Here's an overview and review of eRepublik, an intriguing mix between social network and an entirely player-driven global simulation.

Name: eRepublik

Company: eRepublik

Established: October 2008

How it Works: eRepublik is browser based and runs in HTML and Javascript. Navigation and gameplay are accomplished via mouse and keyboard input.

Overview: In eRepublik, users become the citizen of a nation, based on those in the real world, and take part in a simulation of the real world's economic and political spheres. Players can take jobs, working their way up to own companies and corporations, get involved in wars between citizen-run countries, and even become president.

Payment Method: eRepublik is free to play, and earns revenue via the purchase of "Gold" which allows players to purchase extra functionality.

Key Features:
- Massively multiplayer social network/global simulation/strategy game
- Every event is player driven—every president is a real player, and every company is player owned
- A real, democratic political system
- "Educational" quiz-based challenges

eRepublik: In-Depth Tour

eRepublik is best described as a simulation of an alternate earth and while the it's working on an admittedly simplistic set of rules, it's still a remarkably ambitious project, and it's arguable that trying to give users the chance to influence a "second world" is far more interesting than merely trying to offer them a personal "second life."

As a result of the scale of the simulation, the gameplay is far more like the average browser-based strategy title than it is something like Second Life. After signing up, a player tends to be sent a "welcome" message from their president—another player, it's worth noting—which normally advises on the best way to get started and asks them to join the military. After that, the game's daily "to-do" list tends to inform what you get up to.

First things first a player should get a job. Users hoping to get stuck in straight away as a president or even a politician or business owner will be sorely disappointed, as such thoughts are as foolish as loading up World of Warcraft and expecting to buy an epic mount straight away—you have to work your way up, gaining experience in your chosen profession to reach the best jobs.

Upon starting eRepublik in my chosen home country of Canada, I chose the first job available to an unskilled player that paid the most—wood cutting, naturally—and worked a day, which consists of being asked five (often quite difficult!) trivia questions to see if you receive any bonuses and that's it. Training—which you should do daily especially if you expect to get involved in any military action (once you've joined an army) works roughly the same. Once you've worked and trained (and then ensured that you've got enough food in your possession—your character eats one piece of food a day) that can be the limit of your daily interaction if you so wish.

I feel that it's underselling eRepublik a little bit there, though, because the thing to remember is that the job I got was at a company owned by another player. The food my character eats is produced by other players who work for the companies I buy the food from, and the wars are planned and fought entirely by players, with no plot or reasoning built into the world to require them.

The game also features some light social networking features, such as "shouts" (akin to Twitter) and friends lists; undoubtedly useful to players trying to maintain relationships within the world.

eRepublik is all really rather strange, especially when you read the daily news announcements that include requests from your president to ration food and asking the companies to drop wages and offer jobs to lower skilled players to keep the country powerful; or to read campaign announcements from players boasting that they should be elected because of the great work they did in the (virtual) Czech Republic. For such reasons, it's quite unlike anything I've played before in the MMO space.

eRepublik: Conclusion

eRepublik is a simulation of a second world, largely analogous to the one we live in—or at least, that's the intention behind it. To be completely honest, I'm not quite sure why they want to do this, but it is what they're doing, and when you pull out and observe the world from a distance—the way that countries are made up of players, how they choose to enter wars with each other, the people they elect—it is fascinating, and I can easily see why many commentators, both virtual world savvy ones and not, have gone gaga over the site.

However, as a simulation, there are a lot of problems. In order to keep things sensible, they've had to limit what players can do to shape the world, and roughly, for most players anyway, the only thing you're ever going to do is log in, "work" and "train" and then log out again.

Yep, on a person to person level, eRepublik is incredibly boring. That's not to say that you can't make your fun—I can already imagine people complaining that I'm not giving the social networking aspects, or simply the amount of player interaction required to get anywhere in the world other than as a worker drone, a fair shake.

In many ways, that's true. But eRepublik is a stark and charisma free virtual world to inhabit. It feels like a simulation that you're taking part in, not a living breathing world, and the "play" outside of social interactions are stale and almost completely strategy free. You work. You gain some levels so take another job; and so on.

I know it's an odd comparison to make, but I couldn't help but think about the fantastic indie game Kudos 2 while I played this. Kudos 2 is a "life sim"—you play a character who goes to work, socializes, etc.—but the difference with that is the world is imbued with character and the occasional vignette—maybe you get robbed on the way home from work, maybe a friend doesn't want to go bowling with you. There's nothing like that to give your character's "virtual life" depth in eRepublik, so how can I ever really invest? It'd be nice to see more character, more life in this world.

I'm not trying to say here that eRepublik is a case of the emperor's new clothes—the wider picture is deeply interesting—but the player experience is deeply poor, so much so that I wonder why players have managed to make the simulation work as well as it does.

For example, I've been playing a few weeks, but I've already seen my trivia questions repeat—how could I be expected to play this game for months in such a case?

Of course, it's a work in progress. Perhaps in a few years (?) eRepublik will be something as interesting to play as it is to observe, but right now it's hard to recommend or even to learn from.

Useful Links:
Official Wiki
Official Blog