Should "trap companies" be allowed?
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by Krimpiekat
Most of the older players in eRepublik know by now what a "trap company" is.
A company with no other purpose than to kill of n00bs. The company put up a shedload of very high paying jobs, as the screenshot I took shows, at ridiculous salaries. New player X joins said company. After all, who would say no to a skill 1 job with a skill 7+ paycheck?
Screenshot
That's when the fun starts. The company either has no money in it to pay the players or no RM. N00b X keep getting a message that there's no RM or Money to pay him. After several attempts he either get's smart and see what happens if he click "resign" and look for a new job, or he just gives up and leave the game for good. The Spanish used this very successfully against the French recently. Stopped the French babyboom cold.
As a tactical tool it serves a very good purpose over the short term. Over the long term, detrimental to eRep as a whole. I bet none of those disheartened n00bs that left the game will turn into shining eRepublik ambassadors. They're probably out there, right now, telling their mates what a fscked up game it is.
My opinion? Ban such companies. Not only do we lose players, countries lose out on tax revenues...
And Mr Admin, how many of those players would have bought gold packs later on? Isn't that what's paying your salary?
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Actually, surely all eRep admin need to do is change the wording where it says -
The company has no money to pay you/no RM. The general manager has been informed to...
The company has no money/RM. The useless general manager has been informed. In the meantime, resign and go find another job.
I agree fully with your views. It also has a detrimental effect on legitimate company owners, in that we are forced to push up salaries. This is especially a problem in small countries like eSouth Africa where you need every single employee you can get.
Having to pay out increased salaries, means that you have to increase sales prices; increased sales prices make us less competitive in the international market (and since we have a relatively small domestic market, we need to be even more competitive). All in all, these companies are BAD BAD BAD for everyone.
The problem is however, how do you identify a “trap company”? Also, maybe there are legitimate companies who are willing to take the loss in order to get productivity up as a whole?
Either way, this practice hurts the legitimate companies out there who are trying to “play fair”.
damn right this is outright sneaky bs...and anyone doing it should be banned themselves...
I don't like them either, but I think the best idea to counter them would be to have a statement in the new citizen's welcome message, as well as an advertising campaign using the in-game ads.
signed.
😃
I don't know... Economic sabotage, the type we instituted against eBrazil after the occupation, can easily be argued to be a similar type of strategy. It was fun, it was effective and it was nasty.
And seriously, if your first reaction when you hear your employer has no money is not to press the resign button, how much hand-holding are you going to need down the line??
Agreed with Ali. We all want more players, these tactics hurt everyone. The admins need to simply make the game clearer to new players.
I'm with Ovidiusza. Economics should be useful as a weapon, just like politics and war. Our response should be to expose such companies through forums, shouts, newspapers and adverts: "Don't work for ScrewCo, as they won't pay you" or some such. It's up to the admins whether to provide additional defenses, but I think it's a mistake to outright block this sort of behaviour - it cuts out a very interesting option for economically minded players like myself!