eRepublik - Is it worth any investment?
Nikola barun Jurisic
On the 19th of May 2017, Plato was glad to introduce the newest update of the New World - eRepublik Cities! He admitted that “they have existed since the beginning of times (however) they will now get new roles.”. This news was greeted with positive feedback but we were told we would have to wait a little more time for the full module to be implemented.
”The local elections module will be added as the next step in the following weeks.”
“The updates to the politics module will be introduced soon. Until then we cannot answer any of your questions.”
Since then, Plato has not answered any questions nor has Plato implemented the feature alongside other promises mentioned around the time such as Quality 6 & 7 Houses. As well as these shortcoming, there hasn't been any improvements to the Air Module such as the ability for players to improve their perception or the introduction of greater quality air missiles.
Instead, the only really changes I have seen in the game are the changing of the codes with regards to Guerrilla Battles, the layout of article comments and an update in the menu for when you wish to change location. While I personally favour the changes made to Guerrilla Battles, I can’t commend the admins too much for all that really changed was a few lines of script to alter the numbers in the system. These changes came directly as result from Clopoyaur applying pressure through an article/petition, not only that but these changes were never announced by Plato himself but only through Clopoyaur. I find myself asking why of all changes to be made, why was it Guerrilla and why was Clopoyaur the only source in informing us? My opinion, as Clopoyaur does more for this game in entertainment and community building than Plato himself and for that, they owed him one for his contribution in keeping the game alive. The very fact that Plato didn’t announce these updates himself or provide a list of changes shows how little care is given to the game and it’s community.
Since the eRepublik Cities announcements were made, a lot has happened to Plato and the staff at eRepublik Labs. Below is a timeline of key events which will give you an idea of what is happening behind the scenes at eRepublik Labs.
30th May 2017. Stillfront Group, a Swedish game studio announced their acquisition of 100% of the shares in eRepublik Labs. Also at this time, Stillfront provided eRepublik a loan of €500,000 to repay their debts and left them with their cash figure amounting to €490,000 in order to operate and develop the business.
July 5th 2017. Stillfront listed eRepublik as their 11th largest game in terms of revenue. It also ranked third in terms of revenue out of games that were published from eRepublik Labs.
29th August 2017. In an Investors Presentation that included a brief overview of eRepublik Labs, Stillfront stated that 85% of revenues from eRepublik Labs are mobile. Their game World at War was Stillfront’s top grossing game in Q2 with 19% of the Group’s total revenue. Overall, eRepublik Labs contributed 26% of Stillfronts revenue. Due to eRepublik being the only game in which eRepublik Labs produces that isn’t mobile based - we can easily calculate the following two figures in terms of income. eRepublik is the source of 15% of eRepublik Labs revenue and only 4% of Stillfront’s total revenue.
26th September 2017. Stillfront announced that eRepublik Labs were preparing to release a new game: War and Peace: Civil War. In this press release they referenced the earnings of 2 of their previous games, neither of which were eRepublik "World at War: WW2", launched in October 2016 and is one of the top grossing strategy games in multiple markets on the Google Play Store. "Age of Lords" launched in March 2015 and is still one of the most appreciated strategy MMOs with a loyal user base. Both games are profitable.”
3rd October, 2017. eRepublik ranked 12th out of 13 games in terms of revenue generated.
23rd October 2017. War and Peace: Civil War was launched and yielded three times higher revenues than its predecessor (World at War: WW2 Strategy Game) in the first day. It was the 2nd highest ranked new release in the key US market on the platform, ahead of "The Walking Dead Road to Survival" and "Game of Thrones: Conquest" that both are games from major Hollywood franchises.
4th November 2017. In an Investors Presentation, Stillfront labels eRepublik Lab’s game War and Peace: Civil War as their most successful launch so far. In this presentation, eRepublik amounted to only 3% of Stillfront’s total revenue.
16th November 2017. eRepublik Launches Twin Shooter: Armada in Early Access. Full launch is expected in Q1 or Q2 of 2018 depending on Early Access results.
10th January 2018. eRepublik was ranked 14th out of 15 Stillfront games in terms of generated revenue. Again it was the lowest earning game by eRepublik Labs behind Age of Lords, World at War and War and Peace:Civil War.
22nd February 2018. Both the Financial Report for 2017 and another Investor Presentation were released. Both highly complimented the success of eRepublik Lab game War and Peace: Civil War as in total it generated deposits of 7,400,000 SEK in Q4, recouping the initial 1,000,000 SEK investment in a few weeks. eRepublik Labs had quarterly revenues of approximately 10 MSEK. However due to the new release, Q4 revenues were 73% higher.
