Jeff, I have seen this advertisement progress & think it's just plain hilarious. BTW...I wouldn't play this game.

We've become so oriented on achieving financial success without regard for the actual costs, that I'm sure this seemed acceptable, if not down-right brilliant, to someone out there. Sadly, although sex usually sells, "tacky" is a major turn-off for most consumers, so this direction is about the worst one they could possibly peruse. Greed can drive people to do the craziest things.

I hate these ads. They aren't even remotely informative as to what sort of game this is. I thought it was an RPG before reading that it is a civ clone, just based on seeing these ads.

That last ad looks like one of the trUe ads with the animations of cam-[slatter]s.

captcha: "purse Admiral" Good juxtaposition.

If it's any consolation, the game's makers probably secretly loathe themselves for going this route.

The subtle, or much often, not-so-subtle use of sex in advertising is doing a big disservice in long-term to everyone.

Not only degrades the product, but also affects family life and life style in general.

I don't see an issue here, sex sells, always has ... they were putting hot models next cars before you were born. It’s just a new medium.

BTW, the ads seem effective, they received your attention. The only issue I would suggest is that AD networks have better filters, so if you don't want to display breasts on your website, you can filter out those ads.

Idiocracy - most overrated movie on the internet?

Anyway, I really thought you were going to say that last one was a joke. Also, can one really discreetly build an empire and rule the world?

@Hank Yes, sex sells, however you normally make an effort to put your product in the limelight along with whatever sex appeal you're drawing from... Apparently that nuance got lost in the last ad iteration when they went OHLOOKBOOBIESCLICKCLICKCLICK

Their advertising in general is a pain. I'm purging 5-10 comments a day on VizWorld that are all "I just found this awesome new game called Evony, click here to play" garbage.

Between the commentspam and the ridiculous ads, they've convinced me to never try it.

These are in the footer of every other io9 RSS entry; I'm amused that someone else was as annoyed as I was about them. I hadn't seen the last one, though, that's amazing. What it's actually an ad for is in teeny-tiny type.

I think your overall point is good. But you can't really sit on your high horse and complain about the state of business with any legitimacy when you have thousands of followers that will eat up everything you do. If you were really struggling, we'd see what tactics you resort to.

Idiocracy was terrible. Not terrible compared to his other stuff, jut terrible. Never brilliant, it was a jumble of things that probably irritate Mike Judge, not any sort of coherent dystopian future, humorous or not.

My favorite bit is "play discreetely now!" -- What does that even mean? As far as I can tell, the sentence makes no sense.

Per Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry:
dis·creet
Pronunciation:
\di-ˈskrēt\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French discret, from Medieval Latin discretus, from Latin, past participle of discernere to separate, distinguish between — more at discern
Date:
14th century

Main Entry:
dis·crete
Pronunciation:
\dis-ˈkrēt, ˈdis-ˌ\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Middle English, from Latin discretus
Date:
14th century

1: constituting a separate entity : individually distinct 2 a: consisting of distinct or unconnected elements : noncontinuous b: taking on or having a finite or countably infinite number of values
synonyms see distinct
— dis·crete·ly adverb
— dis·crete·ness noun

I wouldn't mind some more 'boob' ads on my sites - I might actually get some click-throughs :)

If they had said it was a multi-player CIV game, I may have signed up ages ago. I figured it was just a thinly veiled chat server for teenagers from the ads.

tim, discrete and discreet are different words, but the ad uses the right one.

the right one for their lies, anyway.

This form of advertising is absolute trash. The Evony advertisement looked fine.

By looking at the progression of the Civony ads, it makes me wonder if the 2nd ad worked better so they continued the route, or it didn't do well enough so they chased it harder?

captcha: "jungle surface" - just thought it amusing.

Wait.

That's a -real- ad for a -real- game?

I'm heading to my bomb shelter now. See y'all after the apocalypse.

I love the ad on right below the article, featuring "agile" development. I would like to meet some agile developers myself. Flexibility a must!

"I want to click the boob add, don't know why - whats it for? More boobs by clicking the add, right?"

Admidt it, thats whats goes though your mind, when you see it.

The problem in this is not the boobs, I really don't mind, the problem is the false adverticement for boobs by clicking. I can find tons of boob adds on the internet, that gives me more boobs. So why click on your boob add, when it redirects me to a non-boob site? (okay there is one pair on their site)

So I feel cheated, not at all what I was after, so I close the window, and look for other boob adds - or goes to one of the boobs sites in my bookmarks.

But I surely don't hope they begin to target girl players, then just think of what they will do...

I wanted more, than ever before, to check there game out because Jeff told me it was a Civ clone. So that should tell them what they should focus on: Telling me what I get for clicking the add.
But now i'm not gonna, because I'm going to hunt boob sites now, they just told me to.

And P.S. I really like to write 'boobs' :)

Heh, this one reminded me of this fabulous XKCD comic: http://www.xkcd.com/603/

Couldn't figure out what ad you were talking about. Then I remembered: AdBlock Plus! I'm not seeing the embedded ads in your blog post because AdBlock successfully filters them out. Temporarily turned off ad protection, and now I see what I've been missing these past few years. Do I regret it? Nope -- AdBlock is enabled yet again on my browser.

What does it say about me that I looked at the last ad and the second thing I thought was "Why don't the words 'Best' and 'Free' have the same baseline?"

This kind of advertising has a fine tradition. This image should be familiar to all UK computer users of a certain age. It's the ad for a ZX Spectrum game called Barbarian:

http://www.konamito.com/images/articles/caratulasepicomedievales/Barbarian.jpg

Not quite as crude as the evony one, but at the time it was fairly contentious.

"We need to sell more products."
"Let's show boobs with our products."
"Great!"
"Yeah! Let's show boobs and not even show our products!"
"...Wait, what?"
"Yeah! People will think they're coming to a porn site, then they'll be disappointed and leave!"
"uUm..."

This is one of the best posts I've ever read on Coding Horror. I've seen all these ads everywhere except the last one as of yet. It's rare that I actually do laugh out loud reading something on the internet, but this is quality.

Brilliant post and movie reference. Your writing makes me want to laugh. Evony makes me want to cry.

I like the one with the sword pointing at her cleavage. You know, because otherwise I'd never have noticed that she has breasts.

And, like many others here -- I find the multiplayer online Civilization concept far more clickable than the breasts.

I clicked on an Evony ad, and was very disappointed, but not for the reasons most people seem to find.

It was the second-to-last ad listed here, with the prominent text "Play DISCREETLY on your browser NOW!". I've always had an interest in "stealth" games that people play without alerting folks around them - in the workplace, in classrooms or in public, etc. Initially they fascinated me because I liked to play games during class, but eventually the mechanics of such things piqued my curiosity as a hobbyist game designer.

In the old days, many games had "boss keys", which was a specific keyboard shortcut that would pause the game and instantly display something apparently work-related : a spreadsheet or document or something innocuous. Pressing the "boss key" again would resume the game.

Many text-based games can be used in this way around non-technical types because they don't recognize what's going on : MUDs, Zork-likes, and even Roguelike games can function this way.

One thing I haven't seen yet is a rich browser-based game experience that is stealthy enough to be played without observers realizing what's going on. I envision a set of operations that can be performed without graphics, and then a fully graphical version to be enjoyed at "safe" times.

Unfortunately, the Evony website was no more discreet than the ad itself - full page graphics with lots of large "game"-related text etc. I don't know what they meant by "discreet", but it apparently didn't include...well...discretion. I quickly lost interest.

So it wasn't just me who found this outrageously annoying and stupid :)
I have yet to encounter the final form of this ad, I've only seen the second to last one so far.

@Trevel Perhaps the sword symbolizes something else, nudge nudge wink wink.

Without the text the last ad on the list looks like a generic bra advertisement. Hell even with the text I see no reason why anyone would click on this.

I'm always amazed that folks with access to the net click on these ads. If it's adult content they want there is plenty of free crap around. And they aren't even getting it here, I'd be pissed.

erm...
Who is it who decides false advertising is a good idea ?
Then decides it isn't working - so makes it even more false ?

Seriously - do these people even know they are lying ? Or do they actually believe their ads to be a legitimate representation of the game ?

I've had no idea what Evony was since I first started seeing the "Play discreetly" ad until this post. Thought it might have been a text game (like those mob games on facebook) where you run a brothel.

I get a serious amount of blog comment spam from this place. It's really starting to make me angry, especially when it's up to 100 comments per day.

I've replaced a large percentage of my stock expletives with "Ow, my balls!" I find that it makes many upsetting misfortunes at least a little funny.

I still think that last iteration has to be some kind of put-on (or take off, as the case may be). I doubt it's hard at all to get a "rogue" advertisement for some relatively obscure product onto some of the more dodgy ad servers.

At least now I know what that guy in the cube across the way has been doing most of the time. The guy that just got a promotion last month...

I'm not sure how is this wrong.

They did this progressively, so they probably started noticing the ad was working better each time and decided to keep changing it in the sex direction. Until they finally threw the whole "medieval" theme and kept the breasts.

You don't know what's happening inside their servers. Maybe this misleading ads don't lower their conversion rates too much and they still get some horny males who also like playing online games and are gullible enough to pay for game cheats. Sounds like a business model to me :D

Not everyone is in your position, where you can basically create a site and have your followers start spreading the word. Your position is great, you earned it. But some people want to make a living out of a website and they must use this "cheap" tactics and turn to the "lowest common denominator" of online users.

You could have said instead "look, the internet is like Idiocracy, this guys are going down this path and it seems to be working for them since they keep doing it".

