The story of eRepublik and 3 million euros
Day 995, 10:32
•
Published in USA 
•
by
•
by Dio Hostilian
Intro:
This is the translation of this article, so if you like the story, please vote the original article as well.
\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/
Who, what, to whom, when, where?
Let us commence.
Even though in the news articles, not the eRepublik, but the "real" ones, it is stated that eRepublik Labs is from Madrid, Spain, this company is gravitating towards Romania and their office in that country. Apart from Bucharest and Madrid, there are certain employees in Dablin, Ireland as well. All together, judging by the press statement, the company has about 30 employees.
In the first round, during years 2007 and 2008, using the story about a game with potential, the company gets an investment of about 750,000 € from venture capital firms.
On June 17th, 2009, eRepublik Labs get a financial boost amounting 2,000,000 € from AGF Private Equity.
Several days after that, in an interview, Alexis Bonte notes that eRepublik of that day is only 25% of what it is going to become.
*******
A little intermezzo: Who is Alexis Bonte?
His work experience includes several companies in which he got to CEO positions. Those companies were selling this and that, mostly through Internet. Thus, his whole professional career is based on organizing Internet sales.
*******
In this light, we could have, even back then, had an idea what these 75% of mr.Bonte's vision of future eRepublik represented. We must take into consideration that those 2,000,000 € plus previous investments must be returned to investors (with interest).
This brought double pressure to the company, and the company transferred it to the game, that is to players.
On one side, because of "marketing", this type of games is advertised by number of players. Unfortunately, this need to present as big a number as possible brought to the situation that quasi "baby-booms", like those unreal in Poland, are tolerated, even though they, de facto, destroy the essence of the game. On the other hand, real marketing, i.e. advertising of the game itself just like many other things, was more than modest, and the burden of bringing new players fell on already existing players.
The company decided that it is simpler to play on the card of nationalism and players' desire to improve their imaginary state, than to invest any money into marketing.
The other thing left for players to do is to develop the game itself. Normal development would require talking with existing players, finding out their desires and suggestions. Normal development path would require fixing the bugs, hacks and cheats.
Unfortunately, the developers got an entirely different assignement - to build the remaining 75% by standards of a simple salesman - mr. Bonte.
Once again the card of players' desire of improving their own states was played, and players were expected to swallow what ever is served by developers, i.e. the project manager - mr. Bonte.
But, it seams they misjudged the community. After the start of V2 or so called Rising, population started to decline, once again. It shouldn't be strange to see bot farms are allowed to operate in various states. Even with bots, the population is obviously declining. According to the unique visitor analysis, only the difference between May and June is over 27% in minus. It will be interesting to see the June-July and July-August ratios.
What mr. Bonte doesn't understand is the fact that the players of this game are not lazy housewives that from the comfort of their own homes, while making lunch, find their personal satisfaction in ordering this and that using Teleshop.
The only factor that was not directly, but was indirectly, transferred to players are costs of running the business, that is the game. The developers are mostly Romanian programmers because they cost less than western ones; quality of the servers is questionable; even though they have three offices, for legal business, to save money, they hired Romanian law firm (Biris Goran) because it is, of course, cheaper than Western European equivalents, etc, etc.
The fact that the developers are bound by unrealistic desires of mr. Bonte was also shown by his interview from July this year where he gives the media totally incorrect information on the game, similar to the text of the Insider on analysis of 14,000 players' stands. It is obvious that they, lusting only for profit and/or under pressure of investors, the officials of the company completely lost the compass and definitely and forever distanced themselves from those on whom they have to profit - the players themselves.
And what is that that is to be considered "players" and how is the profit to be made on them?
Not all is in credit card. The fact that an average Serbian (just like many others) will not give money on this, because he, de facto, doesn't have it, doesn't mean that he is not contributing the game and game finances. His mere presence here and his actions invoke reactions of, amongst others, those that can afford paying to play eRepublik, which is a contribution to game financing.
With status quo, both player groups, unimportant of nationality in RL or in the game, i.e. those that play and those that pay to play, are influenced by bad development moves and non-existent marketing for this game. Of course, the man behind all this, and the man to blame is CEO, mr. Bonte.
If you wish to influence further development of the situation, my recommendation is to forget all mechanisms provided by the game itself.
