Community » Hattrick Press

Interview with HT-Aartspam

Written by HPE-Flatron

HT-Aartspam (245332). I didn't say enough? Well, he is a member of HT-Team. What means this? He helps developing this lovely game. Are you curious to find out what will happen with Hattrick in the future and what changes should we expect soon?

Let's watch out!

1. Tell us some things about you.

Hi! I am HT-Aartspam (245332), 44 years old, married to a lovely wife and proud father of a son who was born last month. I joined the HT-team in January 2008 after having been a volunteer myself since 2003. So, all in all, more than 10 years of experience, seen the game grow and more recently the decrease of user numbers. But I am quite confident HT will be around for many years to come. At least, I will be!

2. Tell us how it's a normal day being a HT.

What is a normal day? When someone asks me to describe my job, then I tell that I have an exciting job that never bores. You never can tell really what is going to happen the next day as there always can happen things you do not expect. For example answering interviews is not something I do every day. Anyway, as my main responsibility is to manage to volunteer community, I read a lot of forum posts, mainly on the volunteer forums, but I also try to stay updated on what is being discussed on the Global Forum, for example. Further, I am responsible for the guidelines our volunteers have to work with, to keep them up to date and make changes when necessary. And there is much more I do, posting MyHTs, sysinfos (when I am around), rewrite texts, assist Customer Service, etc.

3. What do you think about the Zattika period?

I think most has already been mentioned in the latest editorial by HT-Johan (1836), so I don’t think there is much I can add to that. I do however believe they had the best of intentions with Hattrick, to make it grow again. However, being registered at the stock exchange forced them to generate more money in order to try to keep the stock holders happy when the results were not as good as they hoped for. Then things of course went from bad to worse until the point they were no longer able to keep the ship afloat. We do not have to do with stock markets and can have a long term view of where we want to take the game.

4. What should we expect for the future?

For the future you can expect us to focus more on what you, our users like and find important. You can think of the new staff system and CHPP improvements which will make it possible for the CHPP developers to develop more and better apps.

5. How you will try to increase the number of the users?

We will not focus too much on increasing our user base, but rather improve the game for our existing users. If they are happy about what we are doing, then it is likely they spread the word and increase the number of users again. But increasing the user numbers is not our primary goal.

6. Do you think HT needs more transparency?

Trying to be more transparent is always good and is also something which we are working on. I think you gain more trust and respect by users if you are open about what you are doing. Unfortunately it is not possible to be open about everything as it would do more harm than good, but if we can then we should strive for that.

7. What do you think about a fully developed Mobile Application?

I would love a fully developed mobile application as I think there are endless possibilities. It is a pity that we do not have the resources to further develop our apps. However we are going to give our CHPP developers all support we can, so they can make these apps for you instead. I am convinced we will see some amazing apps in future.

8. I understand that you have remained few in the HT-Team. Can you give us a short description of the other team members? :)

Sure.
First we have HT-Johan (1836), who is one of the owners and the face of Hattrick. Then we have HT-Daniel (3) who is one of the other owners and the creator of the match engine and codes anything related to that. HT-Jens (10884017) is our server guy, but we can also ask for his assistance with other things if needed. HT-Gusy (727033) together with HT-Bodin (8248727) take care of the bugs and develop new features. You will see them on Stage a lot when they test their new features in order to make them even better with feedback from our users. Then we have HT-Mattias (562255), one of the owners who takes care of business issues in the background. Last but not least there is HT-Jacob (8758440) who is still helping us with the transition of Hattrick after the Zattika period.

9. Which of the following projects have achieved their purpose best? HT Open, tournaments or ladder matches?

I would say Ladder matches since they turned out quite successful.

10. Can you tell us two things that you don't like at your boss/bosses?

Hey, I am not going to risk my job by telling you what I don't like about my bosses. ;)

Seriously, I think I have a great job with awesome bosses and I hope to be able to continue working for Hattrick until I retire. :)

Thank you very much!