Join the new world

Alexis, George, thank you for accepting this proposal, I am sure that it is going to be a very nice interview for the community. Everybody knows that you are the two founders of this project, so, without further ado, we may commence.


Before Erepublik, Alexis was attracted to investing in Romania by trilulilu, the "Romanian Youtube", whereas George was in the internet solutions field for quite some time. How did this idea occur and how was it making everything happen?
Alexis: Actually we started Erepublik with George a few months before I first heard of Trilulilu. I was in Romania on other business and looking at healthcare website when I came across naturaplant.ro, I liked what I saw and contacted its founder (George Lemnaru) we hit it off right away and this is when he told me about this project of his of doing an economical simulator.... the rest you know 😮)
George: Any man who can turn his hobby into a full-time job can consider himself lucky. Economy, politics and history are domains on which I really like to research on. Erepublik combines economy and politics in a virtual medium in order to create a parallel history.

You met each other while working on a different program. How did the relationship develop after George helped Alexis build an online pharmacy?
George: I met Alexis because he liked the virtual shop at naturaplant.ro and wanted to develop the online pharmacy centrofarm.ro.
Alexis: Before starting on Erepublik we wanted to put together a team and another businesses that I was involved with (I am on the board of a chain of farmacies called centrofarm) needed a website that wasn't just a corporate website so we put together a team to do it. This along with other smaller projects was a great way to get to know each other and find a good team to then concentrate on a project of the scale of Erepublik.

What do you fancy doing when you are not searching for or developing business opportunities or online shops?
Alexis: I enjoy spending time with my family, I have a 11 months old daugher and a wonderful wife, I also enjoy playing strategy games (civilization, medieval total war etc...) but the long hours spent playing those get me in trouble with my wife sometimes. Good thing Erepublik can be played in much less time every day (Also I get to say that I´m working ;o)
George: I really like playing football. In fact, I am a huge fan of sports and its idea of competition. Additionally, I have a group of very good friends with which I enjoy spending my spare time.

Alexis, you have loads of online management experience. What was the most significant an rewarding ventures you helped build?
Alexis: So far it must be lastminute.com (the leading online travel website in Europe sold in 2005 to Sabre / Travelocity.com). I spent 6 years there, amazing adventure with some serious ups and downs (more ups).

Quite a few of the Erepublik users are college level students. What would you recommend for them to start flourishing careers?
George: Have the initiative! Time is the greatest resource you have. It is essential that they administer it very well and find a balance between work, school and fun.
Alexis: Try and get in touch with the more experienced users, go to the forums, read the articles and interact and don't try to do everyting at once in the beginning, get a job and take your time to learn the ropes. Oh and don´t cheat (you will get caught and its poor sport).

How far will Erepublik go in terms of trying to be a complex and realistic universe? Will there be modules that would introduce pollution or some interdepence between industry branches?
Alexis: It's a really delicate balance beetween complexity and game play / ease of use. Erepublik is already extremely complex and the challenge for us is to keep making it deeper and deeper and at the same time a lot simpler and fun than it is at the moment. Thanks to the beta we think we found how to do that for V1.
George: The sky is the limit here. We have plans of implementing natural disasters and insurance companies, natural resources, a juridic system, facilitating corruption but also ways of uncovering it... There are tens of ideas waiting to be introduced.

Between which countries/alliances do you see the first war in Erepublik?
Alexis: I really don´t know, Pakistan sure has some high reserves and could declare war easely, Sweden is by far the largest country, Indonesia is also quite big and Spain's users are very active. No clue and this is one of the things I love about Erepublik, sometimes admin founder or citizen we just don´t know.
George: I think Pakistan will be the first country to attack its neighbours.

Which part of this game really fascinates you? Which one makes you feel proud that Erepublik is your child?
Alexis: There is still a very long way to go, I keep saying this is not even 30% of what we want Erepublik to be and since the plan is to keep improving it constantly, I don´t know if there will ever be a moment where I say....this is good. But the one thing I am really happy and grateful for is the implication of the community and the fact that it is already so international.
George: The politic module. We already had some very heated presidential elections. Moreover, it is interesting to see how people react when they reach the pinnacle of power: some want to help the others, some only want to help themselves.