My son plays that game and raves about it. I've seen many of these ads myself, but I seriously thought you were pulling our collective leg with that last one. It would be utterly shameful if it weren't so effective. They know exactly who their target audience is, teenage/male, who won't be offended in the least by the tactic.

Is driving traffic with breasts really all that different from driving traffic with ambiguous Bayesian probability puzzles? Is Aaron Gleeman on the payroll now?

I for one wouldn't mind seeing a scantly clad StackOverflow advertisement every now and theen (ala Irish Girl from DailyWTF and the like).

I know where they got this idea: http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=186

Seriously, I played the game for a few weeks and realized that

a) it sucked
b) it wasn't getting better
c) there were no naked chicks on it

Love the Idiocracy reference, one of the great cult classics.

I salute you Jeff, this is one of your classic posts.

A fan,

Just to play devil's advocate ... perhaps they're doing sophisticated A/B testing and following where ever the data leads. In general, we'd consider that a virtue. Only when we see where it leads do we complain.

@James,

"Wait.

That's a -real- ad for a -real- game?

I'm heading to my bomb shelter now. See y'all after the apocalypse."

Wait, so you think "sex sells" on the internet is a sign of the apocalypse? Where the heck have you been for the last 15 years?

I'd seen most of the ads up til the last one. As a female player I'd decided by about ad #3 I would never, ever play their game. Browser-based casual games and the female demographic? Pfft, who needs them!

Looks like, how to advertise on the internet successfully. All this talk and posting about the ads just generates interest in the product.

Just like the One Rule to Lose Belly Fat (Obey) ads that are out there. Obviously these people wouldn't be doing this if it didn't work great.

Not that I doubt it's actually appeared, but I can't believe that's not some weird prank. Everything about it screams prank, right down to the "actual-game-name de-emphasized and in tiny font."

Also, a bit of your chronology doesn't add up. You make it sound as if all of those other ads came after the first one, but the first one is advertising Evony and the second is advertising Civony, which was the game's previous name.

I hate that they are on sites that have legitimate games. For example, I like tower defence games but despise the civony ads next to it so I gladly find that same tower defense game on another site that does not have the slutty women.

I disagree, Jeff - this course of advertising is perfectly reasonable - assuming the game has changed from a medieval adventure to a soft core porn soap opera. Has it? That's certainly the impression it left with me.

Like another person in this thread, I'm getting ridiculous amounts of comment spam about this game. Not playing it.

As someone who works on ads everyday, I can say that this is not some wacky idea that they're sinking their company with. Ad display frequency is based on their performance, and quite simply, naked girls perform well (on ads, I mean, though probably otherwise as well). It's unfortunate that such a large segment of the population is certifiably retarded and unable to restrain basic impulses, but such is the world we live (and prosper) in.

I'm with Jen on this. As a woman who enjoys gaming, I was initially a little intrigued when I saw the first ad. By the time the second ad I saw (the third ad on the list here) came around, though, I figured they no longer wanted my business.

See also:

http://setonstun.com/2009/07/video-game-marketing-bait-switch-clickthroughs-boobies/

> It would be utterly shameful if it weren't so effective.

No. The most utterly shameful aspect is THAT it is so effective - which I'm pretty sure it must be, since they've been progressing so extremely into that direction.

Hilarious progression! For the record, I loved Idiocracy.

I agree with the person who said this post is really about how to advertise on the internet successfully.

Tits are appealing. Tits are great. Big ones, small ones, I vote more tits. I vote ending the cultural taboo on bare breasts. I vote open public wanton breastfeeding of babies. Tits everywhere, tits on every screen, tits out in real life!

We are a mammalian species. Mammaries should be no big deal. And maybe if that were the case, advertisers would be forced to get more creative and fun and zany with their stuff.

Plus there'd be world peace. I'm almost sure of it.

I actually thought my PC was infected with some sort of undetectable MMPORG adware because this was virtually the only crappy ad I would see on the net. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.

@Canaduck,

"I'm with Jen on this. As a woman who enjoys gaming, I was initially a little intrigued when I saw the first ad. By the time the second ad I saw (the third ad on the list here) came around, though, I figured they no longer wanted my business"

Sorry to inform you, they don't. Granted, this is just a WAG, but I imagine males must make up about 90%+ of the North American market for browser based games. I'm aware that more and more women are getting into console games, but PC games still is the domain of men. So while their ads might offend females, they realize that they are such a small percentage of the PC gaming market, they just don't care.

I make no judgement about whether it's right or wrong, but is this any different than cereal companies target marketing children with cartoon characters? You aim to please and attract your target market, sorry that's Marketing 101.

"but I imagine males must make up about 90%+ of the North American market for browser based games."

"Casual gaming" is a category with lots of women; it might even be more than half.

Plus, women tend to do more shopping.

There really are markets for games that appeal to women.

I hate it when people excuse stuff like this by saying "sex sells". 99% of the time, they don't mean 'sex', they mean women's bodies. Women's bodies are not "sex". My body is not "sex". If you really think this is okay, there should be no reason to euphemise it.

@Andrew

You must be joking. This is 2009, not 1980. Demographically speaking, as of 2005 female Internet-usage trailed behind male usage by 2% - 66% vs. 68%; because there are more women than men in the US, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, more women actually use the Internet than men do! In fact, according to the same surveys by Pew, young women dramatically outpace their male peers in Internet usage.

"Men use the web for more kinds of entertainment and recreation than women do, with just a few exceptions. Women play games as much as men, they listen to audio clips and watch video clips, and they share files. But men pursue a host of other activities with greater enthusiasm." - Pew Internet and American Life Project, iv (http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Society_and_the_Internet/PIP_Women_Men_122805.pdf)

See page 11 for a full chart of activities - the percentage in 2005 for "play online games" was 36% of online men and 37% of online women.

Those ads got what the consumers crave: they got electrolytes!

@Ariadne,

Come on now, Internet usage statistics? Pew Internet and American Life Project? This is a Civ clone set in a medival times, that practically screams "young, white males". Granted, it's not the same game, but look at WoW, the North American audiance for that game is about 90% male, that's just the way it is.

Since I can't see the page 11 chart in that link, I'd be interested to see what they define as "online games", because any chart that says women play more online games than men is a complete fabrication.

Let's put it in completely unsceintific terms, I'm 35 and I know literally dozens, if not 100s of men who play video games, but only five women who play. Of the five, two played quite a bit of Tetris in University, the other three played WoW (two of which have quit). That's it. I've also lived in three US cities, Canada, Australia, England and France since I graduated University, so it's not like I've been isolated.

Which brings me back to my point, this company doesn't care if it turns off women because it represents such a small portion of their potential audience. So if offending women means it gets more men, then they'll do it. Please note, I'm not saying this is right (morally, or otherwise), but since this company does it and I can only assume their goal is to maximize profits. To me that indicates that this strategy is working, which in a round-a-bout way either 1) confirms that I am correct and women don't play this sort of game anyways, or 2) enough women don't get offended by these ads enough to stop them from playing. Either way, the company looks to be doing the "right" thing (from a profits standpoint anyways).

A bit of info on the Chinese company that runs Evony

http://mu.ranter.net/civony/civony-update-free-game-apparently-funded-by-thousands-of-stupid-world-of-warcraft-players

Queen Obsessed: a rather depressing "submit pictures of yourself to become the queen of Evony" thread run by the Evony owners

http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=11313

Who knows? Maybe it's what their niche wants. Never know with the internet these days. In any case, it's Hilarious &%169; and gets attention.

No entities? In any case, I just want to say

[advertisement] Interested in agile?

Maybe you are but I'm not. I would prefer a bust to that...

can't wait to see the next ad!

I recently saw a new one on the pirate bay.
hawt.

@Andrew, thats just anecdotal evidence, not a great way to combat you know, statistics. Meanwhile my guild in WoW of 100 or so is mostly female and run by females. And they make up a big chunk of WoW's demographic:

http://www.wow.com/tag/demographics/

mox.. i am sorry to inform you.. there are no women on the interwebs.

easterly 939,000 .. i was more confused by the 939,000. what an odd number, i think i will name my child that.

Goddamn. I've seen all of the first few ads and thought they were getting progressively more ridiculous, but seriously? An ad with JUST BOOBS? Wtf? It's laughably ridiculous, yet so objectifying it shouldn't be funny.

This are hilarious. It's a role playing game and they are advertising it with a picture of breasts? Good stuff.

God damn, what is it with people calling Idiocracy brilliant?
It's plainly one of the most brain dead 'satires' ever made.

It doesn't take a genius to make a movie about people being idiots, it has about as much ingenuity and wit as a daytime sitcom with humor that seems aimed to please an audience not to different from the ever day people of the world it portrays.
None of the concepts (LOL porn to advertise everything) were new or anything other than obvious repackaged 'dumb' jokes that have been passed around for a long time already.

Seeing the 'brilliant societal satire' mantle slip from even the lighter stuff like Brave New World to Idiocracy in the eye of the general public is surely just as much of an indicator that standards are slipping as the advertising mentioned above.

I hate that movie.

I've noticed this, too. At least they ads aren't animated, like those stupid financing ads with the girls dancing. That was about the only thing more annoying!

It totally sucks that ads drive most internet content. Why do you think many articles on legit sites are broken into 10 pages so you have to keep clicking Next Page and then wait for the next page to slowly load, even on boradband, since 99% of what is loading are ads? Advertising, this way they can hit you 10 times instead of once.

Oh God, I hate those ads smack in the middle of article text and now ther eare more and more sites where you try to click in some white space to then scroll the page and now that launches ads.

I really loath advertising now, more than ever!

