Evony is at it again. In their attempts to sue Bruce Everiss at Bruce On Games, they’re scrambling to disguise or delete any and all of the evidence he and the gaming community has collected.
The article he wrote about Evony being Malware caught the attention of Eric Lam, the guy who runs the gold-farming UMGE network of businesses and the guy who was sued by Microsoft for click-fraud schemes decided to sue Bruce Everiss. While the details of the case are expertly described on Mr. Everiss’ site, the new wrinkle in this attempt to silence criticism is that there are efforts to disassociate Evony with UMGE altogether to cover up the evidence.
They’ve edited their Evony wiki to remove references to UMGE and when one of the commenters on Bruce’s site pointed out that they missed a reference, shortly after, that reference was removed as well.
"See who's wanting you?" WTF?
The official UMGE.com site is down (and parked by GoDaddy) as well as 321Wan.com (the company that built the original Civony game, then cloned it to other browser games) is also down as well.
A student and reader of Bruce on Games went into the code of the game and found numerous references to UMGE and found that rather than malware designed to hurt the computer, it’s a massive data-mining engine. Evony’s client, once installed, harvests tons of user information and sends it back to UMGE/ Evony. While this is speculation, this would be a great way to scrape emails for spam, track sites you’re visiting and generally invade your privacy. Now, those references are gone.
It’s become clear that the core argument from Evony/ UMGE/ Eric Lam is primarily that Bruce Everiss (and the internet community at large) made fun of him, his business and his game and he wants litigation to cause them to shut up. His case depends on removing the digital trails and deleting the connections so that the claims Bruce made can no longer be found.
All of this deception continues as Evony continues to throw stupid and misleading ads across the internet. Again, while sex in advertising works, there’s very little in those ads that represent what the product actually is. It’s deceptive, pure and simple.
It’s bad marketing, it’s bad business and when called out, they litigate and try to remove evidence.
When you pay for products and services online, it’s critical that the company deserves a basic level of trust. As more people join and play Evony, they’re giving their money to a company that doesn’t deserve that trust.
Donate to Bruce’s fight against the UMGE/ Eric Lam/ Evony litigation here at PayPal.
This sucks to report. Earlier last year, Crispy Gamer bought the gaming social media site GamerDNA for a bunch of money, it had also raised over $8 million dollars as well last year.
As VentureBeat reports, once you raise that much money, the investors expect a strong return on that investment. While details are unclear at the moment, what’s known is that all of the editorial staff at Crispy Gamer have been laid off and it’s CEO, Chris Heldman has resigned in protest.
Personally, I really enjoyed Crispy Gamer, it’s ethos didn’t allow any advertising money from game companies and it strove to give independent analysis on the game industry free from influence.
Once I started reading Crispy Gamer, I found its unique insight and the personality of the writers to be a refreshing change from most gaming editorials. While I’m not one to say they were better than others, what was clear was that their passion, intelligence and independence really showed through. They were able to become a clear voice for gamers in a short time with their excellent features, writers and analysis.
While it’s unclear as to what’s going to happen with GamerDNA, Crispy Gamer is still live, but it’s no longer being updated.
Hopefully, something good will come from these ashes, but that may come much later.
I’m sure some people will come along and question the wisdom of spending that much money to acquire GamerDNA at a time when money is tight across the industry, but from a consumer perspective, Crispy Gamer kept its integrity, kept its reviews worth reading and had the guts to call out influential players in the gaming industry.
Update: In my previous entry, I’d made the association that they’d raised the $8 million to buy GamerDNA, that was not the case.
Check this out if you want. It’s very slow, very boring and the exact same game as any Mafia War, FarmVille Facebook game you’ve ever played.
A friend of mine sent me an invite to play this game, and my first thought was, “you’ve gotta be shitting me, is this an app to promote the same Dante’s Inferno game from EA that got second place on my Worst Video Game Marketing Campaigns of 2009?”
Yes. Yes it is. Despite the slowness of the game, despite the fact that it’s a clone of other popular games on Facebook, the only thing that shocked me about this is that they actually made it. I mean, if you’re gonna piss me off, do so in a way that doesn’t bore me to tears. Even the UI, which seems to be created with the elegance of a crowbar is fitted to promote in the most visible way the upcoming game. I guess subtlety is not in Visceral/ EA’s vocabulary.
Click to embiggefy
Before I sound like I’m picking on Dante’s Inferno, I want to say that they’re doing the right things, they’re creating a bit of controversy, they’re making marketing campaigns based upon the content of the game, they’re expertly using the language of the story and of the game to communicate to its potential customers. All of those things, they’re spot on.
Unfortunately, the execution of these efforts are just wrong. From the #EAFail grope a booth babe contest, to this Facebook application. Yes, they should be on Facebook, yes they should be leveraging social media. Unfortunately, this effort is so slipshod and devoid of any real thought that it almost pains me to say that I miss them pissing me off.
If you’re going to offend me, do so intelligently, not by copying what EVERY OTHER FACEBOOK GAME IS DOING.
Dante’s Inferno marketing, once controversial and offensive has entered into the bland and “meh” category.
One of my soap boxes is how technology marketing (including video game marketing) thinks it can still reach women by slapping pink on a piece of gear and think it’s now “girl-friendly”.
Veronica Belmont is one of my favorite tech-people. Her analyses are generally spot on accurate, she’s got a keen insight in what tech works and what tech doesn’t. She has deep roots in the tech community and I can almost always count on her analysis and encyclopedic knowledge of tech, including gaming, to give me good advice, which she does with style, clarity and an abundance of humor.
Her latest post, Pink is the new STFU, skewers NewEgg.com’s email for holiday gifts for women. Here’s the screenshot:
She sums it up nicely:
You know what pisses me off? Getting a PR email from one of my favorite online retailers showcasing a buyers guide for “great gift ideas to pamper the women in your life,” including a pots and pans set, a hair dryer, and tons of gadgets in hot pink.
Thanks, Newegg. You sure know how to make women feel special!
Is this it? Stuff for cooking and cleaning (oh and some tech) in Hot Pink? Classy NewEgg. Still, to be fair, I really enjoy NewEgg.com, they’re really one of the best online technology retailers and I have never had a bad experience with them. However, it still seems that they’re in the same mindset that permeates most tech marketing that marketing for women = household gadgets and pink.
Not true.
Women in general tend to be value based shoppers, they look for the benefits of a purchase. They look how their life will be easier, more productive, more fun and more enriched. As a purchaser, they tend to take a more long term view of a purchase and weigh that against family, time, budget and perceived benefits.
According to a Harvard Business Study, 61% of technology purchases are unplanned by women who make up 82.5% of the shopping decision making.
When marketing technology to women consider the following:
There needs to be an immediate recognition of VALUE.
There needs to be a distinct visual identity differentiation.
Focus on perceived value
Provide features as it relates to value
Avoid the “pink it and shrink it” look
So, thank you Veronica, what took me over 500 words to describe, you did it in 3 sentences.