After the game is publicly released this summer, will there still be major changes? If so, will they occur at the same expansive rate?
George: Yes, there will be great changes regarding the design, coding and gameplay. We want Erepublik become easier to use yet increasing the number of activities one can carry on therein.
Alexis: Yes, the idea is to constantly keep improving Erepublik and I'm actually hoping that we will be able to do it at faster rate then the one we are achieving now.

What does it mean to be a good player in this game? Lots of points? Lots of money?
Alexis: This is one of the things I really like about the game, that it depends on each citizen and it can change. In my personnal case, first I wanted to concentrate on politics, then media, now I'm getting ready for a military career and next... well, there will be other things but I don't want to blow the surprise, George would kill me.
George: Everyone can become a master in a field of his choice: economical, military, political or informational. We have citizens who take pleasure in sending gifts to complete strangers. This also means being a good player.

Are you ready to boss around the army of admins and developers the game will need when the user count gets to be expressed in 6-7 digits?
George: At the moment we are working on a moderator system that would bring us great relief and would bring responsibility to part of our citizens. But, to answer the question: you are never prepared to do something you have never done before. On the other hand, if you have already done it, you might want to start questioned whether you have reached your limit. It's a simple philosophy 🙂
Alexis: Well I've managed teams with hundreds of people before and there is a great (much smaller) team already in Erepublik, but I don´t think I've ever "bossed around" anyone (have I?).

What do you think of the idea of using Erepublik for educational purposes, as it was suggested recently? Do you think a project like that would become feasible and successful?
Alexis: Absolutely, but we are far from ready for it.
George: Yes, Erepublik has been thought for educational purposes too, I see some small changes to the project that would facilitate the study of some social or economical situations applied in Erepublik.

What does the community mean to Erepublik? Will the team encourage the users to meet and develop real life relationships?
George: Accounting for no Artificial Intelligence inside the project, Erepublik is nothing without the community. We want to encourage the evolution of external communities related to the game by promoting them by means of interesting tools/widgets.
Alexis: It is without doubt the most important part of Erepublik, and yes we would love for our users to meet in real life and will try to organize infromal events for that to happen. Actually, message to USA citizens, I'll be at the Web 2.O expo in San Francisco in April and would love to organize some drinks, I´ll let you know the exact date and place in the Erepublik daily.

Are there (apart from you two, of course) any V.I.P.s among Erepublik's beta testers?
George: Yes, there are.
Alexis: Neither George or me are VIP's, ok I do have more invites, but other than the invites, we play like normal citizens under the authority of the admin like all other citizens (and yes admin I'm retuning that invites gold, please don't ban me ;o). We did send some "VIP invites" to some people (VC's etc.) but all these invites had was a specific text from me. Oh and the first 20 users in each country had a 50 Gold bonus to help quickstart the economy.

How would you describe the Erepublik concept to a person belonging to a non-Internet era?
Alexis: Good question! I'd tell him / her to close their eyes and to imagine they are in a world exactly like ours except everything and everyone starts from zero or almost zero and 1 month = 4 years. When they have pictured it I would then ask: Ok so what do you do now in that world? And take it from there...
George: Erepublik is the place where you can prove that the world can be better.

Choose quickly: democracy or totalitarianism?
George: Democracy.
Alexis: Democracy of course.

Choose quickly: powerful army or capable diplomacy?
Alexis: Powerful army although the Bizantine empire survived longer than any other with a weak army and strong diplomacy.
George: Powerful army.

Choose quickly: Gold or Wellness?
George: Gold.
Alexis: Wellness.


Choose quickly: two clicks/day or hyperactivity?
Alexis: Depends on the day, today it's hyperactivity.
George: Hyperactivity.

George, choose quickly: a beer or solving a minor bug?
George: A minor bug... and then football 🙂

Alexis, choose quickly: a beer or a stock market exchange?
Alexis: Stock market exchange, but George tells me I can't yet and buys me a beer so that I stop hassling the tech guys.


Thank you very much for this interview, good luck and great optimism while developing "The New World"!