EVONY, LLC ISSUES LAWSUIT AGAINST “MALICIOUS” BLOGGER FOR MULTIPLE VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LIBEL STANDARDS
Video Game Developer Seeks Damages from Blogger for “Gross Disregard for the Truth”
NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA, September 14, 2009 – The developer for the popular online video game Evony has filed suit against blogger Bruce Everiss for posting defamatory and false statements online about the company and the game. The lawsuit follows multiple rebuffed attempts to reconcile the matter out of court.
Evony’s Australia based legal counsel has proceeded on multiple fronts internationally against the libelous assaults that Bruce Everiss has leveled against Evony, LLC (http://www.evony.net), its game “Evony: Age I”, and its corporate leadership on his weblog and in publications worldwide in recent weeks.
Evony’s attorneys said Bruce Everiss’ attacks have caused significant damage to the company’s brand and the gaming experience for Evony’s users and millions of fans around the world.
“For weeks, we have worked to avoid taking our case into the legal courts, hoping instead to persuade Mr. Everiss to see the error of his ways and correct the multiple fraudulent and false claims he has made against Evony,” said Dean Groundwater, Evony’s chief legal counsel and a principle with the Australian firm Warren McKeon Dickson. “In the more than 15 years I have been practicing law, I have never seen such a gross disregard for the truth as that displayed by Mr. Everiss. His actions bring an enormous discredit to all online journalists internationally and have substantially impacted Evony’s reputation in Australia. I am confident the Supreme Court of New South Wales will see through the falsehoods being perpetrated by Mr. Everiss and will hold him accountable for his blatantly illegal and libelous actions.”
“Mr. Everiss’ attempts to spread his patently false charges to others in the online community cannot be allowed to go unanswered,” said Benjamin Gifford, Vice Development Director for the Legal IP Strategic Division for Delaware based Evony, LLC.
“In the digital age in which we now live, online journalists and bloggers – and the traditional media outlets that may rely upon them as sources – must strive for a higher standard of integrity and accuracy. Mr. Everiss’ complete disregard for even the most basic tenets of journalistic responsibility have left our company no alternative but to take these legal actions. We hope now, in facing the full light of day before the Supreme Court, that Mr. Everiss will finally come clean and clear the record,” said Gifford.
The suit, which was filed in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia comes after weeks of attempts to convince Bruce Everiss of the false nature of his information.
89 comments ↓
Pride goes before a fall.
Good luck! You can use this as ammo for your arsenal as well:
Evony steals models from Age of Empires II:
AOE II – Age of Kings
http://imgur.com/eZaJ9.jpg
Evony
http://imgur.com/gtQeZ.jpg
Everything about Evony on this site is the truth or fair comment.
Why are Evony acting for a Chinese game against a UK blogger in an Australian court?
To make it as difficult as possible for me to defend myself as possible.
They are using money and power to censor the truth from the internet because it inconveniences them.
Dean Grounwater says that “we have worked to avoid taking our case into the legal courts”. This work consisted of demanding compensation, an apology and that I delete my posts. You can read these demands here: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/08/25/evony-want-to-sue-me-for-telling-the-truth/
Dean also says: “In the more than 15 years I have been practicing law, I have never seen such a gross disregard for the truth”. He has obviously led a sheltered life.
And finally Dean says: “caused significant damage to the company’s brand and the gaming experience for Evony’s users and millions of fans around the world”. My little blog has this much power. I am amazed!
Evony’s ad campaign and blog spamming (supposedly by someone else but – - ?) did more damage to their rep than a blog that anyone else but a gamer might never read. EVERYONE on the internet (without a filter) saw the ads and I’d bet most were not thrilled. Then an Evony Rep attacking a player in the forum and the botching of the world sever merges? Sigh, this is sad.
So, Bruce, let me ask you this: Does 1% truth + 99% fair comment = 100% truth?
Enquiring minds of the blogosphere want to know.
Just remove the blog for crying out loud, they didn’t spam the blogs and etc it was their “affiliates” that had no brains on how to properly use the ievony tool. I didn’t use it personally but I have referred quite a few.
I would just suggest Bruce is remove your blog on it man, just gets worse and you gain no fame out of it all but more traffic to the blog, which you are well seeded in each search engine so why should it matter?
I been hit with a suit and it HURT like hell no matter where they file the suit in, you are within INTERPOL laws which you are within the UK, and the UK upholds to these laws as much as the USA ones do.
So for a online marketer to an online marketer I would suggest you remove it man, it’s not “WORTH IT.” Sometimes we have to bite our pride and move on, well for what you are doing I don’t think you should be doing because there is more truth too it than what’s portrayed here. Let someone else face the consequences, unless you are some pain freak!
