Scypemonk:
Chris Livingston wrote a review of Evony with exactly the same title, i think it's worth a read:

http://www.firstpersonshouter.com/?p=577

I have been thinking Shamus had borrowed Chris' idea of a comic of half life (made possible by gmod)

Probably a fluke though.

Years ago there was a game called "Forsaken" that had it's logo tattooed onto different parts of a presumed naked woman but the game was a "Descent" clone.

1. Under developed idea
2. Ad campaign with a smattering of boobs
3. ???
4. Profit!!

Maybe it was just me being the cynical woman I am, but the first time I saw an Evony ad, I couldn't help but think, "It's so trashy there's no way the game could actually be good."

Looks like I was most likely right...

You forgot to mention how they stole an image from another site and put it in their ad.

Evony ads make me laugh. I do thank them for the occasional lady to look at when I am searching the web however some of them ladies on it are just creepy looking (at least to me). At least near the start of the campaign they had somewhat of a medieval theme but now its just a close up on some cleavage and it saying evony.

I do however enjoy seeing the old ads every so often which have no boobs and promise it being forever free and it says something like civilazation builder. Ah where would we be without the marketing team thats only trick is to present tits and a click here option.

The Big Eye:
Seeing large-breasted women evocatively exposed in online adverts causes me to react the same way as I would if a homeless man started throwing mashed potatoes at me.
I am not hungry. If I were, I would go to a restaurant, or cook something up myself.
Err - if you, y'know, get my meaning.

At least you would hope those were mashed potatoes....
I myself, being a dirty old man, don't mind so much seeing gratuitous cleavage ads, but when the link takes you to something better played on my Office Excel 07, then that just gets downright rude. Reminds me of the Cracker Jacks that get put out these days, labeled as having peanuts and caramel popcorn. Instead I get a peanut(must be the surprise in the box) and popcorn with old maids.

I won't lie. I've clicked on their ads. Then I was like "wtf, peace out".

Makes them look desperate in my book...

A few of the girls I have seen in those ads are actually trademarked and copyrighted images that belong to other people, I wonder how much they pay in liscensing fees (if they pay them at all)

My guess is that the people who play Evony are the same ones who pay $1500 for a lvl 80 fully tiered WoW account then brag how good they are.

This is just stupid you see this add you download it you play it and then what i just don't get it?!

Eh. Marketing is marketing. I can overlook it if the game is good. More worrisome to me is sex in the game because that means the game makers themselves have so little confidence in the gameplay they would resort to that. While sex and hype in marketing may raise red flags for me, if the game passes muster I'm happy to let that fault slide.

Besides that level of discrepancy between ads and games were commonplace in 8-bit days. It almost brings fond memories.

It's good when my videos are being loaded on a website.

Considering that Evony is being marketed using a plethora of names, quite a few domains and the owners have been sued for click fraud before, it's not that difficult to put two and two together. Getting people to visit the site is enough, but if they stay and pay to ask random people on the Internet to show their tits, that's simply a bonus.

Fearzone:
the game makers themselves have so little confidence in the gameplay they would resort to that

They have as much confidence in the gameplay as a three card monte dealer has in maintaining his reputation for running a fair game. Look around online and you'll find a ton of complaints about Civony/Evony. Amongst the accusations are things like:

making everything (text messages, renaming things, upgrading units, etc.) cost money and then hiding the cost behind a dodgy ingame/real world dollar exchange rate;

absolutely no reimbursement if a server crash causes you to lose progress (including all those things you bought);

comment spam on blogs;

this whole thing - http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/09/14/evony-libel-me/ ;

art theft from Age of Empires;

being linked to MMO gold farming;

etc. etc. etc.

Now, I don't play the game myself, so I can't discuss these in depth. I merely mention what others have publicly said (makes cross sign at lawyers). But I have heard very little good about this game.

Klagermeister:
Yeah, I agree, using sex to market a game that completely lacks sex is stupid.
What's next? Is Pokemon gonna be marketed with a nude Pikachu and Togepi-on-Togepi action?