THis is the bestest game ever! Thanks for introducing me to it.

And your audio captchas are terrible. You cant figure out anything!!!

"I'd seen most of the ads up til the last one. As a female player I'd decided by about ad #3 I would never, ever play their game. Browser-based casual games and the female demographic? Pfft, who needs them!"

I'm a female player, too. Someone else got me to play Evony first, back when it had just launched and I'd never seen or registered the ads before. If I'd seen the ads then I doubt I would've. :)

"there are no women on the interwebs"

While we're linking xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/322/

And thanks for the interesting article, that's great. :)

Interesting stuff about women coming out here. "there are no women on the interwebs" is definitely not true. However, there are vast swaths of webs where a person claiming to be a woman is actually more likely to be male than to be truthful. This problem, or at least its perception, contributes to people/media/etc. ignoring the participation of women in social or gaming web. This feeds back into creating a female-unfriendly atmosphere (like the busty ads) and impedes what could be more healthy intersexual behavior.

Thanks for the link to my site. Hmm, I definitely haven't seen that last ad you posted. But nice find!

I am sick and tired of this advertisement especially in my google reader. People around me may think I am watching adult site or something because of these advertisement. Thank you for this article.

1ST BANNER:
*production artist* Awesome! and it don't get much conciser!

*old v.p. of marketing* We've decided to change the name. Put a girl in there and I'll email you the text.

2ND BANNER:
*production artist* (Thinking; ~this looks like shit~ ) How's this?

*old v.p. of marketing* Love it! Don't you?

---One Week Later---
*old v.p. of marketing* We've decided to revert back to the old name. Put two girls on there and I'll email you the text.

3RD BANNER:
*production artist* (Thinking; ~this looks like shit~ ) How's this?

*old v.p. of marketing* Love it! Don't you?

*production artist* Uh...not really, but I like the chicks (smile, chuckle).

---One Day Later---
4TH BANNER:
*old v.p. of marketing* Uh, Simon, Randall and Chen said we need you to change the girls to an animated version.

*production artist* What? like make them kissing or something?

*old v.p. of marketing* No no no like a drawn character. They said it was racy. I'll email you the new text.

---Two Weeks Later---
*old v.p. of marketing* Conversion rates are waaaaay down. They said I could do whatever I want. Put a real girl back on there and I'll email you the new text.

5TH BANNER:
*production artist* (Thinking; ~this looks like a porn ad~ ) This looks like, ...uh, what do you think?

*old v.p. of marketing* Looks almost like an adult ad, let's try it.

---One Week Later---
*old v.p. of marketing* Conversion rates are up, let's try something new. I'm going to go ahead and do this next ad myself.

6TH BANNER

Hey, now the Evony "team" is spamming comments, too!

http://brokentoys.org/2009/07/10/save-the-cheerleader-spam-the-world/

http://westkarana.com/index.php/2009/07/10/evony-and-irony-why-i-will-never-play-this-game/

Ah, so that game is made by some guys associated with WoW gold selling. It all makes sense now.

Lol my husband plays that, ever since I saw the third ad we've all been teasing him about how he's off to "save his lover!" :P

GENIUS!

I need new banners for my online "quit your job and work from home making millions" scam blog! (If you buy it, for $50USD, I just send you the source code to my website with very basic instructions on how to set up a LAMP. One line instructions, in fact - "Google it.")

I'm thinking "Become a pimp from the safety and comfort of your own home. Make millions and get all the women you could ever want!"

FTC will probably shut me down for that one, but it's bound to happen eventually anyways.

I suppose those ads help their click-through, but don't they find that a lot of potential players are irritated when they discover is not the porno game implied by the advertisement?

I don't know who said it, but:

"The internet, where men are men, women are men, and children are the FBI."

Something that people, and WoW players in particular, don't seem to notice: yes, there are a lot of male players with female toons. There are also a lot (not as many, but still a substantial number) of female players with male toons. It saves on a lot of in-game hassles, and besides, the gear looks a lot more badass.

Something else I've noticed over the years: It used to be that women played primarily healers of some type, with a few dps casters. While there are still a lot of them (and, for some reason, a lot of guys make female healers), I'm seeing a lot more IRL females playing melee characters. I used to be the notable oddball because I liked tanks, melee dps, or hybrid classes; now they may not be as common as the alternatives, but they're nothing really remarkable. The two other women in my guild's 10-man Ulduar group are a tankadin and a druid who either heals or tanks as the situation demands (ah, the joy of dual-spec), when five years ago they'd have been priests, and ten years ago they wouldn't have been there at all.

Personally, despite being a 4X game addict since Civ1, I'm not going to play Civony/Evony, ever. Not because of the boobies, but because of the blog comment spam. I don't buy anything, ever, from spammers. They're filthy, stinking scum that ruin everything they touch, and I go out of my way to not give them any money. That, and the fact that they're WoW gold-sellers, some of the people who have done so much to spoil WoW and, well, pretty much every other game. It may matter to no one except me, and I may be able to do absolutely nothing about them, but I can avoid giving them my money.

Good thing this is a text ad:

[advertisement] Interested in agile? See how a world-leading software vendor is practicing agile.

After all the promises of boobs and "full body" lattes, my fantasy goes dirty imagining a banner ad for that one. Although I really wonder now, what crosses the minds of mgmt types when they hear about 'agile' practices for the first time and know yet, it's about software development.

That's what I get for relying on previews and editable comments.

Of course, the last sentence should end in 'and _don't_ know yet, it's about software development.'

Boobvertising!!

Big up for the Idiocracy reference, that sort of DEVOLUTION is what came to mind. I didn't watch the ads that closely over time, but was wondering why the most recently one I saw looked so... busty... and that was, well, before the non-fantasy breasts one came to my attention, thanks to Coding Horror. Looks like so many other "support" ads, with the cognitive dissonance of... WHAT'S THIS? A GAME?

Indubitably, while the lesson here is "how not to advertise", if it IS infact working for them — the piled-on attention is succeeding to their advantage. Especially if they're well-aware of the psychological reactions it's causing.

And I'm curious what impact culture is having here? Something lost in translation from the Chinese?

"Since I can't see the page 11 chart in that link, I'd be interested to see what they define as "online games", because any chart that says women play more online games than men is a complete fabrication."

Remember, Yahoo Spades and Diner Dash are "online games" too...

Here are some boobs. Give me your money! All hail freemarketism. Damn communists. What's more to understand?

This I feel reflects the "Dark Side" of the advertising industry. Contrary to popular belief the entire industry is not full of shady practices and narcissism, though for some it may certainly feel that way. Sex appeal is what some companies try to use as a means to attracting new buyers to their product. And it makes perfect psychological sense, if you subscribe to Sigmund Freud. These however are examples of it being done in a tactless fashion, which is harmful to the industry image as a whole.

This series of increasingly offensive, misleading ads is one more reason to have Adblock Plus : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

Maybe it was just my education, but if I were to judge the advertising/marketing community based on the people who were educated as such... none of this would surprise me and indeed it doesn't.

Smart and non-horndog business students were few and far between.

I'm Borat and this is "very nice!"

Bahaha... I've seen most of these ads except for that last one, which made me choke on my laughter. It's so hilariously blatant and devoid of even the faintest context.

I've never seen that last one in the wild either. I was quite shocked to see the second to last on a site that I visit.. slashdot I think it was.

This is a particularly (and absurdly) tacky example, but I'm having a hard time thinking of the last time I saw an advert for one of these 'free' browser games that didn't have boobs somewhere on it. Though maybe I just don't notice the others...

Great post! I've noticed all the ads shown except the last one.

This could make a great case study for online advertising.

Sex sells, but in this case, what were they selling?

Only one banner gave a clue with "Build Your Empire. Rule the World!"

Wow, boobies in advertising? no shit... if you had _any_ form of adblocking think of all the time you could have saved 1) writing the article 2) all the drones that read this article... me included... thank you for wasting my time... get some sort of adblocker...

up next, spammers declare my penis will get bigger! how dare they!

I wonder what the logical conclusion to this sequence of ads is. A pair of ovaries? I hope their game is a spectacular commercial failure.

Bill Hick's saw where this was going decades ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiMw1Q65d4

Hey, a new one!
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4620/civonybewbs.png

I played evony for a while, but their Flash interface is slow and clunky and their game is *the* most expensive freemium game on the internet.

In the game you can control up to 10 cities and each city has a certain number of buildings you can build (~40 resource and ~40 city buildings) and you choose how much of which building to make. Each building can be upgraded up to level 10. Here's the catch: To upgrade a building from lvl 9 to lvl 10 you need Michelangelos Script (one for each building). They cost 5$ each. An item for increasing ingame income for 7 days, costs 28$. If you dont like where you are and want to change your position on the map, the random Teleport scroll will cost you 3$ (or 9$ if you wanna pick where you wanna land).

And lets not even talk about the fact that you have to pay per line to talk in world chat.

As for the interface, there are way too many modal dialogs. And it has memory leaks so you have to restart the browser after several hours of playing or it will become much slower (and Task Manager will show your browser eating gigabytes of RAM).

OTOH, the tutorial and quests are very nicely done.

Oddly enough, I found your site and this thread through a purposeful Google of the Civony/Evony ad. Specifically, the second to last ad you have pictured. You can't imagine how rare it is to see a woman pictured with...well, how I put this...hanging breasts. There's a better view at http://www.evony.com/evonyyahoo1.html?yahoo1. My goodness...I never though I'd post blog comment with a better view of boobs.

