Evony is a browser based simulation game. It has come under criticism for its use of inappropriately nude women in its adverts. There have also been numerous claims that it has connections to an illegal Chinese gold farming company and records personal information about its users.
It is slowly becoming clear that Evony’s alleged owner David Guo picked the wrong guy to threaten with legal trouble. A few days ago UK based Bruce Everiss got a letter from a group of solicitors saying he had been harassing David Guo. On his blog, Everiss had posted pictures and information about Guo to help aid his defence against Evony’s defamation suit the US (allegedly actually China) based company filled against him via Australia.
After replying to a letter they sent him last Thursday which asked him to take down unspecified information, he got a reply. Whilst the solicitors are happy Everiss took down some information they want him to take it all down, by the deadline of today. The letter claims, seemingly incorrectly, that Everiss has no justification for posting the “personal” information. The letter also asks Everiss to take down information on other websites (which I have to assume means sites like this one, other blogs, Google etc.) which is silly.
Bruce Everiss, the guy being sued by the web game Evony for his highly critical blog posts (like this one), has removed half a dozen of his posts after receiving a courier-delivered letter from a legal firm at 11pm last night.
Everiss has been using his blog as a way to publicly share information found that relates to the legal actions being taken against him (even though Everiss is in the UK and Evony are US/China based, he is being sued via Australia). A legal firm acting on behalf of David Guo, assumed to be the owner of Evony (Google cache of article here), have accused Everiss of harassment.
Everyone’s favourite web game Evonyare currently in the process of suing a critical blogger named Bruce Everiss. Evony’s parent company is in China, Everiss is in England and so obviously the legal proceedings were brought about in Australia. Some have suggested Evony is abusing a legal loop hole to try to force Everiss (who has to actually visit a court in Sydney to defend himself) to give up. Bruce is fighting it, but recently has noticed that large amounts of online evidence is slowly being removed.
Part one of Everiss’ list of evidence being removed can be found on his blog. He points to things like the official wiki being changed to remove all mention of UMGE, an alleged Chinese gold-farming company Evony say they are totally unrelated to. He also points to a number of other UMGE websites and references strangely disappearing from the web.
Thankfully whilst the web may be editable, it also has enough toys to allow Everiss to show that the evidence did once exist, and that it has indeed been changed since the legal proceedings began.
Evony, the web-game who use porn-cover stock-photos to get traffic and who sue critical bloggers are up to their old tricks again. A set of new adverts have been appearing around the web on sites just like this one (I first found them here) and are nothing if not devious. The adverts are cropping up with no mention they link to Evony and are designed to blend into pages they appear on.
They are designed to con people into clicking on them by looking like they are part of the site. For example some are simply buttons labelled “download”, some are pairs of buttons labelled “back” and “next” . Worse still, some are simply the RSS logo. On any site that doesn’t label their adverts, this would look exactly like a normal subscribe link. Upon clicking, the user is greeted with a pair of tits and a sign up page for one of the web’s most hated games.
Videogame bloggerBruce Everisswas recentlysued for libelby the makers of the online game Evony. Essentially Mr.Everiss criticised the tactics Evony use (the tasteful ads and alleged business practices) and Evony didn’t like it.
A suit was filed against Mr.Everiss in New South Wales Australia, a place where neither Evony nor Mr.Everiss are based or even operate.
In yet another strange twist, it seems that Evony’s lawyer, a Mr. Dean Groundswater has fled the case. While we’re unsure why, Everiss guesses it could be that either Evony got rid of him, Groundswater left because the case is un-winnable or “the feeling was mutual” between Evony and Mr. Groundswater.
Regular readers will know of our containing coverage of the web game Evony. Have a watch of the above video and see what you think. Quite interesting I would say. (Spot the bit where they talk about information we found). Their legal action against bloggers appears to be loosing traction fast.
Just how low is the allegedly linked to Chinese gold farmers and suer of critics web game Evony? Well, they’re using models on their current sign up page also used on the front cover of a low-budget porn DVD from a couple of years ago – so that gives you some idea.
Left is a screen grab of the current Evony sign up page. Here is the iStock photo (where most of Evony’s t&a comes from these days) and here is the Amazon listing for Girls playing with Girls 102. (If you’re wondering, I used Tineye to search for the images, just in case you were confusing my finding of these images with some disturbingly in-depth knowledge of 2007 low-budget porn.)
As the image comes originally from iStock and not the film, the “two hot blonds in the tropics” are actually not in the video. The girls that are however were described in an Amazon review as looking “like they are on a 3 year meth binge”.
I think we all learn a bit more about ourselves on this podcast. Please don’t psychoanalyse us and tell us things about our parents. Also, sorry to disappoint but there’s no Lauren on this week’s show, as was promised in the forum. She’s silly busy doing “education” or something. This week we discuss:
Evony, a web game blocked from advertising on any self-respecting website, are suing a guy. Bruce Everiss claimed that Evony is a company set up by dodgy Chinese gold farmers and that they’re generally rubbish. Evony, hidden behind a veil of legal laws, are suing him (a UK resident) from Australia. Recently, things got even stranger.
It turns out (as dug up in a fantastic article on Popehat that you should read) Evony LLC incorporated themselves in Delaware 12 days after Bruce made his claims. The situation gets even less clear with the introduction of some other company named Assist Business Solutions, which seems to have no real reason to exist. Popehat sum up what a cynic might say very well.