Pikachus are generally naked and I believe pokemon breeding was part of the marketing for one of the games. Togepis are baby pokemon however, so can't breed. Don't rule out a 'skitty on wailord action' campaign though...

I'm wondering why I've never heard of this company before, but I'm glad I do now. Although maybe I have seen some Evony adds somewhere but ignored it because I'm in that rare 1-percentile young male that is ACTIVELY TURNED OFF by such gratuitous adds. If it's done well and features things in a mature light in the game, fine, but trying to cleavage and cheap thrills is the one perfect way to make me ignore them to death.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that my hatred even extends to the people who actually fall for this shit and click the adds expecting things to be full of that, which in itself says a lot of bad things about the male gaming demographic.

This is yet another reason why you should never trust adds and just do your own research on games. Although the fact that they have enough of a user-base to keep going even after EA of all people lost that many people is embarrassing.

Although, at the same time, this problem (as I have hinted at just a moment ago) is of our own creation. Someone used the cheap thrill factor to market a game, it worked, everyone else started doing it, it kept working... you get the idea. It's mostly out own fault that things have gotten this way, and it is also our own fault why women may be turned off to gaming save for the small ratio that are hardcore gamers that actually can stomach all the sleazy marketing present.

PLAY NOW MY LORD.

And yet, a community it has.

Nice article, but seriously lacking in irony and c'mon, that pun-cum-web-article-title has been done to death.

I take pride in the fact that I have yet to click on one of those Evony ads. Oh and, FREE FOREVER.

dududf:

Shamus Young:
They've never tried to go after the casual market. Or women. Or teens

Shamus, I do believe that is EXACTLY what they are doing. :P

Well, i see what your trying to say, but the ratio of teens who watch porn to men between the ages of 20 and 35 who watch porn is probably more in favor of the men and not the teens. However, this is a good point. Onemorelevel.com has a lot of flash-based games for teens ages 11-18, and i do tend to see a ton of Envoy adverts. Not that that is good or anything, im just trying to help prove your point.

At this point in time the internet supplies enough sites to preview/review/rate games that if a gamer gets into a game purely on the box art or aid its their fault. No one that plays video games are so busy that they can't do a quick google search for a game before they get involved. When I saw the ad I thought it was for a deviant game, figuring it was full of the usual "creeper" base and tied to viruses I just ignored it. If its working for them, that there are people out there clicking on the link, seeing that its not what they expected and still playing then kudos... to someone hah.

benbenthegamerman:

dududf:

Shamus Young:
They've never tried to go after the casual market. Or women. Or teens

Shamus, I do believe that is EXACTLY what they are doing. :P

Well, i see what your trying to say, but the ratio of teens who watch porn to men between the ages of 20 and 35 who watch porn is probably more in favor of the men and not the teens. However, this is a good point. Onemorelevel.com has a lot of flash-based games for teens ages 11-18, and i do tend to see a ton of Envoy adverts. Not that that is good or anything, im just trying to help prove your point.

FINALLY!

I thought no one was gonna catch onto my joke/truth.

Hormones yee be in the brain, we see ttis, Hormones go crazy, we click. Maybe 1/10 actually stay, and then maybe 1/5 of the 1/10 actually pay for it.

Evony, its as accursed as The Dark Lord of Gaming He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (feel free to guess who it is) also the title of this article made me starting thinking of that Elton John "Ebony & Ivory" song. Waugh!

Someone can make that stop right now, it's just a matter or making a lawsuit agaisn the company for not delivering the naughty pron they're advertising, I'm sure any judge will see this is a decent plead... oh wait!...

This game used to be called civony and had a civilization like logo, its changed now ofc.

The other thing that really ticks me off, is that from the screenshots its looks like all their images (in-game) are directly ripped off from Age of Empires 2. (unless they've all changed by now).

My friend played it for like a month and from what he told me I figured its just like travian or some other game that I personally don't care for (If I want good strategy in the medieval setting its Medieval 2 Total War).