27th March 2018. eRepublik Lab’s World at War recorded over 5 million installs on Google Play alone.
In summary, from reviewing the figures and stats from press releases, financial reports as well as investor presentations by Stillfront, it is made even further obvious that eRepublik Labs priority is mobile games as this is where their true source of revenue lies. Not only this but they were awarded GameLab’s most innovative games company award in 2015 and “Twin Shooter Invaders” won several industry recognition's including a Pocket Gamer Silver Award. The list of successes for the company over the past few years is endless.
Reiterating the numbers, eRepublik amounts to 15% of eRepublik Labs revenue and only 4% of the Stillfront Group’s revenue. In the past year, eRepublik Labs mobile have continuously games returned a higher revenue than eRepublik itself with the exception of Age of Lords in Q3 2017 which amounted to 3% of the Groups revenue versus the previously stated eRepublik figure of 4%. When viewing the top In-App Purchases from the game War and Peace: Civil War, the highest purchased pack has a value of €99.99, 3 of the top 7 purchases for World at War equate to €104.99. When was the last time you are aware of any player in eRepublik purchasing the €99.99 gold pack, the top purchase in eRepublik would more than likely be either the €9.99 or €14.99 packs, a fraction in comparison.
Another interesting point to note, eRepublik Labs now produces mobile games yet they have failed in making a mobile application for eRepublik.
Over the past few months, I've written articles about changes I would like to see made to the game:
Should we change the way we work
My recipe for resurrection
Should countries be removed from the game?
Local Budgets wasted and economic reboot required
As well as my own articles, there have been numerous articles made about different improvements that could turn this game into a greater source of fun and in fact a larger generator of revenue for eRepublik Labs.
Unfortunately this will not happen. With another game to be released any day now by eRepublik Labs as well as their intentions to release another brand new game this year - there is little time, money or interest to be given to this game that accounts for a tiny fraction of revenue.
For me, eRepublik is only managed to maintain the legacy of the game.
After all, would you consider eRepublik for investment?
Comments
Why has there been no updates?
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/erepublik-is-it-worth-any-investment--2670737
eRepublik - is it worth the investment?
pole again?
the biggest problem in this game is that only the old players are playing the game, its pointless to start from zero. need more missions for new players just to catch up with the game. streinght need to be divided at least by 100 or maybe by 1000. all dead players need to be deleted. and most important ADVERTISE THE GAME! nobody ever heard about the game on TV, the boring adds that everybody hates, but still its advertising.
i introduce erepublik to my friend, and after he tried, he said that erepublik are sucks
o7
Agree
o7
No, I wouldn't.
Very interesting article once again.Well done.
indeed
"eRepublik is only managed to maintain the legacy of the game."
you said everything, they obviously cannot shut it down since there are players who "invested" money in this game so they will just try to maintain the game online with the minimum cost
This
That and their company shares the name with the game.
"eRepublik Labs shuts down eRepublik" - doesn't look good does it.
They could just rename the company, call it "rebranding" and move on.
o7
Buy more bre!
And make this blasphemic article obsolete! 😛
"Another interesting point to note, eRepublik Labs now produces mobile games yet they have failed in making a mobile application for eRepublik."
BA DUM TSSSSSS XDDD
And they promised to make it by the end of 2017. (or was it 2016?).
Instead, they only made the website a bit more mobile friendly but even that is questionable.
First version in late 2017 they said in January 2017.
Right on nailed it!
My fossil
Good article, but the conclusion is pretty poor.
Invest more!
I agree. eRepublik, long term, SHOULD be considered as a BASE... a backdrop upon which to introduce the most serious gamers to each OTHER... a kind of massive forum for bringing player-communities together, based on real-life philosophies.
But that can only happen when levels of REALISM increase.
ERep HAD a better version with V1... MUCH better with RISING!!! But, WHO, could have expected reaction to those changes to be any different. Our CORE group committed (and continue to commit) themselves to HOPES of a game that can bring them closer together. Most of the original players WOULD return should that hope grow... but who can stay as their WORLD is dissolving before their eyes?
CHANGE usually catches one's attention... but when change is SO enormous... happening, SO QUICKLY, ABOVE AND BEYOND the average person's ability to GRASP... well...
(sorry if THIS comment is just more of what i just admonished about)
When I become the next American president I will have so much monis that I will buy account from gnjilan and destroy erepublik with hail this, hail that
v!!
Don't worry ,they will work on the game soon...
...in the following weeks.
