The Global Population Decline
Jack Lantos
The global population has been in decline for some time, but how fast is the game actually dying? How has the rate varied over the course of the previous 12 months in response to various changes? And which countries were affected the most?
Let's start with the total population of every country combined. The number of active citizens can be estimated by the total number of voters at each monthly CP election. This by itself is not a perfect measurement as some players are expected not to vote, and some (most) voters are not expected to be real citizens. However, the election data is all still available in game so I readily compiled it.
Looking at the graph, there was a steep loss of players in the first half of this date range, from May to October. The rate of decline was suddenly slowed around November, but then the population decline has started to accelerate again in 2014.
Over the last 12 months, across all countries, there was a loss of 33% of active players.
Breakdown for all countries
Next let's check which countries are losing the most players.
From this table, it would seem the "biggest loser" was eUSA, considering that there were 2488 active voters a year ago and only 1065 at present. Having said that the rate of decline has lessened in recent months, and voting activity back then was in the context of a drawn out PTO attempt.
Some countries gained a bit of population in one half of the date range, only to lose them again in the other half. There were not really any countries that 'boomed' across the whole 12 months.
Discussion of game changes
Given that the first half of the data shows more severe population decline than the second half, it may be interesting to see which of Plato's game updates fall within each half.
First half:
- Gorilla* fights [Day 1947]
- Gold mines [Day 1949]
- Tournaments
- Income tax replaced with "Work Tax" [Day 2088]
- Missing tax disappears [Day 2124]
Second half:
- Freedom fighter medal and occupier tax [Day 2185]
- Empires and determination [Day 2191]
- Anniversary challenge [Day 2191]
- Power Spam* [Day 2221]
- Tournaments
- Divisions updated [Day 2281]
- Training contracts stackable [Day 2283]
A notable shake-up was changing the Divisions boundaries, which might have helped some players get medals easier. However the biggest shaker here was the combo of the Determination System + Freedom Fighter medals. The world map had become desperately stale and these changes had the rapid effect of resetting the imperialistic countries to their original regions. It was only temporary, as the FF medals become too much of a hassle and the determination bonuses for liberated countries eventually fades, which is a shame as the player retention seems to fade with them.
Comments
V #1
Nice data
v
Why am I not surprised?
See what you did Plato?
V+S good article!
Good article, I think a big reason it looks like the US is losing so many players in due to the recent PTO. The Serbs literally had a party of around 7-8 hundred players/multies in our country that they WERE using to f**k with our politics. With their departure our numbers have dropped significantly in terms of voting as would be expected.
nice article of course, nice job. Voted
π/
Lol, gain : Pakistan, SA, i wonder if Pakistan even have decent internet 😃
I guess they could be located elsewhere, similar to eChina where the game is even blocked
Good analysis. If the table started at the losses after "V1" was changed it would show an even bleaker picture.
After V1 came the "roller coaster tide" for all of us...lands no lands, 10 employees/co to communism (i.e. work your own companies. the elimination of all transparency (e.g. see who works where "brand name companies" (e.g. "California Cakes" etc.)" who donates what to who etc.). In short they wrecked a working economy based on working mathematics so what is so attractive in the battle module...wining fights or the roulette wheel?
Almost 40 people that I invited to the game should be "dead" because they haven't played in months but if you look at their profile they are still alive. Plato is padding the books to make it look like there are more players than there actually are. Using the election data may not be extremely accurate but it may be the most accurate way to analyse the data.
however u should see the amount of accounts that are getting removed.
only ⅓ per year? that's nothing. now admins will show you how to loose at least ½ per year.
Excellent Article; would be interesting to see a comparable break-down at congressional elections, especially for the "biggest losers"
Yes congress elections could back up the individual country analysis in most cases, but can't be applied to total population as wiped countries would be missed out
Conclusion: We all are gona die 😨
V
In my case I stopped playing for a year when they started asking confirmation code for everything, and it was too annoying, and I´m too lazy to do that XD
(and my account was still active)
I think the captcha is sometimes a good idea to at least partly deal with the bots as long as it is targeted in the right areas: - mainly in elections and subscriptions, more recently with the auto-buy scripts that are instantly snatching the under-priced raw materials
Power Spam!
Considering said "PTO" was headed by a RL American... and one of your favorite CP's Artela is from a long-time enemy country... the only PTO was on YOUR end.
Considering Artela has done nothing but good for the eUSA, and you and your happy band of misfits has only ever sought to harm us, I'd still say the PTO was you guys
lol.... sounds like OBama in RL.
I am no Obama fan, I think he's quite possibly the worst POTUS since Johnson, so your comparison really holds no merit
According to Alexis Bonte, 50% of the citizens are actually multies, the amount of active citizens is about 15K. Until a big chance will be implemented, new players won't register and stay in the game .. they have no chance here against the big ones .. the politics sucks, the media is dead and the economy fucked up 🙂
V!
v!
¡Voted!
v!
nice job!
v + s
I remember when V2 was introduced with the realtime hex fights, about 80% of the population all of a sudden stopped fighting. Or even funnier, when the 100 (polish I believe) started moving on the map, but could not cross a bridge.
I talked a few years back to somebody who was a RL of an admin. According to him, the game never had more the 5000 real, active players at any given point. And the highest number was after the serbian baby boom, when about 40% of the real players were serbian.
I remember times when Poland had 60.000 active players.
Today I'd say about 5000 gamers play eRep constantly.
Less than that, I would think.
I hope this game will die soon 🙂
Voted!
one main cause that i would associate with a declining game population would be each nation's immigration policies. many people when they first start playing figure they may want to RP as a character from nation A,B, or C and then find out that most people there are natives.
When they then try to move to a country they are more familiar with/to their home country they never have their immigration status confirmed. This causes morale to break and people to give up on the game.
Yes indeed. The snail's pace in adding new countries has not helped any either. I know of at least 46 people (across four eCountries) who were in the game and slowly left as the reality sank in that their RL home country (or even a country in their region) would never be added.
The four new countries they just announced were a good start (2 are in regions that were totally unrepresente😛 Caribbean and West Africa), but after three years... I fear it may be too little too late.
agreed. everytime i look at the map it strikes me as completely odd why there's so much black/empty space on the map. even if those are just free regions open for colonization you'd think they'd incorporate it
Voted!
Global Warming is to blame
Doesn't surprise me, the daily new players in america used to be more than triple then what it is today, perhaps those were all just multis from the PTO but who knows
V!
NEEDS MORE GREELING!
nice article.
Very interesting research. I was reaching the same amount, but in Brazil. The fact that the game became boring for many people... We're wiped, so many old players quit and the newest even try! This a world constant. I think that if the admins don't shake themselves, this game will die soon.
V+S
The finest article I have read in quite some time.
Since beta the admin team has tried to tweak this game into many different iterations, and each has come with its pros and cons. Unfortunately, being as this is a stripped down browser game (you can put lipstick on a pig, but its still just a pig) it doesn't really have many viable options available for adding new and enticing optionsf
That being said, perhaps the admin team should subscribe to the KISS principle... Keep It Simple Stupid. The more they try to convolute the game with flashy wheels and mediocre PVP battles (I'm sorry but the guerilla warfare module is shite) the more you will see the exodus continue.
Well that's what happens when you keep the digital gold price higher than other games that use bigger stuff to run and maintain their platforms.
and the term "Guerrilla Fights" should be replaced with "Lottery"
nice summery.
o/