Global Population Report
Day 2,636, 01:18
•
Published in Greece 
•
by
•
by Jack Lantos
Introduction
The in-game population has been in decline for years; this report quantifies the overall rate of decline and examines the distribution of citizens in every eCountry.
Population data here is based on the total number of voters at the monthly country president elections. It is generally accepted that not all citizens vote, (and not all players have been voting once only), but by keeping the type of measurement consistent we can still get a good idea of the changes in active population.
Part A: The Global Population Trend
In 2015 the downward population trend continues from previous years. The rate of decline has tapered to 25% per year during 2014. History shows a bump around December of each year, followed by a decrease again from January to October.
Part B: Country Distribution
The following table shows the percentage of total population that each country has at any month in the last few years. The boxes are shaded green with more population. Note that the total number of active citizens greatly decline along the timeline, so the percentage values are very useful for comparisons all the way along the timeline. The idea is to summarise a lot of information here, comparing the countries to each other as well as the path of each country - when they have been expanding or contracting.
Part C: Discussion
So what went wrong? Could it be that there is something objectionable that all new players are exposed to upon entering the game?
The normal life cycle of products ends with an inevitable decline, as many and various factors tend to change. The original appeal of the product will fade, competitors will offer better alternatives, ongoing design flaws will detract from the appeal, etc.
Many of these may apply in the case of this game. For instance, one consequence of the user base significantly shrinking is the erosion of the social aspect. This is particularly evident when players join a country that has been "empty" and powerless for many years, and this would appear to happen in more than 3/4 of countries, that hold less than 1% of the global population in game.
What normally happens at the end of the product life cycle? Some options for businesses are to: continue until bankrupt, sell/dump the ownership on someone else, develop a whole new product or put out new versions or "next gen" of the same product again.
In any case, time is limited according to these trends and this is the normal course of things.
"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right."
- Nelson Mandela
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
feb, 2015, are you sure that erep has 23k citizens?
it should be lower than that, as there are people who have 2 or more accs + plato doesn't want to delete dead accs.
also, erep will last forever as people keep buying gold. using many tricks to make people give their money(combat stash, war stash, assault pack, events, etc ) to plato. still, it's possible that plato getting less and less money every year, but I don't know if it is affected by population as people who buy gold tend to play this game for forever and are not easily to leave erep as they invested their money in here.
Good analysis though. o/
I'm not sure about the specific number of players, if based on only the number of votes, but I believe overall it is proportional to the true amount of players and the changes over time or differences by country are similarly proportional. There are some inaccuracy in very small countries with only one CP candidate, but the error is inconsequential due to the scale
Cheap BH-s are a true reflection of decline. Anyway I'll stick with it.
also less media articles, which no longer get 2000+ votes like before; top international article at the moment has 322 votes
there is a hard core, perhaps 10 percent of the population that will hold out to the end; so the decline is going to slow in time
good point, and the game designer gives them special treatment to keep them. I just wonder if that accelerates the decline of everyone else
Very good analysis!!
o/
25
Great analysis.
v
v
Excellent data as usual.
v
Good article.
Game never had a normal life cycle. It's growth was forcibly halted by devs decisions back in 2010-11. Their choices intended to maximize profit by destroying the game and gave birth to the "2011 eRepublik Rebellion" which failed to stop those decisions. That's when the game collapsed and the number of players shrink. They eventually fixed the battle module imrpoving things, but with all other modules dead and burried, decline was inevitable. Bad choices didn't allow eRepublik to reach its full potential.
I think I agree, it seems they missed out on the maturity phase, the best phase, so it's been a losing battle ever since
vtd
Nice stats, to be expected after they wrecked V1.
It would be interesting to see a total population 'guesstimate' @ 1/1/2011 and 1/1/2010 when the tinkering started..
Ψ
v
voe good article
Destruction of economic module and monetary market, not being able to make orgs and generally limiting the player's options to do anything besides pretty much 2-3 clicks.
what is in 15?
not voted
Great analysis.
v
Nice article 🙂 o7