I've never touched it never will but its nice to know what I'm missing out on is a game for bored accountants

Desert Tiger:
PLAY NOW MY LORD.

Gyaah! Burn it with fire!

Yeah, a huge load of publishers seem to feel they need to have breasts on their covers or ad's to sell. Is there anyone here who actually bought a game because of the hot chick on the cover? I'm sure you did, I know a friend of mine bought "Wet" for only one reason (he has a thing for girls with guns) -the male brain is indeed mysterious^^.

I guess some games need the extra help, but many that do this really don't! I often decide not to get a game because to me it seems like this game was made for guys that doesn't know porn is free online, and I know I've missed some good ones because of it. Do guys really want it? What makes a game with a girl infront of a car on a cover more appealing than just a car? I mean, are you there for the racing game or the girl?

Evony is far more clever then they are given credit for...oh god no, they arn't good at makeing GAMES...but there marketing is genius. And there genius has nothing to do with pulling in guys who want to see tits. Nonono. Let me put it this way: You put Evony in your article title, and EVERYONE knows what you're talking about. Sure, everyone hates there ads to an extent, but everyone recognizes the name. Everyone has a strong opinion on there sleazy tactics. And I at least have been so shocked by there terrible ads, that I can't help but be a touch curious about just how disjointed the advertising is from the game. I'm curious about the community that were pulled in to this, and just how different it is from the softcore porn advertising. For marketing this bad, I am genuinely curious how bad the game is in comparison. While we all scoff at blatant use of tits, we havn't even noticed that this very controversy has made the game heavily iconic, discussed, and referenced in a large number of communities. And that pulls in some players. Hate on the advertising all you want: I do. But just remember that because of that blatant use of tits, you have had a huge amount of brand recognition forced upon you. They arn't getting the perverts pulled in, there getting the people with a serious interest on gaming culture. They are sneaky.

The thing is, as I understand it, this is a Russian game. Russians don't understand the concept of not advertising things with sex. "Oh, you sell baby furniture? Use sexy lady for ad."

To be fair, those ads would be mostly appropriate if the game being advertised was Red Alert III. Or Red Alert II. Sigh... I love the Red Alert series...

vortexgods:
The thing is, as I understand it, this is a Russian game. Russians don't understand the concept of not advertising things with sex. "Oh, you sell baby furniture? Use sexy lady for ad."

To be fair, those ads would be mostly appropriate if the game being advertised was Red Alert III. Or Red Alert II. Sigh... I love the Red Alert series...

Chinese, not Russian.

Wow, Evony ads have become so infamous that there are even parodies. Check this out:

As I recall, when Evony first started advertising they used ads that actually showed game shots behind some generic warrior guy. I mean, they only had one of these and then added a girl, but it wasn't like they started off on the wrong foot.

I wouldn't play this thing anyway. There are dozens of cheap, 2-D Age of Empires rip offs for sale everywhere, which I think Shamus pointed out.

The_root_of_all_evil:
The thing is though that there is no comeback against these things. Adverts lie, cheat, insult and (metaphorically) steal every day; and action against private corporations is minimal at best.

TBF, why shouldn't they say anything up to outright character assassination? Because it's only people like Sony etc. that will get slapped for anything, and that usually takes 6 months and half the tax-payers fee.

It's a sad state of affairs, and the only way to deal with it is to make advertisers liable for their adverts. Heineken probably doesn't reach the parts other beers cannot reach, and Carling's probability of being the best beer in the world is really rather low.

Until then, advertisers can smear anything they want over a game in our name and then walk away with our money. :(

There are actually laws against that here (specifically, deceptive or intentionally misleading advertising; hyperbole is allowed though). I'm a little surprised if that's not the case elsewhere. (Not that local laws apply to the Internet though.)

We even have amusing ad campaigns that play up honesty (eg. being self deprecating); for example there's one going on right now that's proudly advertising itself as "the fourth favourite [chocolate] bar" in the country.

And we have a beer company whose entire marketing is pretty much "(Strange quote/fact)"/"Yeah, right."