Now, I’m no cynic, and only a cynic would suggest this, and so I’m not suggesting it: But a cynic might assume that the real owners of Evony, the game that according to Bruce Everiss advertises itself through tasteless breast shots and spam, chose to sue Bruce Everiss in Australia on the advice of Benjamin Gifford, a consultant employed to help the company develop its tasteless marketing and to quash criticism from journalists and bloggers like Bruce Everiss. Of course, I don’t suggest that. And I don’t suggest that Evony, LLC, which formed twelve days after Everiss’s alleged defamation, has nothing to do with Delaware, or Australia, and that the sole purpose of this suit is to bankrupt Everiss by requiring him to fly around the world in order to defend himself from baseless allegations of libel and defamation by Evony’s real owners, who pardon me, may not speak English so well, wherever they may be.
Evony, the advertise-by-tits, pay-for-power, pile-o-shit source of spam and amusement have sent legal documents to one of their loudest critics; Bruce Everiss. Here’s the first page.
PopCap has always, in my mind, been a company that makes “Fun for the whole family, except the actual gamers” games. With the release of Peggle in 2007 (and my subsequent inability to stop playing it), however, I reluctantly accepted the company into my gaming life.
Their recent tower defense title, Plants Vs. Zombies, furthered my appreciation for PopCap’s ability to craft a simple, but quality game. Now, their new advertising campaign has cemented them as straight-up badasses.
Thanks to Half Left for doing the header image, I think he worked out the exact situation that would result from us all entering the Tour de France. Joining myself and Halfie on this episode is Gandy and Brandon. Amongst other things we have a chat about:
The break music, which I failed miserably to properly introduce, is by The Electronical Toaster Project and the track is called John Adam’s Paints The Chair. You can find TETP’s (hope you don’t mind the abreviation) other awesome track and more info at myspace.com/toasterproject or follow James’ twitter.
Also, we do all very much apreciate the kind reviews and word of mouth, so keep them up!
For the most part of this week’s Vlog I just chatted about the new Community Reviews section in the forum. The idea is that you guys can now post your reviews up to NG where the rest of us can read it. Which I think is rather awesome. I also spoke briefly about the Evony adverts, and how I don’t want this site to end up being desperate for hits. Also, watching the video back, I too spotted the gap in my hawk at the back.
… or should that be “Evony reaches the lowest point possible”?
What you see to your left is not, as you should expect, the work of this article’s author. Nor is it the work of any other website commenting on the current buzz Evony is creating with is, ahem, interesting adverts. We here at Negative Gamer would like to think we are at the cutting edge of Evony journalism, and can say with some confidence that this is in fact a real advert for the game.
Real in the sense it is an advert, in an ad-network that does go to the Evony site. Is it actually meant as a sincere attempt to gain traffic via the lure of breasts? I sure hope not. Still, it got us talking about it. Well played Evony PR. Well played.
In other news, here is an article titled Don’t play Evony in which a blogger complains he is being spammed with Evony spam-comments.
Those sly devils! It looks like the developers of browser game Evony which you will have doubtlessly seen advertised here (oh it’s totally awesome and you should all definitely play it or whatever) obviously are avid readers of Negative Gamer. Not three days had passed since this post and already they have recognised the chance to connect with their target audience in a more direct manner. Now THAT is some damn fine market awareness.
It seems that the further revealing of some fictional boobies as highlighted on here is just not sexy enough for a medieval RTS browser gamer (I think, I can’t say for sure as I don’t play terrible-looking games). They’ve gone and turned the sexy to eleven, so-to-speak.
Evony (previously Civony until the makers of Civilisation likely got annoyed) is an online game. What makes this online game special, or at least worthy of comment here, is how the makers are heavily advertising on the web at the moment, and subsequently advertising on NG. As their target audience have a hand down their trousers already, they have decided to take a more seductive route with their adverts, but did they go too far?
They have used a number of adverts to advertise their game, but was one just too sexual for normal use? A few weeks ago something changed with the adverts. I was sure the woman looked different, but couldn’t work out why. It was only today that I found a copy of the older advert woman and my suspicions were confirmed.
It is slowly becoming clear that Evony’s alleged owner David Guo picked the wrong guy to threaten with legal trouble. A few days ago UK based Bruce Everiss got a letter from a group of solicitors saying he had been harassing David Guo. On his blog, Everiss had posted pictures and information about Guo to help aid his defence against Evony’s defamation suit the US (allegedly actually China) based company filled against him via Australia.
Bruce Everiss, the guy being sued by the web game 
Everyone’s favourite web game 
Be warned, this video contains graphs. Then again, it also contains a dozen roses so it’s all good.
Videogame blogger
Just how low is the 
PopCap has always, in my mind, been a company that makes “Fun for the whole family, except the actual gamers” games. With the release of Peggle in 2007 (and my subsequent inability to stop playing it), however, I reluctantly accepted the company into my gaming life.
… or should that be “Evony reaches the lowest point possible”?
Those sly devils! It looks like the developers of browser game Evony which you will have doubtlessly seen advertised here (oh it’s totally awesome and you should all definitely play it or whatever) obviously are avid readers of Negative Gamer. Not three days had passed since 
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