But truly, to see online or anywhere else, a set of advertising breasts anywhere that aren't so perky they could cut glass, or just set up to wetnursedly suckle the nation, well, it's remarkable. No flower-shaped areola, no ceiling-pointed pencil-eraser-like nipple; just a normally large flopped over heavy breast. It's remarkable. !

Truly, you (and Civony/Evony) have no idea how many of us women and girls there are with breasts like this that'd love to see ourselves positively portrayed online. You have no idea. Enough so that I'd Google the image and respond on some message board I know nothing about.

The game may indeed suck. And the advertising may have nothing to do with it. And that must be annoying, and I think the developers and advertisers deserve a kick in the shins for that. But holy cow I can't believe a normal large-sized boob made it into a mainstream ad!!! I am, at this moment, slightly less ashamed of my similarly-shaped, overlarge, floppy breasts.

Mike Judge (THE Mike Judge?) is right - this is desparation marketing and a sure sign their business model is failing (has failed) and they're desparately seeking a way to get people through the door in any way possible.

One one level, it works - I'm definitely noticing their ads more. But clicking on them? If their ads are so lacking in creativity I can't imagine there's a lot of originality or much to engage with in their game. So no.

Actually. had a look at the Queen of Evony thread posted by Jeff above. once you get past the COSPlay weirdness there seems to be a fair amount of females playing the game, with some of them being quite good looking too.

Hell if I'm honest some of those girls are much prettier that you'd normally see playing this kind of game.

I guess their, in my opinion, annoying tactics have little effect on the players already playing and enjoying the game...

I believe you have missed the real point here. What you are witnessing is the first deathnell of a dying industry - internet ads.

No one reads them and click throughs are mainly by accidently (when they aren't pity clicks or click fraud).

Can you blame them for getting desperate to draw eyes to their ads when most people just flat out ignore them? (when they even see them thanks to ad blocking)

I've actually noticed a number of these sorts of ads floating about in the more fringe areas that are not yet part of my ad blocking filter. Views of busty characters which do not accurately represent game play at all. They do, however, get people to click through to find that out. Some stay, most leave.

Sadly, this can only last for a while. Eventually people will realize that even the boob ads are a bait and switch and stop clicking through.

When that day happens, Google will suffer a fatal ecconomic blow that is likely to cause some serious economic ripples (bets on how it compares to the current "difficulties"? Google gets deeper into the economy every day. When it finally fails, it ought to be impressive!)

Hey, I haven't commented in a while. I think I prefered orange to the new nearly unreadable but probably eminently defeatable captcha.

Wow, that's a civ clone? I was convinced it was a soft-porn RPG from the ads. They are certainly ... not in very good taste. Now I like civ, and I like breasts, but I'm fairly sure attempts to combine the two are only going to end in tears.

And is it just me, or does the one with the sword in particular suggest some unfortunate implications?

@Female Gamer:

"Something else I've noticed over the years: It used to be that women played primarily healers of some type, with a few dps casters."

I can't help but think the healer = female stereotype was brought in from Japanese role playing games. Final Fantasy is particularly bad about this stereotype, at least in the games where the player classes are fixed: Rosa from Final Fantasy IV, Aeris from Final Fantasy VII, Garnet/Dagger from Final Fantasy IX, Yuna from Final Fantasy X...

Of course, the last two are both summoners, which in the later games seems to double as White Mage... Final Fantasy's healing class.

I know my friend Emily has been an exception to the women playing healing classes. She has played MMOs longer than I have, and she's always liked playing DPS classes.

In World of Warcraft, her favorite classes are Rogue and Warlock.

@Rob Gilliam:
"Mike Judge (THE Mike Judge?) "
Yes, THE Mike Judge. Can't you tell the resemblance to King of the Hill?

P.S. THE Mike Judge also made Office Space, one of the greatest movies of our time. ;)

I have been collecting information about Evony here: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/10/dont-play-evony/

Basically it looks like Chinese gold farmers going first party.
The game is a rip off of other games.
The advertising misrepresents the game.
They are spamming up Google AdSense.
They are spamming up lots of blogs (including mine).
They are charging a lot of money for very little.
And they are frequently losing player's money.

@wickethewok: LOL, I don't think Idiocracy is very highly rated anywhere. It just touches on subject matter that is very relevant to the internet culture of today and is referenced frequently for that reason.

I clicked for the boobs, stayed for the game.

i seriously thought you added in that last one as a joke, wow.

captch: "dumps Much" lawl

Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With THAT One?

Haha. That last one is just hilarious. What a transition! From the fantasy chick to just a plain ol set of bewbs!

You obviously haven't seen the ads for IMVU, the online virtual world for tween girls and their would-be pedophilic stalkers. I used to work there and I can't even count the number of times a parent called to complain because they thought their 13yr old daughter was playing some innocent online dress-up-and-chat-with-friends game, but then happened to see one of the softcore ads floating around the Web.

These ads are relevant to my interests.

I took a peep on the "depressing" "submit pictures of yourself to become the queen of Evony" thread posted by Jeff above and uh... huh. Some of those young ladies were rather attractive.

http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?s=0959f2cdad18661272de2a0e89183e28&t=11313&page=3
The blonde in the white dress is also relevant to my interests.

This story just got picked up by gawker.com Jeff!

Apparently you tapped a vein.

"Remember, Yahoo Spades and Diner Dash are "online games" too..."

Yes, but they are in a completely different class than the game in question, so using a general, wide brushed "online gaming" shouldn't be used when discussing this particular niche.

It's a bit like saying "women are more into muscle cars than men because more women drive cars". Yet, I can look at pretty much any car magazine and see a near naked women lying on the hood of a camero and easily determine that the statement is clearly false.

Ah, yes, the continuing evolution of the Idiocracy. Good post.

HAHAHAHAHA

That progression of ads is hilarious. The graph of blatant crass exploitation vs. time must look like a factorial.

Also: now that "Orange" is gone, witness the endless parade of pointless "captcha: _____" lines ending posts.

If they're trying to get hits, I'm sure this works awesome. But are people really buying the game because of that?

What has this come to?

Go to Wowhead.com, and you'll see these square and vertical banner Evony ads. (2nd to last ad)

Her boobs are actually exposed, but nothing shows. They're just 2 blobs.

SERIOUSLY, YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THROUGH.

Tsk, tsk. Just because the advertising in your blog (overt and less so) is more highbrow, don't hate!

I found another one:
http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/a1/3d/c4/e3/a13dc4e332e19f76665ca9626dc50579.gif

This is getting kinda ridiculous. You can hardly see the Evony logo anymore.

Wow! I had no idea the ads had degenerated to that point. I signed up for the game back when it was using the first ad. There are NO boobs in the game, it's all 2D tile city and map graphics. Well, some of the players are boobs, but not like the ones they advertise.

If you're talking about Evony's bad marketing, talk about iEvony. They want you to download a program, and put in your chat and email passwords, so they can send advertisements in your name to your friends.

They give everyone a subdomain, like axus-buy.evony.com, and encourage you to spam with it, like I just did. For each person that signs up, you get a coin. Oh, but only one to five coins per day. And it takes 50 coins to buy regular items, and hundreds for the good stuff.

It is a fun game, but the advertising stinks.

I've seen some of their artwork elsewhere, in a context that suggests their ad-guys are big into art/photo theft and copyright infringement. Big surprise.

That's just horrible!

[fap, fap, fap]

I saw those ads as well, annoying as hell. I can't believe they actually used that last one, it's like a pornsite ad my God.

I admit, I clicked on it and played it for awhile, like 5 minutes, and I soon realized that there are no chicks, and you have to PAY to CHAT. Holy fuck....If anyone is tempted to play cause of the boobs, there won't be any in the game LOLOL.

Seriously, I don't get who would play that game at all, it's a total rip of civ and another browser game called Travian.

I actually clicked on that game and tried to play it, it's real problem is not a lack of breasts but that it utterly sucks. It kept telling me to build cottages, build cottages, so I did. Then I ran out of wood and that was it. I couldn't buy any more even though I had tons of gold, I couldn't go cut any in the woods, I was just screwed.

Then it told me I could buy some, with real money. Spend my REAL money, on their imaginary goddamn wood.

Stupid goddamn game, I quit.

Just to let you know, I've come accross another one of those adverts not shown here.
you can find it on this page at the time of posting this message:
http://www.mmocrunch.com/2009/06/10/evony-review/

Another low stoop to advertising.
Better get going to that site so you can add it to the list.

Reminds me of a movie I saw the other day..
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boobage.

I have been waiting since 1993 to use that line. :)

I think the outraged offense coming from the female gamers is absolutely hilarious. I'm pretty sure that the evony makers are not too concerned about alienating you. We can pretty much see who their target audience is, and its the group that ogles mammaries, not the group that grows them.

What's wrong with tits? Tits are nice. Women should find them thankful for that men are interested in their cleavages instead of a hairy men's back cleavage..

Did they just ramp it up a bit?

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/2472/croppercapture9.jpg

Brilliant post, as for the person who commented that when you are struggling you'll resort to anything - well, maybe, but certainly not virtually incoherent,appallingly worded miss-spelled crap.

This reminds me somewhat of my puzzling over the gallery of foreign editions of the book "Freakonomics."

http://freakonomicsbook.com/gallery/index.html

Each edition is slightly similar, translated and tailored to each country and language. But for some reason, the Turkish version just has a bikini chick on the cover.

I now picture Turkey as the embodiment of the Idiocracy.

Like real life when i see desperate woman showing cleavage I think of viruses.

Uhm, why did I get a popup that leads me to this game?

Sorry to say this but the ad worked on me.
1. At first I thought what a stupid ad.
2. But eventually I saw the ad so many times I went joined up as a free player.
3. Irritating ads can work as they get a reaction.

