Special Announcement: The End

Day 890, 14:34 • Published in USA USA • by Synergy Research Group



The end of the line

Subscribers, Donors, Sponsors, and Friends,

AmyHat and I (Robert Oakden), the owners of Synergy Research Group, and the managers of The Synergy Poll, regret to announce that we have decided to close The Synergy Poll for the foreseeable future. There are a number of reasons for this, but before we get to all that, let me just say that it has been a great experience to see how interested and enthusiastic people are about this game and this eNation. We must also thank all those who have been supportive from the very beginning (back in December) when we were planning for and conducting (clumsily) our first poll. ALL who have donated, sponsored, and most of all participated in the various polls deserve our thanks. Special thanks goes to: s0beit (who wrote us some API tools that helped dramatically decrease the amount of work we were having to do just to harvest profile urls to send invitations to), Iasov, Sydiot, and Devoid (who happened to be on the night that I had this idea and who have been very supportive from the beginning), Alexander Whalen (whose support may have come in little bits but was essential in total), and AidenAstrup (who has provided advice, business, and unsolicited (and generous) donations). Thank you! Without you guys, we would have quit a long time ago (blame them.).

So why are we stopping? Here's a list of reasons (and I'm probably leaving some out):

1 - When Amy and I started this, it was our debut in the eRepublik world. Neither of us were seriously involved in anything and this was our way of sticking our neck out and getting involved (something we encourage all new players to do!). To make a long story short...we strained our necks. Amy is now an officer in the Training Corps among other things, and I have been involved in congress, the State Dept, and other things. Over time, Synergy went from being our primary contribution to the game to a secondary and often forgotten (and dreaded) part of our gaming experience.

2 - We just don't have time for this anymore. Let me break it down for you (estimated time):

- Compose the Google Form that serves as the actual poll - 3 hours
- Harvest, sort, and filter the profile urls that are to receive invites - 1 hour
- Send 1800 invites - 6 hours (4 if we have help as we did for the last poll)
- Monitor responses for fraud, suggestions, bugs - 24 hours
- Compile and calculate results - 5 hours (used to be longer but I developed mad compilation skillz)
- Write release article - 3 hours

That is a total of 18 hours of primary focus in addition to the 24 hours of monitoring. Just the invites drained so much from us that we were desperate to find help. Chew on this: 1800 invites means 360 Captchas. JUST 360 Captchas could kill a healthy elephant, and I'm not even that healthy (did you catch that? it was a fat joke....nevermind). All of this while Amy tries to be a good mother and I try to get my RL work done. Too much. Even with help for the last poll...it was just too much.

3 - It doesn't pay.


True story.

When we started Synergy we did so knowing that it wouldn't make money at first and that it might never be especially profitable. We reasoned that we were doing our eCommunity a service and that low return would just be a part of that, but when we discovered how much work was involved in doing it right (see #2), we started doing things to either a) make it profitable or b) increase the participation percentage (to reduce the work needed). Neither has really happened. Though some of our more generous supporters (and a few people who wanted to find flaws) bought Data Packages, it wasn't anywhere close to enough to be worth the time and braincells poured into each poll. Though we advertised, gave away prizes, etc. we have never been able to get the percentage of invited players to raise above 20%. That means that we have to send out ~1800 invites to ensure that we will get a large enough sample to keep the margin of error from being something ridiculous. Over time, it has become clear that the participation percentage is pretty well settled around 15-18% and that it is unlikely that we can find a way to make money from this. We aren't crass capitalists, but we also aren't robots.

4 - It is holding us back. Both Amy and I have different things we'd like to do and Synergy (and the time, energy, and heart it requires) are holding us back. This alone should be reason enough to close the poll, in my opinion. This is a game. We want to do new and different things. Anything that stands in the way of that has to be dropped or we have let the game become...well...not a game. We could stubbornly continue to do Synergy even after it ceases to be fun and quit the game entirely a few months from now, or we can drop the dead weight and go on to enjoy ourselves elsewhere.


What's on the other side of the road? You'll never know if you don't get off the sidewalk.



Let me also say this as a parting observation. I got the idea for doing the Synergy Poll because there was someone on the eUS forums completely blowing their top because the "two-clickers" had elected Jewitt instead of Woxan. The argument was basically that the ignorant two-clickers were voting based on silly stuff like National Goals or sense of humor instead of the issues. Since most of this person's friends and a majority of those who took his forum poll wanted Woxan in, this player thought that meant that the "active" (and therefore "informed&quot😉 players got shafted. If there is one thing I've learned from doing this polling it is that the "two-clickers" are not ignorant, stupid, or even (sometimes) uninformed. Do they get on the forums or IRC? No, but that does not mean they aren't watching with their eyes wide open, and it does not mean that they aren't passionate about certain issues in this game. They are. We got to read their comments in the comment box at the end of each poll. Never take the "two-clicking masses" for granted. Our eNation needs both the More Active "fanboy" and the Less Active "two-clicker" to succeed.




Get involved. You won't regret it. We don't.

But we're going to be involved in different ways now.


The end.


NOTE: Those who have donated prize money for May, we are returning that stuff as we can. AidenAstrup, we need to talk about what to do with the gold that fell out of your pockets the last time you stopped by the office.