Erepublik: The game where real money equals virtual power

The new, browser-based game called Erepublik is starting to gain some momentum. Founded by Alexis Bonte, the game is an online strategy MMO. TechCrunch refers to it as “online virtual geo-political simulator” that is similar to the board game Risk. It currently has over 10,000 users from 43 countries in the beta, and has raised roughly a million dollars in funding for the site’s launch. Not half bad for a free social web game. The point of appeal for this game is that it only takes about 15 minutes a day to play, making it less time consuming than reading through a day’s worth of Kotaku.

The simplest way to think of it is as Facebook: The Game. Unlike games like Risk, you can have a number of different occupations: politicians, soldiers, entrepreneurs or journalists. This is to center the game as a social and political MMO. If this game ever becomes big, climbing your way up these competitive job ladders will be a daunting task, especially if you only put in the suggested 15 minutes a day. The point of the game seems to revolve around improving your country instead of yourself, which reminds me eerily of some more real-world scenarios in recent years.

It’s not a terrible idea really. But here’s the kicker: you have to pay real money for the virtual, in-game money. It’s not like this is a new concept; I had a friend who played Shadowbane in high school and he would show me eBay auctions for millions in virtual game money. Even that isn’t so bad considering it was an option for the more rabidly obsessed players. Other free games like Maple Story have been charging for in-game content for quite some time. I don’t like the idea of a game where the amount of money you have in the real world determines your success. It ceases to be a game or any type of strategy when you can win by simply spending. I think it’s a bit laughably ironic that in a socio-political simulator, you have to spend money to make your way to the top. The game starts to become a reflection of real life, where people who have more money are do better in the game than those who don’t have spare cash to throw around. It is no longer a virtual world, but merely a fairly accurate virtual representation of the real world. If you take all elements of fantasy out of a game, is the end product going to be enjoyable?

One of the beta testers commented on the article:

It’s too bad Erepublik offers a lackadaisical gaming experience. I’m in the private beta.

You log in for the first time, create a character, and attempt to get a job. This usually involves another player granting you one, so you need to message someone and wait.

Then you get a job and click on a ‘œwork’ button every day, once a day, until you have enough money to buy some more food.

It’s seriously the most boring experience I’ve had from any game ever. I get that eventually I’d have enough money or ‘œwork experience’ or whatever to do something useful, but it really shouldn’t take that long before I can have some fun.

One thing I can say is that I have a lot of respect for Alexis, as he has been handling a lot of the criticism directly and with good humor. All of the negative feedback he takes very graciously, replying to this particular comment with: “Don´t forget that what you are playing with is a basic prototype that we have used to gather feedback and content in order to launch the public version.” It’s nice to know that not all game developers lash out on the community when their games receive negative feedback.

It looks like an interesting idea, but not anything new or particularly exciting. I’m sure with it’s social community-type vibe that it will attract a number of people, but I’m not sure if it will ever reach it’s co-founder’s lofty goal.

“Erepublik aims to be to online strategy games what World of Warcraft is to online role playing games. I’d say that’s big,” Bonte said in an interview with The Guardian.

Good luck on that one; you can get a head start by offering a free ounce of crack for every new user who signs up.

Via TechCrunch.com