Dammit Shawn, you win. Best comment on the page.

To the individuals who are shocked (or amused) by the fact that female gamers are offended by this: Really? What's it like to be an idiot?

I mean, I find this progression of ads to be pretty hilarious, but only because they're SO WRONG. An intelligent reaction to them--not so much.

I have seen that boob ad a million times in the past week and only just now did i learn what the ad was selling lol

Hundreds of girls in your area are hot, horny, and waiting to chat with YOU!

What I see as a beautiful piece of irony is that the Evony ads are not allowed to be posted on their forums, under grounds of being inappropriate, as proven by this post - http://bbs.evony.com/showpost.php?p=259522&postcount=218

Ah, the joys of hypocrisy.

Here's our take on their spam abuse and their new drastic action against their members (after we complained that day) : http://www.mmogrindhouse.com/game-news/bizarre/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-the-next-spam-queen/

Hahahahahaha, I didn’t believe you at first (on that last image), until I SAW THIS (a new version):

http://i25.tinypic.com/2uggn6h.png

Cheers
-Martín

I'm playing this other webgame for a while now which displays these Ebony ads and I noticed these transform into cheap blatent softcore pr0n as well.

It doesn't really stimulate me to play the game though. In fact if that's the kind of tactics they are using to get people to play the game, it makes you wonder what kind of gamers you'll find in there.

Funny stuff though.

Great Article! Thanks for pointing it out. It annoyed the hell out of me as well.

You forgot one intermediate design of that ad, I think it completes the evolution:
http://www.gamedesignreviews.com/evony.jpg

Re: Krystian Majewski

http://www.gamedesignreviews.com/evony.jpg

more like, undress me now, my lord :)

ARGH I'm sick of seeing it on EVERY single web page I visit...
I don't even understand what going on...?
Is it a medievil RPG?
Are the graphics cartoony (The ad with the man), 3D (The ad with the woman and a sword pointing at her knockers) or a browser (The rest of the ads)?
Why is everyone in a random field?

Grr

Translation of Evony ads: "We are total sleazebags. Hand us your credit card!"

Is Evony putting trojan malware onto your computer?: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/16/is-evony-malware/

Thanks Jeff for this post. I have been noticing these ads all over and thinking how ridiculous they are.

"Play Discreetly" took the cake. Hadn't seen the last version yet.

I'm pretty impressed that a lot of people are missing the biggest problem here.

These ads are disgusting not just because they are misleading. These ads are disgusting because they objectify women. If you really don't see the problems with objectification and how this is sexist, please take a moment to go educate yourself about it.

As a female gamer I can say bullshit like this is the biggest reason more women don't game. That aside, I'm disappointed that an article like this doesn't even mention the sexism. At first I thought it was because it was so obvious--but based on the comments I guess not.

I agree with Rhea. I am a female gamer who happens to play Evony (but thank god I haven't spent any money on it).
Let me tell you that all of us on the forums are very unhappy about the ads but all we've been told is:
http://bbs.evony.com/showpost.php?p=259522&postcount=218
and
http://bbs.evony.com/showpost.php?p=259523&postcount=219

And when the sexism what brought up these fake ads were made by a player:
http://bbs.evony.com/picture.php?albumid=359&pictureid=2346

http://bbs.evony.com/picture.php?albumid=359&pictureid=2276

Who was then warned for posting such images as they are not family friendly and may be mistaken as official Evony ads- and this was before the boobie ads.

Evony is time-bomb of player unrest. Either they will change or they will die as their players get enough and leave.

last time i saw one was with that women whos looking up and her cleavage was showing and i was like "WOAH SHIT THOSE ARE SAGGY 0.o" because they looked huge.

"These ads are disgusting not just because they are misleading. These ads are disgusting because they objectify women." YES! How dare they do that thing with the objectifying I demand to know the hopes and dreams a pair of breasts have, you can't just enjoy looking.

"As a female gamer I can say bullshit like this is the biggest reason more women don't game."
I agree! Just like this same bullshit that is on TV keeps women from watching!

I imagine males must make up about 90%+ of the North American market for browser based games - Andrew

Andrew, I know exactly what you mean. I imagine that unicorns are real.

Okay I have been imagining for a while now and there are still no unicorns. This game sucks. Your game sucks, Andrew. We are no longer XBox Live friends. I want you to send me back that girl avatar I made you that got you all those guy gamer friends online.

And the friendship bracelet I made you. Don't think I have forgotten about it.

They need more free game ,Games that show fight foe one thing

Jeff, Did you make that post intending to generating a sudden surge in reader comments.. I hope you didn't.. but doesn't that prove it, sadly sex or adulterated content -just- sells. and sadly makes this one the recent hottest post of yours.

It is the importance such content is given that encourages them more.. its like buying birds in cages to save birds from being caught and being sold.

Imagine with all that so-called progressiveness in their Ads, Evony could finally interest jeff to write a post on it and generate free-clickthroughs for them.

Evony is nowhere near the bottom.

Up until the next to last ad, I might potentially have clicked the ads and played the game. Though it got progressively more "sexy" (And I use the word loosely), it still seemed like a medieval game.
The last one however, I can't fathom. It looks like a porn ad more than anything. In my opinion, it does them more harm than good by far. People who would be likely to actually play the game and pay for what isn't free would be turned off by the ad which looks like nothing like a browser game and the horny 40-years old virgins would just stand asking "Where the hell are the *titties*?!!"

I arrived here after being annoyed at all the Evony crap and Googling them out. The new girl in their ads looks like a transsexual.

hahah after mentioning this blog posting to a friend yesterday, he read an online article in the Guardian (UK newspaper) deriding Evony's advertising campaign and mentioning this very article!

Jeff, your musings have gone mainstream :p

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/jul/15/games-evony-spam-internet

This Evony advertising thing is pissing me off, too. Every time I visit sites like wowwiki (which I do quite often), my mom is like "OMG pr0n sites!" ... *sigh*

Jeff Atwood. Master of incorporating references to Idiocracy into his blog posts.

Absolutely hilarious. Won't be seeing these ads on our forums any time soon :p

Here's an upcoming EmpireCraft, friends of friends of Evony, the empire strikes back with more ads & comment spams soon - http://www.mmogrindhouse.com/game-news/bizarre/the-war-craft-strikes-back-save-us-from-spam-my-lord/

Are they advertising game or porn? I don't know!

Are they advertising game or porn? I don't know!

I would loooooooove to play those tits, errr, i mean games, or game, rather...

ooops, I got distracted, what were they selling again? I ain't buying.

Jeff, I find your blog absolutely hilarious.

Keep going please, mate!!!

Tom,
Montréal.

That is halarious!

"SEX.

Now I have your attention, please play my game."

It's a standard approach to advertising, it's just that this is the first time it's been quite so blatant (outside of mainland Europe).

Do you think this could be the next civony ad? http://themegalolz.blogspot.com/2009/03/gay-test.html

There's even more of them now. It really annoys me.... its just so stupid.

Google should do something about this. There are sites which I just plain don't visit any more with kids in the room because of the inappropriate ads.

Nothing wrong with using sex to sell to either gender (I'm female).

The ads amuse me, because I think they have realised that their game sucks ass, and so they're resorting to progressively cheesier (or sexier, depending on how you feel) ads to get people to play it.

Aeria games uses the same tactic to promote Shaiya, but it's actually a decent game. Pox Noria had some half-dressed elf bimbo on one of their ads a year or two ago, but they dropped that tactic.

The Guardian has written an article about this post:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/jul/15/games-evony-spam-internet

Im sad to say, the Advert worked on me, and I even payed 5$ to get some gredits. But Ive scome to the realisation, it is all a load of BS, and the game is a complete waste of time. Yeah I liked it for a bit, but then, it is as I said, a waste of time, and yes Money. What their doing is wrong, with the Spamming and all. False advertising is wrong, and illegal, and Ive have just cancelled my account.

It has amused me, the depth of their lieing in their advertising, that they have become such a large game. I personally think, there are more genuine games out there, that may be struggling because of sites like Evony. Well evony has just lost eanother member.

Haha, this is my first time seeing 2nd and 3rd Ad.
Check out our parody of the what happened in the comic below:

http://toblender.com/comic/?p=438

Check out our parody of the ad campaign in the comic below:

http://toblender.com/comic/?p=438

Must play ... web .. game ...

Heh, when I saw the first of those ads, I wondered if I should start collecting them for eventual mockery. Of course, I never got around to it; thanks for saving me the trouble, Jeff! :-)

scared of boobies! wah! evony bad!

In the Netherlands we have this sarcastic saying of what makes a movie top notch:

"Guns, boobs and choppers"

It is not

"Dude. Sword."

I would surely love to see guns and choppers added, then all I can do is quote @ebbechi

"Must play ... web .. game ..."

It looks like Popcap was inspired by these ads :)
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/7492/popcappvzad.jpg
(as seen on penny-arcade.com)

I have seen these ads and its obvious to me that they went from advertising to trying to be pretty much on topic but "sexy", to alittle too much on the "sexy" end, to desperate, to not telling you anything but CLICK HERE TO PLAY OUR GAME...BOOBS...., to trying to actually trick people into thinking its a porn game. i looked at the game (pictures and summaries) and thought it looked pretty cool. but since the ads were focused on....boobs, i decided not to play, they obviously care more on getting people to play then actually caring for the game. SO BOTTOM LINE, EVONY LOOKS LIKE A A GROUP OF 12 YEAR OLDS THREW A CONTEST TO SEE WHO COULD MAKE THE BEST ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THERE FRIENDS GAME.......IF THEY ARE THAT DESPERATE, THEY SHOULD JUST MAKE THE GAME AN ACTUAL ADULT GAME WITH ACTUAL BOOBS....not that i would play it then either.....well id try it......a few times....

