On 21 January 2008, Barry received a cease and desist letter from the United Nations (UN) for unauthorized usage of its name and emblem for the game's fictional international organization which was based on the UN. Barry has stated that he was influenced to create the website after he took a multiple-choice political quiz to determine a person's political affiliations, adding that 'it was fun, but I also wanted to see what kind of country my policies created, and have to deal with the consequences'. Although NationStates launched in November 2002, Barry worked on beta versions of the game as early as 7 August 2002.

NationStates, then named Jennifer Government: NationStates, was launched on 13 November 2002 by Australian novelist Max Barry to help promote the sale of his novel Jennifer Government, which NationStates is loosely based on, prior to its release. Since its launch, over 8.85 million user-created nations have been created, with around 288,310 being active as of 12 November 2023. NationStates continues to promote books written by Barry, but has developed to be a sizable online community, with an accompanying forum board. Based loosely on Barry's novel Jennifer Government, the game was publicly released on 13 November 2002 with the site originally founded as an independent vehicle publicizing the novel one week before its release.

NationStates (formerly Jennifer Government: NationStates) is a multiplayer government simulation browser game created and developed by Max Barry.

State web games