The Guardian Asks “Has Evony Become the Web’s Most Despised Game?”

The internet has exploded and Evony is being called the most despised game on the web.  In an article in the Guardian, it has a good summary of pretty much everything that gamers and marketers have been saying about how low this marketing campaign is.  Since putting up my original article about Evony’s ads, I’ve received dozens of spam comments about the game. I’ve tried to disallow Evony ads from showing up on my site, and thanks to their massive campaign, and Google’s sometimes sloppy ad-serving, those ads still serve up.

Bruce Everiss’ site Bruce on Games gives a remarkably detailed look at not only the ads, but the people behind the Evony game.

He details the spam sent from Evony to websites to promote the game and attempt to “correct the record”.  He shows that Eric Lam, a Chinese businessman who owns a whole host of gold-farming websites and “employs” people who do nothing but farm gold in MMORPGs.   Seeing the writing on the wall from Activision/ Blizzard and other MMO companies, he’s decided to just copy an existing game and sell that to users.   Beyond that, Microsoft is suing Evony for click fraud.

Evony makes its money through micro-transactions.  The game is, as advertised, free forever.  However, if you want better items, more land or even to send a message to another player, each in game action could cost you money.  So, it’s true.  You don’t have to buy the game, you dont have to pay to play the game, but the completely free game is so bad, so unplayable and so gimped that you’d have to pay just to experience anything that resembles a game.

But wait, that’s not all.  There are concerns that the desktop application Evony, which is a browser game, drops malware on your computer.  While there hasn’t been an official confirmation of this, the correlation is strong.  One user informs Evony on their BBS that his malware remover finds new items, removes them, then the next time he plays Evony, the same malware is downloaded… and of course, the link has been removed by Evony admins.

Taken as a whole, the Evony issue leaves video game  marketers with a classic study of what not to do.  The marketing is deceptive, it’s geared to trap people in a vicious micro-payment scheme that gives your sensitive information to a company that’s known for dubious practices and will not refund you for charges that you didn’t incur.  Even as the internet rallies itself to collectively bash and laugh at Evony, they wouldn’t be continuing their campaign if it stopped working.

For Evony, they’re capitalizing on the press they’re getting.

• Evony runs banner campaign on Google Adsense
• Blogs, Media post reviews and analysis.
• Adsense sees the word “Evony” and displays the ad.
• Some blogs fail to block Evony ads and those that do block the ads still see those ads coming up.  (I’ve blocked them in the Adsense UI, but occasionally, I still see them)
• People click on the ad to see what’s the big deal.
• A percentage of those people sign up
• Money is made by Evony from draconian micro-transactions.

I know this is making Evony a profit because they’re still modifying their ads.  This ad was running at the time I posted my first article:

Just today, I found this image:

The call to action has changed as well as the amount of cleavage you see.  The lace that trims the dress has been removed and the user sees more of the breast.  Again, this is evidence that the media campaign is constantly evolving, constantly responding to new pressures and constantly modifying its campaign to gain the maximum click throughs possible.  I’d be commending them on their excellence and attention to detail if they weren’t so slimy.

They know that people are blocking their ads, so they’re constantly changing the display URL to make sure their ads are getting through.  Again, it would be brilliant if it weren’t so sleazy.   Here’s a list of some of the URLs that Evony’s using to serve their ads:

• evony.com
• evonygame.com
• evonyhome.com
• evonyminiclip.com
• evonyonline.com
• evonyy8.com
• playevony.com
• evonyfreeonlinegames.com
• evony-game.com
• sweetgameonline.com
• playnowmelord.com
• chooselucky.com
• comeplaymylord.com
• blueseawar.com
• bugutomorrow.com
• comeplaymylord.com
• evonygamezer.com
• evonymyspace.com
• hellogamesonline.com
• hotevony.com
• topevony.com

Lastly, I have to give an awesome shout out to Pop Cap Games for their hilarious mockery of the Evony ads for their Plants vs. Zombies game.

Absolutely hilarious, absolutely brilliant and that just makes me like Pop Cap games even more.

(Update: 3/Aug/09)

The ads just keep getting worse… this ad was found out and about on the interwebs:

Via CodingHorror

The Guardian Asks “Has Evony Become the Web’s Most Despised Game?”