Empire players, though they may not realize it,

are by in large "spoiled". The things that most

gamers and game designers are just now beginning

to see -- the endless possibilities that the

Internet can provide to the vibrancy of games --

has been known to empire players for up to ten

years. For those of us who have been on the

Internet, and have been participating in Empire

in various ways for that long, this burgeoning

growth of new users has the potential of making

the game of Empire enter a new age; an age where

the number of games available to play in increases,

as the user base increases to record numbers.

Yet the explosion of new users has not caused an

explosion of new empire players. In fact, for all

indications, it really appears that the number of

active empire players is in stasis, if not declining.

The natural question to ask in light of such

knowledge is "why?" The dynamics of the situation

are too vast to completely cover, but allow me to

shed some insights to some of the main issues

surrounding this phenomena.