No. Not worth it.
”The local elections module will be added as the next step in the following weeks.”
“The updates to the politics module will be introduced soon. Until then we cannot answer any of your questions.”
Lolz
Fake news
Another great article from you 🙂
Where's Arthur Shelby?? Tommy is here!
Someone does proper journalism here! Top notch m8. v+s
Votado. Muy interesante información.
Guerrilla was announced, read the forum
https://forum.erepublik.com/index.php?/topic/5584-guerrilla-updates/
Sure, after we had to discover everything on our own, because someone forgot the password to the "Latest updates" section. 😁 And once we discovered the changes, they started the forum post with this:
"In the following weeks we will make a number of much requested changes to the Guerrilla module."
😁 ...
That's just being mean, Clopo did announce it and he is part of Plato Foundation etc..
Mean? Really? Calling out their bullstuff is just stating facts.
eRep Labs made changes to one of the game's modules and you think it's not their job to publish the change log? It *is* their job. And what Clopo did was find out what changed, because although he is part of the Plato Foundation, he clearly didn't get any information about the changes.
[removed]
Clopo announce that there will be changes, then Plato made a forum post about them, plain and simple.
If you're part of the eRepublik team, it explains your answers. However, you missed the point here. The proper announcements are supposed to be done in the "Latest updates" section of the site.
It's not any single player's responsibility (or competence) to make proper official announcements, especially when they dont't even know the full details.
Who says that? And what's the announcement part in the forum for then?
Your argument is invalid regarding the Erepublik team, it's just facts.
You have a point - there's no written (and public) rule - that I'm aware of - that the game updates must go to the "Latest Updates" section. However, you're older in this game than I am, so you should know that - for years - eRepublik only used the "Latest Updates" as a means of communication, because the forums were down for quite a while.
One doesn't have to be super observant to notice that every single active player comes on this site because there's no other way to play. And it's obvious that all of us got used to read the latest updates from that page, so it's nothing but common sense to expect them here. The forums got relaunched in 2013, but it's barely active because most people don't go there.
There's your unwritten rule that the game updates and announcements must be made in the "Latest Updates" section, especially because it has a notification system and if you scroll down you'll notice the little red alert. Now this might be just me with my super duper observant skills here, but let me speculate about why they made the announcement section in the forums. Well, it's easy: because only eRepublik staff have access to the "Latest Updates" page, but they can easily give admin/moderator rights in the forum to volunteers who want to help.
The fact that the eRepublik Labs employees used the forums even for announcements, is a mistake. But it can be a strategic mistake, if they want to keep some things out of the obvious places that people are used to get the news. And even if it's a strategy involved, it's still wrong how they announced the Guerrilla module update. And it's just as bullstuffy as many other times when they said "in the following..." because the module has been abandoned again, and the suggestions they asked for were just as much ignored.
It's been 5 weeks since the module got updated, and nothing else was introduced and announced. Even their "Developer Logs" stopped this February. But go ahead and think they care enough. And feel free to consider their Guerrilla module update communication was proper. You certainly don't seem to care either.
I am just waiting for the replies to get longer than the article itself. Carry on my dudes
11th year on the go, still no mobile app.
Changes that are coming soon:
-stats on the battlefield (the last 3 fields next to view division damage stats and battle history)
-City (region) mayor elections
-numerous upgrades in quality on the houses and aerial weapons
-perception
Long ago suggested changes by players but not considered by eRep:
-change in division system
-change in packs
-change in number of regions of countries (eRepublik is the only game of its kind I encountered, in which USA has all of its 50+ regions, compared to the 5 regions on average per other countries).
etc.. the list is long...
Voted and endorsed.
Changes that are coming soon (for more than a year already) *
If memory serves me correct they did release an app at some stage! As far as I can recall it was absolute muck and hardly worked.
they only did a very useless site for mobile access: m.erepublik.com
or something like that..
i dont know why erepublik gave more privileged to the white US nations
For those keeping track; It's been 743 days since Regional Governments were first mentioned by the eRep team in the Resource Wars Prologue post https://forum.erepublik.com/index.php?/topic/4701-resource-wars-prologue/
Don't be alarmed, wait for a while 🙂
I don't want to defend Stillfront. But there is one thing that we need to keep in mind.
https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Newzoo_2017_Global_Games_Market_Per_Segment_April_2017.png
Worldwide mobile revenues were estimated to increase by almost 20 % last year, while PC browser games were expected to go down by almost 10 %.
Good article btw. Next financial report 29th May, I will report to you guys if there is something interesting in it 🙂