Hotel Reopened
The most interesting thing Habbo has done in a decade is to stop competing with its own past and simply bring it back.
Azerion’s June 18, 2024 announcement, read September 11, 2026, describes Habbo Hotel: Origins as a return to the hotel as it existed in 2005. Three details matter:
- It is 18+. Origins is aimed at adults, the people who were teenagers in the original hotel, rather than at a new generation of children.
- It runs three hotels, for English, Portuguese and Spanish speaking players.
- It runs alongside the main Habbo, rather than replacing it.
The 18+ rule is the quiet lesson of 2012. The original hotel’s biggest problem was that adults and children shared the same rooms. Origins solves it by design, by making the whole space adult.
Why Habbo Survived When Bigger Platforms Did Not
Habbo has outlived platforms with vastly more money and users behind them. Vine and Google Plus were both backed by some of the largest companies on earth and both were shut down. Habbo, owned by a small Finnish studio and then by a Dutch ad and games company, is still taking bookings.
Three things explain it:
It had a paying core. Habbo made money from Credits and furniture, not from advertising alone. A small audience that pays can keep a service alive long after a large audience that does not would have been cut.
It stayed small enough to keep running. Sulake’s 96 staff in 2021 were running two games. A service that size does not need a giant audience to justify itself.
It had something to go back to. Origins works because there is a specific, remembered version of Habbo that people want. Many dead platforms never had that. We track the ones that did not make it in the platforms that shaped the internet, then vanished.
What Habbo Is Not Anymore
It is not the default place teenagers go. That role moved to phones, group chats and larger games years ago. It is not independent, and it is not the size it was. The most recent official user figure is from 2021 and covers two games together.
What it is, in 2026, is a surviving virtual world with a retro edition for the adults who grew up in it, owned by a company that has kept both running.
FAQ
Is Habbo Hotel still running?
Yes. Habbo is still online, and Habbo Hotel: Origins, a recreation of the 2005 hotel for players aged 18 and over, launched in June 2024 alongside it.
Who owns Habbo Hotel?
Azerion, a Dutch games and advertising company. It took a 51% stake in Habbo’s developer Sulake in 2018 and acquired the remaining 49% from Elisa Oyj on January 25, 2021.
What is Habbo Hotel: Origins?
A separate version of Habbo that recreates the hotel as it was in 2005. Azerion announced its launch on June 18, 2024. It is 18+ and runs three hotels for English, Portuguese and Spanish speaking players.
Why did Habbo mute chat in 2012?
After a Channel 4 News investigation in June 2012 reported sexual chat and possible grooming on the platform, Sulake muted chat across the whole site. Chat returned with a safety quiz for users, and several UK retailers stopped selling Habbo gift cards.
The Short Version
- June 2012: Channel 4 News investigation, site-wide chat mute, retailers pull gift cards.
- 2018: Azerion buys 51% of Sulake. January 25, 2021: it buys the rest.
- End of 2020: Habbo leaves Flash for Unity.
- June 18, 2024: Habbo Hotel: Origins announced, an 18+ return to the 2005 hotel.
- Still open, smaller, owned by Azerion, and outliving much larger platforms.