The only way to influence is going to the source of the problem and influencing it. Send an e-mail to:
AGF Private Equity e-mail: contact@agfpe.com
That is the sole factor that is able to directly and with great importance influence the work of mr. Bonte and eRepublik Labs.
Sources:
- Interview of mr. Bonte in Techcrunch from July 2009.
http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/17/new-funding-for-a-new-world-erepublik-raises-e2-million/
- Interview of mr. Bonte in Techcrunch from July 2010.
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/07/21/erepublik_releases_rising_and_gives__new_meaning_to_power_to_the_people/
- Visitor analysis for eRepublik site:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/erepublik.com/?metric=uv#
- Investments, numbers and dates:
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/erepublik
- Law firm assigned for legal tracking of AGF investments for eRepublik
http://whichlawyer.practicallaw.com/which/firmListing.do?poid=:23880757
- AGF Private Equity, chief investor of eRepublik Labs and the game
http://www.agfpe.com/a939/genere/page6697.asp
- Part of mr. Bonte's CV
http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisbonte
This is the translation of this article, so if you like the story, please vote the original article as well.
\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/\--/--+--\--/
Who, what, to whom, when, where?
Let us commence.
Even though in the news articles, not the eRepublik, but the "real" ones, it is stated that eRepublik Labs is from Madrid, Spain, this company is gravitating towards Romania and their office in that country. Apart from Bucharest and Madrid, there are certain employees in Dablin, Ireland as well. All together, judging by the press statement, the company has about 30 employees.
In the first round, during years 2007 and 2008, using the story about a game with potential, the company gets an investment of about 750,000 € from venture capital firms.
On June 17th, 2009, eRepublik Labs get a financial boost amounting 2,000,000 € from AGF Private Equity.
Several days after that, in an interview, Alexis Bonte notes that eRepublik of that day is only 25% of what it is going to become.
*******
A little intermezzo: Who is Alexis Bonte?
His work experience includes several companies in which he got to CEO positions. Those companies were selling this and that, mostly through Internet. Thus, his whole professional career is based on organizing Internet sales.
*******
In this light, we could have, even back then, had an idea what these 75% of mr.Bonte's vision of future eRepublik represented. We must take into consideration that those 2,000,000 € plus previous investments must be returned to investors (with interest).
This brought double pressure to the company, and the company transferred it to the game, that is to players.
On one side, because of "marketing", this type of games is advertised by number of players. Unfortunately, this need to present as big a number as possible brought to the situation that quasi "baby-booms", like those unreal in Poland, are tolerated, even though they, de facto, destroy the essence of the game. On the other hand, real marketing, i.e. advertising of the game itself just like many other things, was more than modest, and the burden of bringing new players fell on already existing players.
The company decided that it is simpler to play on the card of nationalism and players' desire to improve their imaginary state, than to invest any money into marketing.
The other thing left for players to do is to develop the game itself. Normal development would require talking with existing players, finding out their desires and suggestions. Normal development path would require fixing the bugs, hacks and cheats.
Unfortunately, the developers got an entirely different assignement - to build the remaining 75% by standards of a simple salesman - mr. Bonte.
Once again the card of players' desire of improving their own states was played, and players were expected to swallow what ever is served by developers, i.e. the project manager - mr. Bonte.
But, it seams they misjudged the community. After the start of V2 or so called Rising, population started to decline, once again. It shouldn't be strange to see bot farms are allowed to operate in various states. Even with bots, the population is obviously declining. According to the unique visitor analysis, only the difference between May and June is over 27% in minus. It will be interesting to see the June-July and July-August ratios.
What mr. Bonte doesn't understand is the fact that the players of this game are not lazy housewives that from the comfort of their own homes, while making lunch, find their personal satisfaction in ordering this and that using Teleshop.
The only factor that was not directly, but was indirectly, transferred to players are costs of running the business, that is the game. The developers are mostly Romanian programmers because they cost less than western ones; quality of the servers is questionable; even though they have three offices, for legal business, to save money, they hired Romanian law firm (Biris Goran) because it is, of course, cheaper than Western European equivalents, etc, etc.
The fact that the developers are bound by unrealistic desires of mr. Bonte was also shown by his interview from July this year where he gives the media totally incorrect information on the game, similar to the text of the Insider on analysis of 14,000 players' stands. It is obvious that they, lusting only for profit and/or under pressure of investors, the officials of the company completely lost the compass and definitely and forever distanced themselves from those on whom they have to profit - the players themselves.