Amazing, I remember seeing the earlier ads and thinking that were pretty uninspiring and could do with some imagination. True to form, the marketing people avoided having any actual ideas and just added more tits - brilliant!

I saw a signup screen for this game on my six year old son's computer complete with buxom medieval blonde. Navigating back with his browser, it appears he clicked on a banner ad on a Disney Games site! I'm no prude but, he's no dummy. A few minutes longer and he would have signed up and started playing. Seems I can't safely leave him playing Disney games anymore.

hahah imagine doing research in school and at the top of wikipedia there is huge tits. then in fine print: copyright Evony TM
it will one day be normal to have naked chicks having sex on every web page of the internet. no one will mind, whether at school researching or playing Nickelodeon.com games with their 5 year old...

FYI the children's software maker PopCap is making fun of this terrible ad campaign in their new banner ads. I saw it on penny-arcade.com today.
Snapped the pic at http://tinyurl.com/korghd

There is also the sexist Queen of Evony competition: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/31/queen-of-evony-competition/

I actually tried out the game. I was just looking around for MMORPGs and came across this one. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact they need money to speed up everything, fat chance someone's going to hand it over to them.
The game system isn't quite as bad and provides a clean polished interface. I mean, its nothing like the ads.

Wow, I didn't know woman/ladies in the medieval age wear modern-day bras.

The crazy part, for me, is that I've only seen the second-to-last ad, and until I happened to see the "build your empire, rule the world" part, I was convinced that Evony is a Christian musical artist ("Play now, my Lord. Play discreetly in your browser for free"). Which normally all the boobs in the world would not convince me to click on, either.

I own a browser based game and saw those ads and laughed and actually considered advertising just like it since it obviously works.

http://www.lostcity.cc

I am sad to report they have actually got worse. I went to SendSpace this morning and was bombarded with pictures of a woman clad only in panties, lying face down to conceal her breasts, accompanied by the caption 'Come Play My Lord'. I wondered what all the soft-core porn was in aid of until I noticed the tell-tale Evony font.

To prove that I'm not making this up: here is the offending image. Not safe for work! The only place I've seen it in context so far is SendSpace, but it was all over the place there.

I'm afraid I have to report they have actually got worse. I went to SendSpace this morning and was bombarded with pictures of a woman clad only in panties, lying face down to conceal her breasts, accompanied by the caption 'Come Play My Lord'. I wondered what all the soft-core porn was in aid of, until I noticed the tell-tale Evony font.

To prove that I'm not making this up: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4065/248dd150e15ffaa25d882a6.jpg

Not safe for work! The only place I've seen it thus far is SendSpace, but it was all over the place there today.

I'm afraid I have to report they have gotten worse. I went to SendSpace this morning and was bombarded with pictures of a woman clad only in panties, lying face down to conceal her breasts, accompanied by the caption 'Come Play My Lord'. I wondered what all the soft-core porn was in aid of, until I noticed the tell-tale Evony font.

To prove that I'm not making this up: http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4065/248dd150e15ffaa25d882a6.jpg

SendSpace is the only place I've seen it 'in the wild' so far. Not safe for work!

*headdesk*

Apologies for the repeated post, I kept getting an error message.

Anyone seen this variation of it?

http://media.photobucket.com/image/evony+ad/NoTomorrow_2009/ev.jpg?o=5

Hope the link works.

Another, similar
http://videogamer.today.com/files/2009/07/evony.jpg

According to a comment on this blog
http://setonstun.com/2009/07/video-game-marketing-bait-switch-clickthroughs-boobies/

... the following very risque ad came before all of the above ones, even the very non-sexual 'knight' images.
http://blog.arhg.net/2009/04/are-civony-ads-most-risque-ones-on.html

Thus, it looks like what we are seeing is NOT indeed a progression from tame images getting more and more sexual, but more of a continuation of a theme that was established from the very start.

nice ads, nice game. I tried it after my attention was atracted by a pair of nice breasts.
It,s nice and you can play it for free, So no problem there..

Erik must work for Evony.

The good thing is, its free !!!

These, on the other hand, are outstanding parodies of the ads:

http://www.offworld.com/2009/08/the-new-secretness-popcaps-lat.html

Zombies FTW!

...

What has the world of advertising come 2?

Those are getting ridiculous. I wonder when they'll cut the money train and measure traffic. Perpetual hype machine - eventually runs out of money. $money_in < $money_out

We are web developers and have followed the Civony/Evony ad progression (regression) too. Thank you for the article.
I signed up for the game at Beta stage to compare it with other games. I couldn't believe the direction of the ads, as it has NOTHING to do with the game itself. The last one and playing secretly is bizzare as again it is unrelated to any aspect of the game.
That they've gone this route is one issue, but my problem with it is that the ads are showing up in other serious gaming sites and gaming related sites and are quite inappropriate for the audiences that frequent those sites. I think that the sites displaying the ads should police it, or that Civony/Evony should receive some 'punishment' for not taking that into consideration.

As a morally sound, beautiful, classy, sexy, intelligent, (and yes, big breasted) female who would make any female cartoon in these ads bubble over with jealousy, I have a few comments. I was asked to play this game by a male friend. I arrived at the login page and was turned off... That is what lead me to this blog. I am happy to see so many intelligent males in here who were turned off to the cheap tactics and misleading ads. Those are the kind of males "real" and desirable, intelligent females like me want to spend time with. Not because we are intimidated, any of us can "sell out" in a heartbeat and earn millions. Smart men realize that this kind of advertising degrades men as much as it degrades women. I am far from being a prude. If you want sex, go out and start a meaningful relationship with the female of your choice and have it! I realize that sex sells... so I say to all those men who insist that these types of ads are harmless and appealing… then let’s start with ads featuring YOUR MOTHERs or your sisters in them! Men to a great degree still have more "power" in the world, both financially and politically.. intelligent men know it's not beneficial to them to take advantage of women... nor is it wise to take advantage of males less intelligent than themselves, who cannot see the big picture...I hope that when females keep stepping up and gaining more power in society this tactic doesn’t "bite many men in the butt." Maybe if women require men to wear form fitting clothing that defines the size and shape of men's sexual organs so they can compare you to each other based on your penis size for just one day, or make a man sit there and view half naked men in ads telling them how old, wrinkled, fat and undesirable they are, that would be enough to snap any guy who doesn’t agree with me out of his breast filled stupor! For any male young or old, who spoke against all this garbage I admire you greatly... and trust me... there’s a beautiful female out there just waiting for a "real man" like you to spend some time with her...so keep speaking out until she hears you! Don’t listen to the idiots out there who tell you that you aren’t a “man.” And parents who read this, teach your sons and daughters the same respect for one another. As for all you other guys who have nothing better to do but itch themselves and drool over cartoon or airbrushed images of females that don’t exist... think about what I am saying when you shut your computer off and have nothing to do but search out more false images in your magazines and tv sets... you will have plenty of time alone to do so.... and if you do have an unlucky female in your life... Then why do you have so much free time to play games? I bet she is out now, trying to avoid being with you, perhaps she is running up the credit card bill out of boredom or with her other man "playing discretely"… while you waste your life dreaming about nothing! I can just imagine all the filthy responses I will get to this comment from the disgusting men who feel this smut is pleasing, unfortunately, I probably won’t have time to read them. I will be off making love, traveling, and living out my fantasies instead of living IN my fantasies like you!

As a morally sound, beautiful, classy, sexy, intelligent, (and yes, big breasted) female who would make any female cartoon in these ads bubble over with jealousy, I have a few comments. I was asked to play this game by a male friend. I arrived at the login page and was turned off... That is what lead me to this blog. I am happy to see so many intelligent males in here who were turned off to the cheap tactics and misleading ads. Those are the kind of males "real" and desirable, intelligent females like me want to spend time with. Not because we are intimidated, any of us can "sell out" in a heartbeat and earn millions. Smart men realize that this kind of advertising degrades men as much as it degrades women. I am far from being a prude. If you want sex, go out and start a meaningful relationship with the female of your choice and have it! I realize that sex sells... so I say to all those men who insist that these types of ads are harmless and appealing… then let’s start with ads featuring YOUR MOTHERs or your sisters in them! Men to a great degree still have more "power" in the world, both financially and politically.. intelligent men know it's not beneficial to them to take advantage of women... nor is it wise to take advantage of males less intelligent than themselves, who cannot see the big picture...I hope that when females keep stepping up and gaining more power in society this tactic doesn’t "bite many men in the butt." Maybe if women require men to wear form fitting clothing that defines the size and shape of men's sexual organs so they can compare you to each other based on your penis size for just one day, or make a man sit there and view half naked men in ads telling them how old, wrinkled, fat and undesirable they are, that would be enough to snap any guy who doesn’t agree with me out of his breast filled stupor! For any male young or old, who spoke against all this garbage I admire you greatly... and trust me... there’s a beautiful female out there just waiting for a "real man" like you to spend some time with her...so keep speaking out until she hears you! Don’t listen to the idiots out there who tell you that you aren’t a “man.” And parents who read this, teach your sons and daughters the same respect for one another. As for all you other guys who have nothing better to do but itch themselves and drool over cartoon or airbrushed images of females that don’t exist... think about what I am saying when you shut your computer off and have nothing to do but search out more false images in your magazines and tv sets... you will have plenty of time alone to do so.... and if you do have an unlucky female in your life... Then why do you have so much free time to play games? I bet she is out now, trying to avoid being with you, perhaps she is running up the credit card bill out of boredom or with her other man "playing discretely"… while you waste your life dreaming about nothing! I can just imagine all the filthy responses I will get to this comment from the disgusting men who feel this smut is pleasing, unfortunately, I probably won’t have time to read them. I will be off making love, traveling, and living out my fantasies instead of living IN my fantasies like you!

