NationStates

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This article is about the web game. For the political concept, see nation state.
NationStates
NationStates Logo.png
NationStates Default Page.png
Screenshot of the NationStates home page
Type of site
Government simulation game, internet forum
Available inEnglish
OwnerMax Barry
Created byMax Barry
RevenueFrom advertising, paid premium memberships and encouraged book sales
URLnationstates.net
CommercialYes
RegistrationYes
Users236,759 active nations as of 29 May 2021
Launched13 November 2002
Current statusActive

NationStates (formerly Jennifer Government: NationStates) is a multiplayer government simulation browser game. It was created by Max Barry and was publicly released on 13 November 2002,[1] based loosely on his novel Jennifer Government.[2] Barry founded the site as an independent vehicle publicising the novel one week before its release.[2] NationStates continues to promote books written by Barry, but has developed to be a sizeable online community, with a large accompanying forum board. Since its release, over 7.3 million user-created nations having been founded on the site, with nearly 237,000 being active as of May 2021.[3]

Influence[]

In an interview, Max Barry said the influence for the game began with a questionnaire he took: "NationStates was influenced by a little political quiz I did once, where you answer a bunch of multiple-choice questions and have your politics categorised. ... It was fun, but I also wanted to see what kind of country my policies created, and have to deal with the consequences."[4]

Gameplay[]

A chart showing the game's 27 government types

Nations[]

Players set up their nation by answering a short questionnaire about their intentions for its economy, civil rights and political freedoms, though these specific questions are not required.[5] However, choosing a name,[6] a flag from current countries and territories or their own custom one, a national animal, a currency, and an official motto is required to be able to create a nation.[5] Over time, nations unlock new customizable fields, such as the ability to declare a national capital at 250 million citizens, among other customizations. A player's response to the initial questionnaire defines the type of government they are running,[7] though it can change over time as players answer "issues" within the game. Other settings change the appearance of the website. After 28 days of inactivity, a nation ceases to exist, however they can be "refounded" by logging in again. If certain criteria are met, then the nation's name can be used again, and the older nation becomes ancient.[8]

"Issues" gameplay

View of an issue page that players interact with when they select an issue to decide upon.

Issues gameplay hinges on deciding government policies. Multiple times each day the player is presented with an automatically assigned "issue",[7] such as choosing whether to allow a Nazi march, or dealing with food shortages in their country.[5] The player chooses a government stance from a list of options, or may choose to dismiss the problem. Choices may have unforeseen consequences: granting greater political freedom may lead to more civil unrest.[5] Some issues are written by the game's developers, while others are submitted by players.[9] Originally, nations would only receive issues #0 through #30 in the first month of their existence, but in 2016 this system was scrapped. The player's responses to issues affect the nation's status across three main statistics: the level of political freedoms and civil rights and the strength of the economy.[7]

Some issues take the part of "Issue Chains", which are series of Issues that cover more significant political scenarios. As of 15 November 2020, there are four Issue Chains in-game: "An International Incident", where the player responds to a non-player character nation kidnapping its citizens, "The Enemy Within", where they player responds to a 9/11-style terrorist attack, "[CAPITAL]gate" ([CAPITAL] is replaced with the player nation's capital city), where the player responds to allegations of a Watergate-style wiretapping incident, and "MADness", where the player responds to escalating political tensions among nuclear-armed nations.[excessive detail?][citation needed]

Based on the nation's civil, economic and political freedoms, the nation is assigned to one of 27 government types,[7] from Anarchy, to Inoffensive Centrist Democracy, to Psychotic Dictatorship. Although there is no way of "winning" the game, daily reports are compiled for each region and the entire world, ranking nations on anything from economic strength to cheese exports to the most liberal public nudity laws; thus allowing a nation or region to outperform and thus outrank other nations and regions.[7]

As of 29 May 2021, there are 1,457 issues.[10]

The World Assembly[]

