NationStates Jolt Archive

I was caught up in a fit of "Web 2.0" hysteria today, looking at ranking sites like Metafilter, Digg, and Alexa, and I thought I'd look into the comparative rankings of NationStates. I came across the Alexa site rankings (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=nationstates.net) for NationStates, and pageviews rankings actually shocked me- daily pageviews have declined steadily for the past three years, along with a decrease in rank and reach. Now, Alexa admits that their information isn't unequivocal, but it's still important to take a look at the available information.

But before we get into the griping and groaning about "another 'NS is dying thread," look seriously at the information presented- even if it might be incomplete- and think about the levels of activity in the game. What about the game could cause people to be leaving, or never coming in the first place?

I wanted to start a real discussion about how to keep NationStates active, fun, and exciting. How can we update NationStates in a way that doesn't cost exorbitant amounts of money, require extra work on the parts of the admins/mods, and still fit Max Barry's original concept of a game that is supposed to be odd, extreme, and most of all, fun? And since it seems that NationStates 2 is dead in the water, how can we improve what we have?

I think it's largely a matter of NS players running in cycles. Long-term, dedicated players are the exception, I wager. Most people are probably like my brother: find the site, have a lot of fun with the issues, and call it quits somewhere between 300 and 500 million pop.

Also, with the classroom regions, we have a small surge at the beginning of the semester and then a die-off as (probably) most of those players finish their class and let their nation die.