Join the new world

Secretary's note: This are extraordinary times, and thus we have a break from the ordinary press release. If you read only a piece of it, read the last three paragraphs. Thanks for bearing with me!

I don’t claim to be a marketing expert. I’ve taken one marketing class, but it was introductory, and I only showed up to take the midterm and the final. I never attended the class or studied. I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying that enough of the core concepts of marking boil down to common sense that we, as a community, should be able to understand what’s going on.

We have to acknowledge we’re playing a different game than we were a month ago. Players have quit, and plenty of complaints have surfaced from those who stuck around. The game has more to it than it did a month ago, and has been made to attract a different demographic.

Erepublik today is meant for what advertisers call the social media generation. The game is angled more towards simple actions and consequences. You attack another player and watch the results unfold in front of you. It’s right there and it’s concrete: A win or a loss. Gone are the days of throwing your numbers at a wall, with no way to see any tangible results. You are conquering the tiles. You are defeating the Russians. In Erepublik Rising, you matter.

That’s what the new modules were made to make the game about. The obstacle we have to deal with for retention will no longer be as general as the game’s deadly boring nature. Our enemy is far more tangible this time aroun😛 It’s a timer. In combat, each round lasts two minutes. In the past, we’ve touched on how ridiculous it is to make the turns this long, but the gravity of the situation hasn’t been laid out.

Let’s look at YouTube. The creators of the most popular videos on that website all know something our pal George doesn’t seem to: You can’t reel anything in without a hook. When you create your account, you’re steered through everything you can do by the in game guide. When you’re given access to the battlefield, you’re excited. Some strange dog in advertisements tells you to help fight off the Russians. So you buy a cheap weapon, pop into the battlefield, and wait.

...and wait...and wait.

Finally, you can deploy. But the Russians are six tiles away, and you’re an infantry unit. So you move your one tile, and wait. Fifteen minutes, you see your first battle! You’re fighting a level eleven tank. You miss every round and are killed. “Fuck this,” you sigh as you go back to reading Cracked.

That, my friends, is what happens to around 95% of Erepublik players who join. Until these turns are shortened, we will have to deal with this loss of players. Of those five percent who stick around, many still will never find the offsite community. However, those one or two players each day who will stick around and join us in the forums, Skype, and IRC are such valuable assets for our community. Powerful players are dropping like flies. On a personal note, I’ve found myself establishing a relationship with each of the past three presidents. This is notable because it’s something I assumed would never happen when I joined the game.

There are real opportunities for advancement. Creative and ambitious people will find themselves moving up in the world quickly. However, we simply do not have enough of these people here. There is a growing power vacuum in our country, symbolized very well by our lack of media moguls. We need more smart people here. We need good writers, we need good mathematicians, economists, programmers, everything. We aren’t getting enough of these people with what we’re doing now. We need to redouble our efforts and cast a wider net.

One of the ways we’re going to do this is to start an eUS government sponsored YouTube channel. This channel can be used to promote any videos you have the rights to and would like to host, Erep related or not. We will use Erepublik and other means to promote the video, which will be linked to your in-game referral address. Yes, videos you submit to us will make you gold. The government’s interest in this program is solely in luring more active players to the game.

We will be using the channel located here: http://www.youtube.com/joinerepublik

There is one lonely video up there. It’s my pre-V2 recruitment video from last month. I got four referrals from it, and it only took a day to make. It received around 800 views in a month. The more videos submitted on this account, the more !! and followers it will get.

This is a call for the community for video content. I produced my recruitment video in a couple hours using stock footage I had sitting around. It’s admittedly crappy, but at least it’s content. Still, we need more videos on that site, and we need you to submit them. Remember, it uses your referral link, and you get to keep every piece of gold you make from referrals! It’s a damn good deal.

If you would like to submit any content, contact me, David Landon in game or on the forums or IRC. Let’s get some new players!