And what is that that is to be considered "players" and how is the profit to be made on them?
Not all is in credit card. The fact that an average Serbian (just like many others) will not give money on this, because he, de facto, doesn't have it, doesn't mean that he is not contributing the game and game finances. His mere presence here and his actions invoke reactions of, amongst others, those that can afford paying to play eRepublik, which is a contribution to game financing.
With status quo, both player groups, unimportant of nationality in RL or in the game, i.e. those that play and those that pay to play, are influenced by bad development moves and non-existent marketing for this game. Of course, the man behind all this, and the man to blame is CEO, mr. Bonte.
If you wish to influence further development of the situation, my recommendation is to forget all mechanisms provided by the game itself.
The only way to influence is going to the source of the problem and influencing it. Send an e-mail to:
AGF Private Equity e-mail: contact@agfpe.com
That is the sole factor that is able to directly and with great importance influence the work of mr. Bonte and eRepublik Labs.
Sources:
- Interview of mr. Bonte in Techcrunch from July 2009.
http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/17/new-funding-for-a-new-world-erepublik-raises-e2-million/
- Interview of mr. Bonte in Techcrunch from July 2010.
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/07/21/erepublik_releases_rising_and_gives__new_meaning_to_power_to_the_people/
- Visitor analysis for eRepublik site:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/erepublik.com/?metric=uv#
- Investments, numbers and dates:
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/erepublik
- Law firm assigned for legal tracking of AGF investments for eRepublik
http://whichlawyer.practicallaw.com/which/firmListing.do?poid=:23880757
- AGF Private Equity, chief investor of eRepublik Labs and the game
http://www.agfpe.com/a939/genere/page6697.asp
- Part of mr. Bonte's CV
http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexisbonte
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Comments
I'm me and I support this article.
The investors are being fed the same tripe as is being published in articles all over the net.
The only reason the survey was put out (Other than to deceive us into thinking the admins cared) was so they could then publish numbers about "Approval" for V2 so they had more things to show potential investors/clients.
Mr. Bonte at one point contacted a few of us that posted in the first article and I was hoping that it would lead to more communication, maybe the collection of Ideas from long term players of this game on how they could get people back and improve the game for all of us.
Nothing has come of that contact. Infact the lack of contact is shocking.
Pa, kad niko ne konsultuje igrace, nego gledaju u pasulj sta ce nam se svideti, a sta nece... Dati Rumunima u ruke investiciju vrednu 3 miliona evra?!?! :facepalm:
mmmmmmmmmmmmm $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 😁)
Pa, kad niko ne konsultuje igrace, nego gledaju u pasulj sta ce nam se svideti, a sta nece... x2
All true! Auuuuuu
kame-hame talas na adminaa!
nicely put, Brue
v
Dublin*
😃DDDDDDDDDDDDDD 😛PPPPPPPPPp
ejjjj rumuni ejjjj poljacii 😃DDDDDDDDDDDD
VOTED! Excellent Article.
Super Vote
well, that email is going to blow up over the next couple of days...
wow the second best article I have read while i was here
Good schtuff
Voted while I still could. Their gonna pull this quick I bet. Shout a link to a google doc for it if it gets deleted.
you rock. voted and subbed.
Voted & sub'd. Now I have a better idea about the reasons I plan to quit as soon as I burn all my gold in tanking.
inb4delete
blow up that email link and flood the inbox, so this game can die and people can get a RL
Voted. Glad to see an article with sources that points people toward where we can really affect change.
email sent
The last fragment I red was 'Unfortunately, this need to present as big a number as possible brought to the situation that quasi "baby-booms", like those unreal in Poland, are tolerated(...)' and if at the very beginning of the article is such a bullshit, the rest of the article isn't worth reading.
check out my article about this
http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/salvation-times-240324/1
This is the best article in months V+smaxx.
v
I am glad to have read this epic article before it's deleted.
It's with honor and proud that I sub and vote this article
Great article! Bravo explaining the admins wicked injustice. Still is not good enough of an excuse
Congratulations, you can use google.
Hostilian make sweet naughty love with me right here right now you beast
Well what did you expect?
Lame use of google and lame arguments. From the comments I see that people allow others to manipulate their thinking much to easily. What can I say, that's life.
Wow. I can't believe this nugget of true has been up for three days. Free speech arrives at eRepublik?