Beware of Evony

[guyjin]

http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/15/more-about-evony/

the good bits:

The game itself is a rip off of some very well known games. The game mechanic and some in game content comes from Sid Meier's highly successful Civilisation series. Much of the graphics came from Age of Empires.

The game itself is so flaky and bugged that it is very easy for things you have paid good money for to just disappear. Lots of people are losing money this way. And, surprise, surprise, Evony never give a refund.

Something very devious is iEvony. This is an application that you download into your PC to invite your friends to join the game in exchange for in game rewards. This could very well be a Trojan designed to harvest email addresses messenger passwords and much else. Would you trust a Chinese gold farmer inside your computer? Many gullible people are.

The advertising for Evony consists of fairly lurid female imagery. These images were mostly lifted from lingerie catalogues and, amazingly, have zero relevance whatsoever to the game. Evony are carpetbombing game websites with these adverts using multiple accounts of Google AdWords. When website owners block one source of these adverts another appears. Site owners have complained repeatedly to Google, but to no avail.

But advertising isn't the only marketing going on. Evony are using automated spam programmes to add comments to articles on blog sites. Not once or twice. No, they are blanketing game related blogs with comments that advertise the game. Exactly what you would expect of a Chinese gold farmer.

[ccovell]

Yeah, I can't help but notice these ads.  They started with a chaste damsel in a bodice, and pro(/re?)gressed to a cleavage-bursting hussy.

Evony even has ads in Japanese, and I bet other languages...

[geise]

One more reason I pretty much just play pce these days.

[Joe Redifer]

Never heard of it.

[Arjak]

Wow, I see these ads just about everywhere I go, but I never thought it was a cover-up for something insidious...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

A couple other recent adverts are pretty suspect; namely the 'how to make 3 million a year doing nothing' and the 'power your house with photovoltaics for a mere $200' ads, though at least these two are obvious scams.

They started with a chaste damsel in a bodice, and pro(/re?)gressed to a cleavage-bursting hussy.

Clearly progressed - boobies, boobies, boobies! 

[guyjin]

Never heard of it.

I think I saw ads for it here.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Its a game?

I thought it was just the internet showing me some cleavage for no reason.



and yes i saw ads for it here.

they were here this morning.



And still here now!

[jperryss]

And still here now!

And I'm sure they're not going anywhere.

[Arkhan Asylum]

yeah. removing boobies is a crime.

punishable by Turrican

[Tatsujin]

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[esteban]

Yummy.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Leave it to Tatsujin to make Yuko look even more like a transvestite.  Who is that?  Celine Dion?

[blueraven]

Leave it to Tatsujin to make Yuko look even more like a transvestite.  Who is that?  Celine Dion?

That was my guess too, necro. It's the Evony girl.

[OldRover]

I played Evony for a couple of weeks. As a game, it's not too bad, but it is pretty buggy. I never paid for it, so I just played it for free, but even as such, it had a lot of problems. But something always seemed wrong about it...you know damn well that something touted as "free" in paid advertising spaces all over the internet (and damn, on big sites too, like facebook and tagged) is going to cost someone something, and somehow...

[Nazi NecroPhile]

That was my guess too, necro. It's the Evony girl.

Woof!  She looks way better in the ad.  Meh, I'd still nail it up against the dumpster behind a seedy dive bar.

[Tatsujin]

  Careful with Her Sword, Necrogene.