Rebellion. The childish version.

Day 1,198, 17:18 • Published in Romania Portugal • by butnaru

A quiet afternoon. No major fight on the battle list, no major fight in the media. Compared to the last few days at least, this was definitely a boring one. Until a so-called “rebellion” stirred up the whole eRepublik.

A group of country presidents signed a list of demands, threatening to stop the wars and to act against the developers/admins. Nice thing, a petition, isn't it? A decent, democratic and mature protest, you'd say. Also decent are some of the demands, we can agree on that. Unless they came from some of the very people who used to benefit from the issues they now condemn: in this case they are called “hypocritical demands”.

The “decent, democratic and mature” moment being passed, some of the presidents jumped straight to the last part of their threat: they proposed new presidential messages, almost explicitly telling the new players to go away and never return to eRepublik. And that's the moment when the whole protest turns into a childish one: “I want the toy being painted in red or I'll break the toy”. Except that the toy doesn't belong to those 10 banned presidents and their supporters gathered on a mIRC channel.
Playing a game doesn't give you any property rights over the game. The more so as it's just a game. Maybe you don't like the rules of backgammon on a website, but this doesn't give you any right over that website. If the other players enjoy the game, you may easily say “goodbye” and let them play while you find yourself another thing to do.
Even if you paid your taxi ride to John Doe's home, even if you paid for the cigarettes you are going to smoke while being in here, even if you paid for a couple of beers we're all drinking, the house still belongs to John Doe. And if you try to burn it down, he has the right to kick you out of the premises. Or kick you right in the face.
Oh, yes, of course you can tell him you don't like the color of the walls or the size of the table we're sitting at while playing some cards; yet nothing on Earth could ever force him to act accordingly, even if he's generous enough to listen to your opinions. If John Doe and his other guests enjoy the walls and the table, you may easily say “goodbye” and let us play our card game while you find yourself another place to be.

Some rushed to find an analogy with the RL revolts in Egypt or Tunisia, hoping that this would legitimate their action. I'm afraid they have instead insulted the Egyptian and the Tunisian people.
I'd rather find an analogy with a communist revolt in the suburbs of [insert the name of a big city here], where the young proletariat tries to set the local stores and bank offices on fire and impose its own rule by force.
Sorry, but you can't win my sympathy by doing this. Not even in a boring afternoon.