The World Assembly is a voluntary body concerned with the drafting and passage of international law in NationStates. It has two entirely separate chambers: the General Assembly and the Security Council. While the General Assembly is concerned with passing legislation on various topics – such as human rights, free trade, and environmental protection – the Security Council recognises various nations and regions for good or bad deeds, through commendations, condemnations, and liberations.[11] World Assembly membership is also commonly used to as a check against sockpuppeting as, while players may have multiple nations, only one nation may be a member of the World Assembly.[11]

The Security Council is concerned with recognition of nations or regions for actions that are deemed either good or bad. It can take several actions: commendations, condemnations, and liberations. Commendations and condemnations are broadly seen as badges of honour for remarkable or important player actions. The types of actions rewarded vary and include things such as achievements in roleplay and gameplay. Liberations are applied to regions, striking down delegate-imposed passwords that make it difficult to move into the region. They are used at times to defend against raiders or offensively to open opportunities to raid.[excessive detail?]

Members of the World Assembly are able to endorse other World Assembly members in their region. The person with the most endorsements in a region becomes a delegate.[citation needed]

Regions[]

A region is a group of nations which come together in order to interact.[clarification needed] They do this on a Regional Message Board, which functions much like a chat room or on regional forums off site. Many regions also use Discord or a forum for off site messaging. Furthermore, many regions, particularly larger ones, have "regional governments", which involve themselves in the World Assembly, in inter-regional gameplay, and domestic regional affairs. Some of these regions have adopted liberal governmental models, while others prefer anarchy or other, more restrictive models.[citation needed]

New nations appear in one of five main game-created regions (known in the game as "feeders") themed after the Pacific Ocean (the North, South, East, and West Pacifics, along with 'the Pacific'). Nation are able to move to other regions or create their own. Nations deleted for inactivity, when revived, are put into three "sinker" regions called Osiris, Balder, and Lazarus, all named after entities that purportedly rose from the dead. Nations ejected or banned from a region are moved to a region known as "The Rejected Realms"; nations cannot be ejected or banned from this region, but can move to another region at anytime.[12]

Raiding/defending gameplay[]

Outside of manipulating the player's own nation, players can also move between regions, places where nations reside. They use their nations' World Assembly memberships to "endorse" each other, making one of them a regional World Assembly Delegate, a tactic commonly called "raiding". Depending on the regional settings, raiding sometimes gives the invaders power over regional settings like appearance, border control, and "embassies" with other regions.[13][excessive detail?] Certain regions and organizations specialize in raiding, and are known as "raider" organizations. This has led to the rise of other, "defender" regions and organizations who seek to prevent raiders from doing so. "Defending" works in much the same way as raiding; however, its intent is to counter raiding.[citation needed]

Trading Cards[]

After answering an issue, a player will occasionally be given a pack containing five trading cards depicting nations in NationStates. These cards can be "junked" to gain a set amount of the in-game currency "bank" or traded to other nations. Trading cards were originally introduced as a one off April Fools' event for the first week of April in 2018,[14] but was later added as a permanent feature of the game in December 2018.[15]

Forum board[]

NationStates has a large and active forum board. The board was hosted from 2004–9 by Jolt. The site started to self-host its forums when Jolt was acquired by OMAC Holdings.[16] There are a variety of categories in which a plethora of topics can be found; including but not limited to nation and region-oriented roleplaying, World Assembly discussions and drafting, raiding and liberations, and discussions of current events and creative arts. The board lacked moderation from its creation in November 2002 alongside the main NationStates site until April 2003.[clarification needed] As of November 2020 approximately 31 million posts have been made on the forum within approximately 400,000 forum threads, with just over 1.41 million users being registered on the forums. The board has anywhere between 50 to 250 users online at any given time, with the most users online at the same time being 590 in April 2013.[17][18]

Reception[]

Critical reception[]

The Australian Aboriginal Flag is the default flag for all new nations, though nations may change this, among other settings. Nations may choose between the flags of other real-world nations or upload their own custom flag to use (GIF, JPEG/JPG or PNG).

