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Happy Birthday, Hattrick!

Escrito por HPE-Flatron

30th August 1997. Or, otherwise said: The day when everything started. It is the day when Hattrick was launched and, since then, the history is still getting written.

But where are we right now? Well, it's 20 years later, in 2017 and, in all this period, a lot of extraordinary things happened through this wonderful game - there are friendships that will last forever, a lot of memories regarding matches, trophies, forum topics and a lot of HT-Meetings. I am pretty sure you have experienced all of these, but let's think about how the owners and developers of Hattrick must feel all these wonderful 20 years - I guess it's like growing your lovely child and now he's an adult, you have to be proud of him!

But those are my words, so... You are invited to read a special article for the 20th celebration of Hattrick with, you guessed!, the HTs. :)

HT-Tasos (10800601)

1. What else Hattrick means for you beside being your business/job?

Hattrick is a big part of my life. Even as a volunteer, I used to spend a lot of hours every day. Hattrick is my job, my daily routine, a place to meet friends and finally, one of my main ways to forget everything else and just enjoy my time.

2. We would appreciate a thought from you on this 20 years celebration.

It is really impressive if you think about it. 20 years for an online game? Even Google is younger than this. I hope we will be here, together on the 25th anniversary and have another interview.

3. What is so special about Hattrick that it have kept you along for this many years?

I used to play single player games a lot. Hattrick was the first online game that kept me active for more than 3 months and I am sure that the community and friends were the main reason. I still remember some of the local meetings we had. Most of the times on Fridays on a pub or restaurant watching the National Team matches. Wherever I go, I know I just need to send a text message and I will find someone to have a beer together. Second reason was my passion for Maths. I liked that anyone could play Hattrick, but if you wanted, you could spend days on researches and analysing hidden parts of it.

4. What is the most funny and memorable experience you have had with Hattrick?

Wow... I am 15 minutes above my keyboard and still cannot decide which one should I choose. I guess my first staff meeting is something I will remember for years. It was the first time I met so many Hattrickers at one place. As for the most funny experience? It’s not related directly with Hattrick. I have spent countless hours brainstorming ideas for Hattrick at night, without being able to sleep, even before my HT’s days. You know, some people count sheep on bed to fall asleep? One of those days, I caught myself whispering skill levels from non-existent to divine and backward until I finally fell asleep.
Since then, it is my own “counting sheep” method :)

5. During the years you have played which changes did you like the most to the game?

The first project I worked on Hattrick was the one about mentors. Something I wanted a lot and I believe it has a great value for the community. Then, before my official days, Tournaments was a release I enjoyed.
Before that, you knew that you have two matches during the week. With tournaments, you can be as active as you want. Playing more matches or less based on your mood, without affecting your actual team.

6. What is your expectations for the future of Hattrick, what do you believe will keep people around?

I believe Hattrick will be around for several more years. Most of the changes we did the last few seasons were community ideas and I am positive that this made users happy. Of course, when you develop a game, you cannot always implement what users ask for, but as long as user’s feedback is on our discussion table and we consider it on every change we do, the majority will be satisfied.

7. Most of us users mostly know HTs for their usernames If you had to choose who would be the smart one, the funny one and the charming one in your team? (If you have a great story as explanation feel free to tell.)

Daniel: The always-happy
Johan: The wiseman
Bodin: The smart
Gusy: The kind
Jens: The friendly
Aartspam: The let's have another beer party man

HT-Jens (10884017)

1&2. I'm not that hard core Hattrick player, but it means a lot. I think there is a competitive person inside us all, but some have a bigger one then others. I always try to beet the others in my league level, and make my fans happy. It's hard but fun.
I hope this 20 years celebration will a thing to remember in the history book.

3. Not so stressed game and has it "normal" scheduled games and season.

4. The most funny must be the stupid thing Zattika made with Hattrick. Sad, too, of course. As you maybe know is that I'm the SysOp for Hattrick, and I have had some sleepless and stressful days during this 7 years - wow, is it that long...
One of this moments where when had a downtime (unexpected) for 28 hours. Just months before I was hired, I know there was a unexpected downtime on 44 hours.

5. The new live and the mobile platform.

6. Still keep up the development and make new/remake features that is needed in the game.

7. HT-Daniel is the smart one and his second hand is HT-Bodin. The funny guy is HT-Johan. The Charming is HT-Gusy.

HT-Aartspam (245332)

1. Hattrick means a whole lot more than that it provides me with a job. First of all, it has given me a lot of fun to play the game, although I haven't been able to realize my ambitions to reach the higher league levels. Whether that has been caused by skill or the possibility to devote enough time or perhaps both I haven't been able to answer.

Thanks to Hattrick, I have friends all over the world and come to think of that, I think that is pretty cool, isn't it? I also met my wife because of Hattrick and have 4 wonderful kids with her and who fill my life with a lot of joy. This all wouldn't have happened if a few Swedish guys hadn't followed their dreams.

