The Great Compression

Day 2,284, 11:37 • Published in USA USA • by Aeriadne
Let me take you down...

Two days ago, Gnilraps announced that he would be running for POTUS, and just yesterday Tyler Bubblar threw his hat in too. Now, there isn't anything particularly surprising about the announcements. They come from two of the arguably most invested players who still do not have their shiny CP medals. But there is something strange about the timing.

If you take a quick stroll through the newspaper vendors stands here in Emericka, you'll notice the curiosity I'm speaking of, chiefly that it is a week before congressional elections and we have two people already announced to run. Furthermore, the only articles concerning Congressional elections are ones published by parties as wholesale announcements.

This is because the way we played the game, as I have mentioned before, has fundamentally changed.


You know the tune.

Congressmen and women don't control their fates in congress. In reality, the only importance Party Presidents really have these days is that of listing their candidates. So if a congressional candidate wishes to be one of the many statistics their respective party wishes to put in congress these days, they sign up, suck some party dick, and hope for a high spot.

Generally, this lack of real investiture on Congresspeeps parts creates nothing to talk about. Gone are the days of campaigning for states, departed are the times for jockeying and sniping. These are tricks and traps of the old ways, they are not our tools of these new days.

So, with congress being treated with all the pomp and circumstance of grocery store checkout aisle, there's no real reason for new players to get excited. There's nothing to write about, no reason to campaign. Just ask the oldfags what they're up to, meet your party requirements, sign here, fill this form, don't be a terrible PTOer, and then step on through to the other side.

CP is almost as bland a process.


Some might even say milquetoast.

With no congress articles going up, the sacred, unwritten rule of not putting your campaign articles up before Congress elections can be broken with ease. I mean, who cares? Which of the congressmen and women will complain? Hell, even the parties don't care the process is so automated these days. Go two years back, and if either Tyler or Gnilraps had done this they would have probably been chewed out.

But this isn't that time.

This is the time when our game is so lackluster that brilliant writers like NewAzazel and Derphoof have to beg in the shoutfeeds for interesting things to write about. This is the time when elections are so predictable that it's no wonder we have fewer and fewer people staying around.

This is not a Great Depression. This is the Great Compression.

All of our game world is becoming smaller, and thus the divide between older players and newer players grows larger. As fewer and fewer people stick around, the ones with the most experience now reign supreme. Why try something new? What's the point? We know what works, so go for the guy who has it all.

With fewer and fewer people having more and more of the responsibility, there's also less and less opportunity for new players to even get involved. We're not shutting doors to new players, we're taking them off the hinges, bricking up the hole, and plastering up wallpaper.


Maybe a nice floral print.

Recruitment and Retention is dead. Just look. Do you see any party even putting out an effort? The strategy now is to try and get the coolest old players in your party. There are no discussions about out of game advertising, and if there are, that task is given very little thought.

The honest issue is that we don't care about getting new players because our insular system demands that we look to the person with the most experience. We have stemmed our own tide.

I don't have any answer other than the one I've been saying for months: if everyone wants new players, we need to all support an active babyboom.

But no candidate is going to do that. We're all talking about the cool new alliance we're in, the important stuff going on abroad. There are more interesting tasks at hand for our future Presidents, thicker papers to shuffle and harrumph about. Recruitment and Retention has always been the thing that you give to the new, on the rise player in a party to give them something to do, the busywork you use to test them. It's our equivalent of peeling potatoes.

And the lack of importance we have historically placed on it is killing us.

Everything else has changed. It is a different world. And yet this one old standby remains: that recruitment and retention isn't a matter older, bigger players should concern themselves with. And that must change.

You probably won't see this be the focus of either Gnilraps or Tyler or any candidate the months after. Foreign affairs and MU shifting will dominate the conversation. That's the most interesting thing to talk about. It's a shame it's not the most important one.