Bruce Everiss, who works in video game marketing, has written up an excellent piece on the shady side of the “game”, pointing out the fact it’s owned by a guy who has been sued by Microsoft for click fraud and who also runs a gold farming company, that it steals assets from Age of Empires and that the game is spamming people’s blogs and forums with unsolicited Evony ads.
And what did Bruce get for his troubles? Well, of course, he’s been threatened with a lawsuit by Evony’s owner, Eric Lam.
More About Evony [Bruceongames, via Valleywag]
Dr_Stef
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:15 PMWould you really trust a banner that says:
“Come play, my Lord?” lol. I mean seriously haha!!
Pete
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 4:11 PMDepends on the woman LOL
TheDr
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:18 PMWow and just as i was starting to enjoy that one..
Joshy206
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:42 PMGot it: send all of my perverted enemies to this site.
Korwin
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 3:54 PMI’d be suprised if anyone actually clicked on that banner anyway. Looks like a bad porn ad.
Joshua Meadows
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 4:28 PMThey’ve also threatened to sue The Guardian as well.
Mark Isherwood
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 4:30 PMThe first time I saw the add, I thought it was for a porn site.
Peter
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 4:54 PMme too! In fact I still do.
William
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 5:22 PMOn a site I used to be on I got a add for ebony in my PM box. Not to mention this IS incredibly shady.
LinkageAX
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 5:36 PMJust so everyone knows, it is in-fact a game I made this discovery when I accidently clicked a banner ad for it while a page was still loading (Augh) and well subscribed a dummy account to see what it was about. It is crap, and it takes time to anything, and it also costs real money to get anywhere. Curiosity is a time-killer.
Bruceongames
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 6:28 PMI have now written a lot more about the Evony censorship attempts and why they are using Australian lawyers: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/08/26/why-use-warren-mckeon-dickson-to-threaten-me/
mambodog
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 6:47 PM“If you’re on the internet, at all, you’ve seen its intrusive banner ads pretty much everywhere.”
Some people use adblockers… I’ve only heard about it because sometimes I have to access the net from uni computers.
Alex Hartman
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 6:55 PMI love it how these ads started off with a drawing of a medieval-ish women with big jugs, then a 3D image of another medieval women with big jugs in a more sexual pose, and now we’ve got this chick in only border-line period clothing and slogans like ‘Come play, my Lord’.
Yeah, you’re really selling yourself as a trustworthy, quality title, and not at all as a bottom feeding glorified email-harvester.
Khuntza
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 7:58 PMHonestly the first Ive heard of it.. gotta love Adblock Plus
Paul McManus
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 9:33 PM@Khuntza: Exactly, Firefox and Adblock Plus. I haven’t seen a graphic advertisement online for 12 months.
Matfei
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:17 PMThat’s exactly what I’m running (in addition to NoScript), and have been for two years or so now. Perplexes me why people bother to track down domain names of the spam and manually blacklist them when two simple plugins seem to thwart each and every attempt without so much as a blink.
I didn’t even know what Evony was until I read blogs about it, and I’ve only ever seen the ads in screenshots.
TL;DR: Get Firefox, install Adblock Plus and NoScript and you’re golden.
James Murchison
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:50 PMI read this article about it a little while ago, and the ads got much worse for a little while, they were just a straight up bra.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html
I Jawsus I
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 11:01 PMLuke what about those ads your site promotes…. you know the one with breast feeding working moms sheesh I’m sick of that ad.
Korwin
Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 7:41 AMBut when IS sex safe after child birth Jawsus? :D
Spagman
Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 10:59 AMsorry it is just me, or is it ironic that at http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/15/more-about-evony/ (a article ragging out the crap that is Evony), that there’s a banner ad to some other free online rpg game?
Ranebuggy
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:01 PMEven more ironic is the fact that the RPG that is being advertised was created by the same people that created Evony.
Flux
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 10:39 PMAh, Adwords, what will you screw up next?
Bruceongames
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 9:08 PMI have investigated the shadowy people behind Evony and written it up with names, photographs and locations: http://www.bruceongames.com/2010/02/19/the-people-behind-evony/
shaun
Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 4:09 PMIs there ANY online rpg’s thatare safe to play..the net is getting so polluted that i feel like going back to the telly.
DJRTMUM
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 9:09 PMI had my castle stolen, plundered and repeatedly attacked by two players that now do not exist. My question is one is level 80 one is 90 according to the reports. I was a level 10 player so I will not be playing again. I spent $65 in total so very unhappy and feeling a little stupid because I normally wouldn’t spend money on any game. I was just enjoying this one, and I am not really a gamer. So angry at them and also at myself for falling for it. I am usually more aware then this. CRAP CRAP CRAP