2.20 years is a long time in the world of online games. I can't think of that many games that are around as long as Hattrick. It has also made me realize that, even though I only got to know Hattrick in 2003, it has been part of major part of my life and, as far as I am concerned, it would be wonderful if we could do another 20 years of Hattrick. By that time more than half of my life will have been devoted to this game.

But now it's a good time to look back at the past 20 years about what great things we achieved and especially thank you the community, because, without you, I would not have been writing my thoughts about this achievement.

3. The answer to this question is easy. Without hesitation, I say that our community is the sole reason that Hattrick is still around these days and I am pretty sure that this will also be the reason for us to continue for many more years, even though our community is not as large anymore than it used to be some 10 years ago.

4. This question is much harder to answer, as there have been so many funny and memorable experiences since I started playing Hattrick, almost 15 years ago. I met my wife thanks to Hattrick and whom I have 4 lovely kids with, so that should definitely be something memorable, right?

One of the most funny things must have been a goodbye party from a former Dutch moderator who didn't show up on his own goodbye party and which was reason for me to write 2 press announcements about it. Together with a few others who were there, we were joking a lot about what could have happened and had a good time with several beers. Only a few days later we found out that he had caught a virus (disease) and his mother had kept him home.

Another funny story was when I went to my first ever GM meeting in Barcelona with a few other dutch GMs. We managed to miss our flight thanks to a traffic jam late in the evening somewhere on a Belgian highway on our way to the airport and also because we departed a little bit too late. So we had to reschedule our flight for the next day and needed to find a way to spend our time until then. First we went to eat and drink something, but, as the bars didn't stay open the whole night, we went to the airport parking and try to sleep a little bit with 4 guys in a very small car. As you can imagine we didn't catch much sleep, 5 minutes at most for me and we were very tired when we finally arrived a our destination and to no surprise fell asleep during the meeting.

These were just a few funny and memorable events, but, all in all, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it a lot to be with Hattrick, first as a volunteer and later on as an employee.

HT-Bodin (8248727)

1. Hattrick has been a big part of my life for 9 years now, even for 3 years before I started working here. While today I don't play Hattrick so much besides work anymore, I believe that even if I quit my job today I would still play Hattrick for many many years to come. It's just such a natural part of my week to include some Hattrick time.

2. 20 years is absolutely crazy if you think about it. I was only 10 years old at that time. I like to look at "day 15" of the infographics that we did for our 15 years anniversary (https://hattrick.org/HT15/).

2006 - Twitter launched
2004 - Facebook launched
2001 - Wikipedia launched
1998 - Google launched
1997 - Hattrick launched

Not to mention the thousands and thousands of games and services that has launched and died since then. 20 years is REALLY old! It just shows how amazing it is that this game is still running and still being played by hundreds of thousands of users. It's very exciting!

3. I used to play a lot of various web-based games before and there was two main points that made me stay with Hattrick for so long. First of all, I loved the transparency of how Hattrick worked, how changes I made to the lineup had a very clear effect. Compared to other game I played, the randomness was very, very small, and more importantly, it was easy to tell when it was indeed random and when I just made a mistake or simply wasn't good enough. Secondly, friends and the community. This leads me to point 2.

4. The most fun times I've had in-game was back before I started working for Hattrick, when I used to follow the national teams closely. We had this radio in Sweden. Every Friday night there was 10-15 people in a MSN group chat following the games. Besides that, I have obviously had a great time with countless of memories throughout the 6 and a half years I've been working for Hattrick.

5. I like all changes! :) Some favorites would be the new mobile apps (I guess they're not new anymore after 2 and a half years?) which improves accessibility on the road, and obviously gives us push notifications! Tournaments, ladders and the new cup system which gives us more matches, more to do throughout the week. Live ratings, and more recently the new live, team analyzer and match orders pages, which gives us more content, a better understanding of how the game works, and easier decisions.

6. I believe the path we've been going for many years now with transparency is what will keep people in the game. Understanding the effects of your decisions is critical. I also think the more interactive and informative pages we've been doing lately is also taking the experience in the right direction. But, besides of all that, the community is what made Hattrick to what it is today, and it is what will keep Hattrick alive in the future.

HT-Gusy (727033)

1. I was a Hattrick user for 7 years before I became an employee in 2010.

It's always been more than just a game for me. I was kind of addicted to it, spending hours in the transfer market or analyzing things, and even more hours in the forums.

I met many people from the Venezuelan community and I'm still friends with some of them.

Then when I started working for Hattrick, it simply changed my life. Not only because it gave me the opportunity to move to Sweden, but also because of the amazing people I've worked with. They're like a family to me and Hattrick is my second home. :)

2. Well, I said so much before that I don't know what else to add :P

Just that 20 years sound unbelievable and that I'm very, very proud to be part of it all! Oh, and that I hope for many more of course!

Come here: (17125439.1), so you can find the answer of HT-Johan, too.