English translation: "Since you're a gamer, we know that you're not man enough for a relationship with a real woman. Here, content yourself with pixels."

Why is it mostly women who find this message offensive?

@REALGIRL

"intelligent, (and yes, big breasted) female"

Both your tits hit the send key, sit further back ;)

I like the game. I have been playing for about four weeks now. Sure, the ads have nothing to do with the actual gameplay. The game, however, is fun and addictive.

And by the way, REAL GIRL, I am happily married. I am a grad student. During the summer, I work as a research assistant. I have the game running in the background while I sit in front of my computer for hours every day. Playing the game does not make me less intelligent or less of a man. Neither does it automatically mean that I condone the advertising tactics that the company uses.

Sigh. The thing about ads is that their goal is to get people to look at what the ad is for, not to ensure people are USING what the ad is for. Sure, the latter's a nice perk, but it's not what the ad folks are doing. Ads used to explain what things were for, how they worked, why they were the best choice for this, that or the other. Now, they're to be as short and "Look at me, investigate me on your own time" as possible.

If Evony is doing its own ads, it's scoring pretty high on "get people to click", but it's probably not doing nearly as well with "get people to play/pay after clicking." I can't really see the boobs tactic being indicative of a successful advertising campaign, but the complete opposite: We've run out of artists and ideas, and we're losing money, so here's some tits.

Could be wrong. Not overly concerned if I am. These ads make me weep.

Also, REAL GIRL is a moron. I'm a chick too, but I'm not gonna use that to back up or justify my opinions.

If you want equality, stop making a point of your gender, dumbass.

Out of all of this, I think the fact that they lifted the women's images from catalog sites without their knowledge or consent and without paying them a thing... bothers me more than the rest of it.

Is sex really selling this game though? I mean, most people leave after they see that its really some bland civ clone. I can't imagine this game making that much money if they're desperate enough to use such blatantly grasping ads.

""Also, REAL GIRL is a moron. I'm a chick too, but I'm not gonna use that to back up or justify my opinions.

If you want equality, stop making a point of your gender, dumbass.

mremaknu on August 12, 2009 4:52 AM ""

YOU JUST MENTIONED YOUR GENDER (WHEN YOU SAID YOU ARE A CHICK TOO) TO ARGUE AGAINST "REAL GIRL." YOU JUST DID THE VERY THING THAT YOU CALLED HER A DUMBASS FOR DOING. I GUESS YOU DID USE THAT TO BACK UP AN OPINION! IN YOUR OWN WORDS, THAT MAKES YOU A MORON!

I just had an idea!! What if evony and adblocker are in-leage w eachother!! They ake asnnoying adds and people pay ddblocker to stop those adds. Addblocker gives half the money to evony. Meanwhile, the people who do play evony pay money for it and evony gets even more money. I say, "GET OVER IT!!!" And/Or Put up with it!!!

They've taken the advertising one step further - now their models don't even have clothes on!!

http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/78/a3/20/a7/78a320a78273b1021eafba84d30386da.jpg

This game sucks. Don't play it.

http://www.xkcd.com/603/

XKCD really is the worst webcomic ever

The game looks like something from the 80s. And not a good something like The Simpsons or Delorian... a bad something like crack or HIV.

http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/24/8d/d1/50/248dd150e15ffaa25d882a634502c05c.jpg

There's the full version of the one Adam posted. What's next? Sexually explicit .gif's?

...

Ads on the internet either amuse me or anger me, depending on my mood. Either way, I guess I'm not their target audience, eh?

Honestly?

As a girl gamer, I clicked on the Evony ad because the ad popped up all over the place and I wanted to see what the deal was (and because I happen to like the graphics). After playing a while, I stayed for the game. As far as I can tell, genders are fairly even; guys don't outstrip ladies in the players department by any large margin.

'Sex sells'- it certainly does, and it's not going to change any time soon, so just go with the flow. Or get yourself worked up every time you turn on the TV, drive down a main road or surf the net. Whichever.

From here I'll err from the topic and follow my moral urge to respond to some comments made above on the game.

You don't need to spend money to be successful in the game. Evony provides plenty of ways to get players the things that they need without having to resort to money.

I notice that a few ex-players have commented that to speak in World Chat, you need to pay. Why on earth do you need to speak in 'World Chat' when no one uses it? Just speak on normal(beginners) chat for heaven's sake- which, may I say, is free.

If you really wish to speak in World Chat, spin the wheel- again, free- once a day, and more often than not, you get speakers, which enable you to chat in world chat. Or just follow the speakers quest and presto- you get speakers.

The only thing that really is a problem is the occasional server meltdowns. Some people also get kicked out of servers on a semi-regular basis, but can't say that from experience as it doesn't happen to me.

The 'play discreetly' refers to the fact that you can change the browser headline so if your boss is looking at your taskbar, you look like you're being productive.

*Steps off soapbox*

LOL GIRL GAMER

The irony is that THIS post is the ad for the game. This is an example of pure viral marketing - they know exactly what they're doing, trick some silly blogger write about how bad the ads are and get everyone who reads that blog pay attention to it that way.

Seriously,they're using PORN to advertise?
I'll say that the game has completely nothing to do with boobs...or sex if that's what they want to attract guys to.

I've just seen an ad for this that doesn't even mention the name of the game. It just says 'Play now, my lord'

This is an example of pure viral marketing - they know exactly what they're doing, trick some silly blogger write about how bad the ads

sounds like something horrible that world of warcraft would try

oh wait, that's exactly what they already do

Abercrombie & Fitch on Sale, Hoodies, Jeans, T-Shirts, Pants, Polos abercrombie and fitch abercrombie fitch abercrombie cheap abercrombie fitch Abercrombie Men Tee abercrombie womens polos Abercrombie & Fitch Men, women, and children's clothing

Tiffany Jewellery barely 2-year-old result called Iridesse is set to the more Tiffany Key Rings South Coast Plaza setting was the jeweler’s supreme tome branch stockTiffany Bracelets diamonds are about more than absolute condition, cut and beauty - they are one of our diamonds underscores.Tiffany Sets reputation as a world premier jeweler synonymous with diamonds of the finest feature,” added Bennett.

i really hate those adds, they're on every freaken website i go to, seriously, at first its a knight, now taking a picture of someones breast and turning THAT into an add to arouse us to get to play. really? just dumb....XD

hahahahaha is that nude advertisement actually real????????????? so sad...

I really wonder how much further they can go in this vein of advertising... And whether they keep pushing it because it's actually working well, and thus they think going further will work better, or because it's not well, and they think going further will help.

A person I know works in advertising and manages a small ad campaign for a company selling refurbished PDAs. They found the click thru rate of their ads lower than they wanted so as an experiment they used a bikini clad model next to a PDA (enlarged so it was the same size as the girl) and the click thrus increased rapidly. After a week they discontinued the ad because:

(a) This wasn't how they wanted to sell their products as it didn't seem ethical (ie being sexist and further supporting the theory that sex sells).
(b) Whilst it showed it can increase sales they realised they would loose some of their existing and potential customers.

Basically, sell their products in an open, honest fashion and grow the service gradually thus creating longevity for the business rather than grab a quick buck.

i just saw another one... http://tinypic.com/r/359xzy9/3

Yeah the ads are getting more and more overt. I saw one today I wish i took a screen cap of it, it was hilarious. It had the "play now, my Lord" caption, with a woman on all fours wearing no top.

Just wanted to point out for everyone asking about the "Play Discreetly" that every game window on the game (I played it for a while early in this year) has a button you can use to rename the page, so that your tab/window running Evony can be made to say "Annual Finance Report" or whatever would make sense for keeping you out of trouble at work or school.

My opinion has been posted hundreds of times on this thread, so I'll give just the summary: the ads got retarded. I should mention that "in-game" there is never even a mention of a Queen in any way, it's a city-builder with complicated advancement and capture rules, no characters and especially no women, nearly naked or otherwise.

Further developments...

http://content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net/atoms/24/8d/d1/50/248dd150e15ffaa25d882a634502c05c.jpg

Hehe, the Evony ads have been Graph Jammed.
http://graphjam.com/2009/09/11/song-chart-memes-advertisements-cheezburger/

I just found this awesome new game called Evony, click here to play!

(.) (.)

The ironic thing about the evony ads is that the ads and any discussion of the ads has been banned in the evony forums. I guess evony doesnt mind polluting the internet with it`s deceptive ads but they sure dont want them or any discussion of them on their own site.

Really? I have seen these stupid ads everywhere. Don't you hate when you are browsing the internet, minding your own business and then BAM!!! HELLO BOOBS! I think this is a disgusting way to advertise. My first thought when I saw this ad was "What is this even for?" My second thought was "I wonder how many husbands/boyfriends, including mine, have seen this?" And then "How many of them have clicked on it thinking it is leading them to porn?" I mean come on. Could the internet get any trashier? Don't answer that. All I know is that I wouldn't want my boyfriend running into this ad. Above all my son! It is things like this that snag kids at an early age and then pull them in deeper and deeper until they are addicted and can't find a way out. So now that stupid little advertisement that was intended for a game that has nothing to do with naked women has ruined them. It would be interesting to see the statistics of how many boys were negatively affected by this ad and how many relationships have been ruined by porn which very well could have started with this disgusting display of online advertising.

