Son of Hotel Habbo Coming Soon

Sulake, the Finnish company behind the early social game, Habbo Hotel, may have not entered the current social networking craze on places like Facebook and MySpace, yet it still boasts a whopping 13 million players. Yet, the nine-year-old game is starting to show its age and with a worldwide economic crisis, about 10 percent of its audience pays for in-game objects. Finally, it's getting ready to launch a new teen-targeted virtual world called Bobba.com.

The "casual virtual world for mobile phones," is already out in testing form for Symbian OS-based phones (owned by fellow Finnish mobile powerhouse, Nokia) and will arrive for iPhone and iPod Touch later in September. With colorful 3-D environments that appear to allow level construction, players are limited to more of a virtual space like The Sims and less of the leveling up play than social network gamers are accustomed to. Yet, it still has room to grow.

"Bobba is still very much in the early development phase ... Our aim is to build a virtual world, which is virtually platform free -- it can be accessed practically anywhere, with all kinds of devices," Timo Soininen, chief executive of Sulake said.

Could Bobba represent the next wave of social mobile games? Stay tuned for when it arrives later this month in the App Store.

More Information on Habbo Hotel:

Habbo Hotel

Source: Reuters