Jay Is Games's Jerrad praised the game stating "the real beauty in this game is that it's accessible on so many levels."[19] In the 2008 book The Video Game Theory Reader 2, Lars Konzack critiqued that it promoted libertarianism but says "open to experimentation and reflection on politics rather than being merely political propaganda. It becomes a philosophical game in which the player is invited to become part of an examination of political ideas. This game takes advantage of the potential in games to truly put the player in control and let him reflect on his own decisions, investigating political theory turned into meaningful game aesthetics."[20][failed verification] In the 2008 book The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design, Volume 1, C. Paul said NationStates "is an interesting take on the interplay of freedom and control (and governance without government)".[7]

ProgrammableWeb's Kevin Sundstrom listed NationStates among the 30 New APIs remarking its application programming interface "provides a developer interface for automate game world data collection".[21]

Popularity[]

The game attracted a thousand nations within two weeks, and had 20,700 by the end of the first year.[5] Barry was surprised by the popularity of the game, and saw its discussion forums developing into an arena for political debate.[5] He was impressed by some of the activity in the forums, relating how "One nation accused another of conducting secret missile tests and posted photos to prove it. That escalated into an international crisis that was only solved by sending in teams of independent weapons inspectors".[2]

United Nations dispute[]

In 2008, Barry received a cease and desist order from the United Nations for using the UN name and logo for the international ruling body on the website. In response, he changed the logo and changed the name to the World Assembly on 1 April,[22][23] which many initially took as one of Barry's annual April Fool's Day jokes.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Barry, Max (13 November 2004). "NationStates is 2!". NationStates News. Archived from the original on 16 July 2018. Retrieved 25 June 2017.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c O'Connell, Pamela Licalzi (16 January 2003). "Online Diary". New York Times. p. G3. Archived from the original on 16 July 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  3. ^ "NationStates | The World". www.nationstates.net. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  4. ^ Ewing, Jody (16 January 2003). "Young author's new book 'Jennifer Government' Headed for Big Screen". JodyEwing.com. Siouxland Weekender. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Goldman, Noah. "A Web Site of Virtual Nations". ABC News. Archived from the original on 7 March 2020. Retrieved 10 April 2014.
  6. ^ "Virtual nations take control over the cyber world". The Economic Times. The Times Group. 12 September 2006. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Sommerer, Christa; Jain, L. C.; Mignonneau, Laurent (2008). The Art and Science of Interface and Interaction Design. Springer. p. 173. ISBN 978-354079869-9.
  8. ^ "NationStates • View topic - Nation name release!". forum.nationstates.net. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  9. ^ "NationStates Forums | Got Issues?". NationStates. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  10. ^ "List of NationStates issues".
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b "NationStates | Frequently Asked Questions". www.nationstates.net. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  12. ^ "NationStates | Frequently Asked Questions". www.nationstates.net. Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  13. ^ Barry, Max. "NationStates FAQ". NationStates. Archived from the original on 6 November 2020. Retrieved 13 Nov 2020.
  14. ^ Barry, Max. "NationStates Trading Cards!". NationStates. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  15. ^ Barry, Max. "Trading Cards Are Back!". NationStates. Retrieved 25 Apr 2021.
  16. ^ Barry, Max. "NationStates | News". NationStates. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  17. ^ "NationStates • View topic - Significant Forum Events". forum.nationstates.net. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  18. ^ "NationStates • Index page". forum.nationstates.net. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
  19. ^ Jerrad (13 October 2009). "NationStates - Walkthrough, Tips, Review". Jay Is Games. JayIsGames.com. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  20. ^ Perron, Bernard; Wolf, Mark J.P., eds. (2008). The Video Game Theory Reader 2. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-3-540-79869-9.
  21. ^ Sundstrom, Kevin (10 March 2013). "30 New APIs: Intercom, EasyPost, and Jorum". ProgrammableWeb. ProgrammableWeb.com. Archived from the original on 1 March 2018. Retrieved 2017-01-05.
  22. ^ Barry, Max. "The United Nations vs Me". maxbarry.com. Archived from the original on 13 November 2020. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  23. ^ United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (21 Jan 2008). "Notice of cease and desist" (PDF). Letter to Max Barry. NationStates. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 Nov 2020. Retrieved 25 Apr 2021.

External links[]

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