eRepublik is now officially available in four more new languages (French, German, Russian and Portuguese) thus making its interface and the game experience itself more enjoyable for thousands of our citizens. More languages will be added in the coming weeks.
This week we took another important step forward towards putting our citizens in the center of the game-play, by improving their chances for interaction with the alpha release of our in-game chat tool. Check it out, create your own chat room, favourite those where you had the most interesting discussions or ideas, visit the Beginners chat room to learn the basics of the game through other players an share your experience during your first days as an eRepublik citizen. Check out the National chat room for your country where you are likely to discuss the hottest political issues affecting your nation.
Our co-founder and CEO, Alexis Bonte, was invited this week to take part in Madrid at the International Forum on Digital Content (FICOD 09). FICOD has become a benchmark meeting point for professionals involved in television, cinema, music, interactive digital entertainment, animation, education, audio-visual production, digital publications, user generated content (UGC), social networks, blogs, interactive advertising, etc.
Alexis took part in one of the official program roundtables “The Games We Get Caught Up In: Online Interactive Digital Entertainment and Digital Content Distribution” (Check the video here) along with other relevant figures of the sector such as Nils Henning, CCO and Owner of Bigpoint GmbH, or Thomas Lee, Senior Director of Business at Gamepot. Alexis had a chance to discuss the important changes that are being experienced by the videogames industry.
Alexis Bonte also had a chance to have an informal discussion with videogame players and experts in the ARSGAMES “User Generated Critics” roundtable, insisting on how online games were moving the power balance in the industry from the companies to the users.
eRepublik celebrated as well its own gathering/workshop, with the presence of some relevant citizens from eSpain. (See photos) where the official launch of the chat was announced as well as previews of national goals and the upcoming improved economical module as we well the new more visual PvP military module. More detailed pictures on this to come in a future insider and blog post. (Plus probably in some fan sites as quite a few citizens had undercover cameras
Several weeks ago, we made available a citizen-narrated French version of the tutorial. We thought this was a great idea - considering that Plato himself has currently only been available to narrate the Spanish and English versions of the tutorial (available on www.erepublik.com), we thought it would be great to make it available in more languages with the help of citizens. So we asked our ambassadors if they could help translate and record more tutorials in their native languages. Below are some of the first that we’ve developed, which include Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian. We hope these citizen-narrated tutorials will help more eNations have an equal opportunity to grow in the New World. Thank you to the ambassadors for your help with translating and recording!
And below is a Latvian version that we came across.
So far we’ve created the official eRepublik tutorial in both English and Spanish - as those are the two languages in which eRepublik has so far been officially translated. However, one helpful citizen, Colansi, has gone the extra mile (or kilometer, if you will) to create his own French version of the existing tutorial. Plato obviously wasn’t free for the gig (he’s still taking French lessons), so Colansi took it upon himself to create the French version below. Once we have the site live in other language versions, and Plato finishes his studies, we’ll be making official versions in other languages, but for now, we hope this French version will be of assistance.
A special thank you to Colansi for his work (French speakers should be sure to visit his browser game site, jeux-alternatifs.com).
We are very happy to announce that we have closed our Series A round of funding, raising 2 million € from AGF Private Equity, and also that Guillaume Lautour, who is a partner at AGF PE, is joining our board.
We will be using these funds to hire more talent to the existing eRepublik Labs team of 30 in order to further develop our first strategy MMOG www.erepublik.com and prepare new ones.
You can find more details in our press releases below, and also in the the video interview I did with Guillaume yesterday evening in the Dublin airport, as well as the video of George and myself (guess where we shot the video…).
A big thank you to all the people involved in making this happen and to our eRepublik community for supporting us and helping us build www.erepublik.com. This is just the beginning…
We will be making many new updates and additions to the eRepublik site this week, but there is one that we are particularly excited about - the new eRepublik video tutorial. The aim of this new tutorial is to make new citizens’ first steps in the New World just that much easier. Given that Plato has been each new citizen’s primary mentor, he is actually the one walking people through their new experiences - thus Plato comes to life in the video.
We are so enthused about the new addition of this tutorial, that we wanted to give you all a sneak peak at it (both English and Spanish versions below). Take a look…..and remember, the future is in your hands!
We’ll be updating the eRepublik site in the coming weeks with various items (including the Spanish version of the site, in addition to five new Spanish-speaking countries). One new item that we are really excited about is the addition of an official eRepublik tutorial that will help new citizens get acquainted with the New World. The truth is, though, that eRepublik has never been short of really well done tutorials done by the community, and for that reason we want to make sure to highlight such well done videos in addition to our own.
One of the first tutorials that we will be posting on our new tutorial page is the video below. We especially like this one as it really provides some great insight on going to war in eRepublik. If you recommend other tutorials, please send them our way for consideration!
A little over 200 years ago (201, in fact) an uprising took place in Spain against the French army, marking the start of what is known to the Spanish as the War of Independence. This unique date in real world history was marked this past Saturday, May 2nd.
But, as you know, history is being re-written in eRepublik.
Not too long ago, in the New World of eRepublik, Spain and Italy tried to take over France. While they weren’t completely successful, they did take some regions. After France managed to successfully gain back those regions, they faced the threat of another attack from Canada, which resulted in a huge French baby boom in an effort to defend their territory.
In the midst of what could be considered a rather peaceful period in the New World, there still exists the possibility of battle between the two real world and New World foes of Spain and France, as their eRepublik war remains active. With the declaration of either president, battle could ensue.
Reflecting on such an ongoing rivalry in both worlds, we discovered this funny little parody, made by an eRepublik citizen, of Spain taking over France. While this is not the case in either the real world, or the New World, it is a rather humorous slant on the ongoing politics and future of two very powerful countries.
I wanted to share a little demo that we pulled together to help guide new citizens through their first steps in eRepublik. No fancy video graphics or professional editing, but it gets the job done. Take a look and make sure to pass it on to any new citizens in order to help them get started in the New World.
This is a video test (in french) of eRepublik.com by Thierry Bezier of intruders.tv
It’s a good test although it only covers the first steps of the game. It gives an interesting idea of what a first time user will see including some of the things we are not doing to make that experience easier and more engaging.
Thierry gave eRepublik.com a grade of 14/20. I think that is a fair grade for where eRepublik.com is today as we have much to improve still.
+ Strong points he mentions are: innovative concept, good business model, accessible and free for all.
- Weaknesses are: No 3D, no nice graphics, too addictive and requires a lot of time to be played properly.
What do you think? What would you say are eRepublik strong points and its weak points?
Elevator Pitches is a video community project developed by TechCrunch that allows online entrepreneurs to pitch their startups to the general public in 60 seconds. A technology startup’s CEO or founder should use that time to explain the company’s products and how they are intended to make money. Once the video is posted posted, TechCrunch readers have the chance to comment and vote on the pitches they like the most or least.
Alexis took this opportunity to present Erepublik and cover the main points and gets the message across. After one month, the Erepublik pitch has the second highest ratio (141 ‘up’ vs 38 ‘down’ votes) out of 64 pitches.