Obviously they're going to go with whatever gets them the most hits. Is it the fault of the advertisers, or the consumers who click teh boobiez? What's the big deal, anyway? Not a big fan of tomb raider then?

Thanks for this stuff.

I didn't play them either, every time I see the ads I just move my eye for other thing. Just bore with this kind of ads affected on men.

This picture is the one I get... http://www.bruceongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Evony-tits-advertising.jpg she doesn't even look real.In fact she looks a bit scary...I finally attempted to skip that ad in facebook.

is there a place to report misleading advertisment? i feel like i been fooled a year long with this war system they got in pwi ...

im SICK of these stupid adverts! i play evony myself and its nothing at all like what the adverts are showing!
it actually is a good game, you make great friends and the actual gameplay is kinda fun, but they going overboard with there silly adverts.
i have complained twice and i got nothing back, they chose to ignore me!
anyone care to complain too?

So, I actually play this game. And hate the ads. About a month ago, the land started to be clogged with little starter villages by Lords with names like "Boobie". Many of them didn't find what they came looking for, and just left. Others may have stayed for the game itself. No idea what percent.

Ironically, I've found more female players than male ones who play the game the way it was meant to be played, which may explain why they are trying to improve the balance.

As for the game - LOVE IT! I've had a ton of fun playing it, enjoyed the friends I've made there a lot, and recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of game. The ads are unfortunate.

Oh, and the discreet play option: you now can change the title in your browser so that the closed window *looks* work related.

lol theres another new add with a woman lying down w/o even a bra on. you can see her all but the tips of her breasts. when i first saw these adds i though they were for some online sex game

I actually joined evony at one of the mid-way advertisements (had been seeing enough ads and thought "they can post THAT many ads? Must mean a lot of people joining to fund such advertisement... I should take a look, it might actually be good."

Though, the reason boob advertising works is because of society. Most of modern civilization (especially the U.S.) has so many social sex-oriented-taboos that natural and understandable instinct is strongly repressed. Remember, we aren't born with clothes. In a natural state, we would constantly see breasts, and we'd become desensitized to them, and it wouldn't be a big deal. However, with our social norms, stuff like this is repressed, and thus any boobage is like water to a thirsty man, from an instinct standpoint, because guys aren't getting what they would naturally get almost constantly. (Note: This has also lead to the weird perversion where now nudity is naturally associated with sex. Think about that, due to our society, you can't be your natural self without being a sexual object.)

Long ago, women discovered they could control men to a degree by limiting sexual stimulation, and then only providing when their will was met. Corporations have just now caught the oldest trick in the book (again). If patterns follow past patterns...

Following the trend, sexual advertisement will continue to rise. Eventually, (partially thanks to articles like this one, enforcing the absurd 'sexually-oriented-stuff=bad' viewpoint), indignant mothers (who are having their age-old manipulation trick manipulated) and their crew, under the guise of 'moral superiority' when push in their countries where laws will be passed to limit sexually-oriented content. Then, companies will stop under fear of legal action for a time, and then slowly try to push the boundaries again. All this time, you will get sexually-repressed youth acting out in anyway they can, and thus being forced about by a tide of horomones they can't control.

Alternatively, we admit that the natural tendencies of humanity are nothing to be ashamed of, advertising goes 'out of control', people get desensitized, eventually 'boobage' is seen everwhere but it has no effect, old laws are repealled as people find them silly, people go about their daily lives with a lot less stress, and sexually-oriented stuff slowly moves back naturally to appropriate circles as it's advertising effect becomes effectively nill.

hey,i play this game,and i have to admit its not bad.and i dint click on it because of the pictures,my friend told me about it.yeah,its a wierd advertising idea,but the game is cool.

God I hate these campaigns. Just too blatant.

These ads are retarded, the old pictures are nothing compared to the ones up now, latest ones include a woman wearing bra and underwear just lying there and we get overhead view, and another one completely topless (using arm to cover). And i'm just here thinking wtf is with this gay company?

Theres a worse one!

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/9424/evonyk.png

This is the worse possible advertisement there is, the game has kids that play so it atracts adults looking for more besides playing a browsergame.

I'm still surprised that google didn't ban this ad.

Evony also has copyright infrigment as they use images from well known PC games in their game. Every post related to it on their boards gets instantly deleted and a ban follows.

And no I don't play , I signed up to see what is what and quit after a day.

md

Damn it, get these spammers off your comments!!

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Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

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Welcome to messengerfinder.com!

Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

We also have our own chat! Everyone is welcome to join, and it is 100% free! :)

Welcome to Messengerfinder!

Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

We also have our own chat! Everyone is welcome to join, and it is 100% free! :)

Welcome to messengerfinder.com!

Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

We also have our own chat! Everyone is welcome to join, and it is 100% free! :)

Welcome to messengerfinder.com!

Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

We also have our own chat! Everyone is welcome to join, and it is 100% free! :)

Welcome to Messengerfinder!

Messengerfinder is a msn contacts directory site, where you are allowed to add people from and create your own profile so that other people can add you.

We also have our own chat! Everyone is welcome to join, and it is 100% free! :)

i think the ads are funny, and hey it works!

i really dont see what the big fuss is over them, i always laugh because im thinking "what buissnes does this" anyhows, i started playing the game about 2months ago and have spent literally 0dollars.

it does make it harder for promotions in the game but it only take about 1-2days of farming to get the medals/etc you need.

This post made me literally laugh out loud. You are right about the dangers of the lowest common denominator though. Look how entertainment in general and politicians and et cetera pander to the lowest common denominator. This path doesn't have a pleasant destination.

Love or hate those Evony adverts, they have allowed the owners (UMGE) to prop evony up quickly - now claiming 8 million accounts. Now, not sure how many have paid for evony coins, but looking at alexa rankings - the evony site is sitting at 450 in the world at present! No mean feat.

It is good idea if you are taking the help of bold scene fo advertising your game but please re-think it is better idea to promote the game whose meaning is different as actual it show in front..

Did anyone else see this Onion article?
"Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M."
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nadir_of_western_civilization_to

It is highly relevant to this discussion.

Wow. There's a new one up:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=alome9&s=4

I really, really hate Evony.

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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along.
I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.

bewbs are nice i think

I am a student studying computer games design at uni and decided to investigate Evony.com.
Just to see what some of these games are like etc. etc.
The game is actually kind of cool (found myself addicted and even spent a little money on it).
But I started to notice HUGE bandwidth use by the site as I played.
I am not the only one either, there are comments on the evony forums about this.
This is odd because all of the client info, the animations etc. are all downloaded in one big download at the start.
There is no streaming media so I began to wonder what was going on.

To cut a long story short I decided to break the law and reverse engineer Evony's client.
Not to cheat. Not to rip them off or even to use even a scrap of the code.
But just to poke about a bit and find out what was going on, maybe even offer them some ways to improve things.

Aside from the fact that the whole thing is very poorly constructed (it is really very beginner coder level stuff. Reminds me of a lot of
what the first year students produce for assignments) it contained some very interesting information.

Included with the client are 2 peices of tracking software that monitor your web use and which applications you have open while the client is running.
These do not install independently on the machine though due to the limitations of flash and do not actually damage anything.
But they harvest massive volumes of information. My firewall was blocking a lot of outgoing transmissions and it turns out that these
were the data trying to be sent out. So they know nothing about me. lol.
However there is a LOT of data coming IN over the ports the client uses. In otherwords it is downloading something into my cache for use later.
I have bandiwdth restriction which slows these types of tricks down and I completely clear my cache every couple of hours if I am heavily using the net.

I also noticed that all the varanbles etc. are named Civony still and that there are multiple references to UMGE.
Even a couple of folders are simply called UMGE, one of these folders contains one of the spyware programs.
So I can only guess at where the data would end up if I didnt have a good firewall.

There are also commented out sections in the code which contain references to UMGE and Lam himself, though low on details.

Thank you for reading this.

Lee

The latest Evony ad is a girl masturbating. Seriously.

LOLZ i SAW A AD FOR EVONY WITH LESBIANS THEY WERE NEARLY NAKED LOOOLZ

WHO EVER IS OWNER OF EVONY GOT NO LIFE HE HAS NO GIRL NO NUTIN HE BE WATCHIN PORN ALL DAY LOLZ

When it comes down to, it's the final product that matters. I don't care about the way they marketed their product. Like somebody said already, they put girls next to cars all the time and people buy the cars anyway. If you're one of those who got into this game looking for boobs then it's your loss - you didn't do enough research on it. You'll be surprised it is a very nicely done massive multiplayer CIV game. I joined knowing this full well, and I hardly miss the boobs. And yes I know you have to pay to get more perks - the programmers have to be paid and the servers have to be maintained with money somehow...

I'm sure people reading this will appreciate this awesome comix:

http://comixed.com/2009/11/05/comics-comic-strip-yonkoma-false-advertising/

I'd bet this was some kind of graduate research project.

I've noticed these irritating ads for a long time on a different gaming website (the owners of the site kept trying to rid themselves of those ads, but the link for it kept changing). Out of curiosity I actually clicked the ad and was shocked at how crappy the game really was, and I was also shocked at how after I went to the site, my anti-virus program found a trojan. I can't really imagine how pissing off over half the people who use the internet will help these people with their business. I also can't imagine the damage it will do to the company if they successfully sue Jeff Atwood, after all it just shows that they're a bunch of babies that can't handle bad publicity.
Evony is pretty much an annoying presence on the internet that we have to deal with, like swine flu or those AXE commercials.