Move over McCain and Obama, an online strategy game based out of Dublin has a political war of its own underway, with more than 35,000 daily citizens jostling for power in local and national politics.
ERepublik Labs has developed the world’s first massively multi-player online strategy game.
Based in the mirror world of eRepublik, citizens run countries, build businesses, lead political parties, volunteer for the military and write newspapers.
The first version of the game has more than 100,000 registered users and 35,000 active daily players.
The Dublin company has received over €750,000 in venture capital from AGF Private Equity, and also has offices in Spain, Romania and the US.
Version 1.0 is currently available free of charge with no software to download.
“A lot of companies think they are going to take over the world; eRepublik allows you to, virtually,” said Carla Thompson, senior analyst of Guidewire Group.
“ERepublik has combined our favourite aspects of strategy games like Risk and Civilization and placed them in the social context of a massive multi-player game. Countries rise and fall as they wage war, allocate resources and fund economies.
“It will be interesting to watch how the game resonates with players around the world, and how those users will influence the evolution of a truly intriguing concept,” Thompson said.
The game is designed to take just 15 minutes per day to maintain an active citizen.
eRepublik estimates that over 90pc of the content in the game has been created by citizens, including thousands of newspapers, hundreds of political parties and more than 2,900 companies employing over 23,000 citizens.
Citizens also provide national defence as soldiers, and set foreign policy as presidents, congressmen and leaders of political parties.
So, if the action in the US presidential elections seems stale at times, go to eRepublik and run your own race.
By John Kennedy