All the best,
Jim
A top lawyer tells me that the accusation of fraud against me in the above press release almost certainly constitutes libel.
Maybe I should sue Dean Groundwater, I am sure someone will do it on a no win no fee basis. In London!
No offence Bruce, you sort of brought this on yourself bruce. Ive been a big fan of yours for years but these attacks on Evony where not a good move. Alot of the bad press out there has been developed from rumour mill and sensationalisim. Ok some of their adverts where a little risque – but come one, it was genius, how many big blue chip global … Read Morecompanies have done much worse. The spam thing, that was addressed quickly and the actions of players not the company, when identified the company acted on it. I still till this day dont understand why a man of your background would go on such an attack on a game that now has over 8 MILLION PLAYERS and statisfied customers – all it has done is lowered your respect from loyal fans of you such as myself. I hope for your sake and the gaming industry that you and Evony can resolve this and resolve it quickly
Personally, I think bloggers have enjoyed too much immunity for too long. Words have meaning and can do damage.
Things are going to get dead intresting round here. Maybe the was a marketing gimick to get us all to read more!? (and thus check out Evony too)
all the above look like some sort of “evony” fanboy using the carrot rather than the stick, i could be wrong , or it could be another case of “spam attack” on the opposition.
either way , seek legal council , and proceed as you wish.
will Evony’s chief legal counsel with the Australian firm Warren McKeon Dickson also be defending evony against intellectual property right theft re: unauthorized use of take two games IPR of civilization 4 ?
also..
“Evony’s attorneys said Bruce Everiss’ attacks have caused significant damage to the company’s brand and the gaming experience for Evony’s users and millions of fans around the world.”
how do they propose to differentiate between any damage done by yourself, and the massive damage done by their own intrusive, “so called” advertizing campain that annoyed many thousands/millions of internet users themselves?
In passing, why do I get the vibe that the people being vocal here about you dropping this are shilling with an agenda? Particularly with support in older posts being largely positive.
Good luck!
The simple answer is a line was crossed.
Expecting to be able to say anything and everything you want without regard for others is simply irresponsible and naive. Children think that way. Adults have to learn to filter themselves.
Internet anonymity is no excuse for an adult to act like a child.
@ Kempion.
I am hardly anonymous! You are though.
And all I did was tell the truth and make fair comment. It is called freedom of speech and it is what Evony are trying to take away from us.
Caught them out telling lies again. The above release says “and its corporate leadership”. But the only person I have mentioned is Eric Lam, who they vehemently deny having anything to do with the game.
You cannot believe a word these people say. It is really lies, lies lies. Just look at this:
Evony email sent out by Evony widely on the interweb thing: http://www.examiner.com/x-6735-Atlanta-MMORPG-Examiner~y2009m9d3-Evony-Free-Forever-Responds-to-Attacks
“5. Evony is in no way a Chinese based company. Evony is a registered corporation in the United States with millions of active players in dozens of countries around the globe.”
Evony official Wiki: http://www.evonypedia.com/evony/links/evony/umge
“Evony is owned by UMGE (Universal Multiplayer Game Entertainment). Founded by a small group of avid Chinese game developers, UMGE is based in Guangzhou, China and develops online multiplayer games.”
Ego aside, you are anonymous. Truth is more subject than most people can stomach. If fair comment is based on a lie, then it it still fair comment? GIGO.
Free speech, friend, does not exist if it is abused. You are not a defender of speech and the liberites thereof. YOu are an abuser of speech and you thought you would be able to get away with it forever. Immunity is not a luxury for you anymore.
BTW, I am internet-famous… ask IRGRL for her links on me.
@Kempion – you sound like the lawyer who is suing Bruce, not a frequenter of this website. @Philip Rees – you sound like Evony’s PR department. @Bruce – Your argument sounds very logical. Now here’s the ironic part: good or bad, Evony is getting plenty of press from your site, thus helping to expand its user base. And the lawsuit against you? This will drive legions of readership to your site. In the end, you’re both promoting each other’s work!
I go where the action is… if it interests me to do so.
Bruce is not being logical. Both references he gave are true, yet, he sees tahm as conflicting because he doesn’t understand the reality of the situtation… hence, the lawsuit.
There are many things Bruce does not understand.
Since I’m all for hearing every one out… go on Kemp, prove to me and the rest of the readers here why Bruce is wrong, and that what he’s saying are lies.
I would expect, since you are clearly and educated person, that you would provide just as much evidence as Bruce as done in his own arguments.
@Bruce: I will say this… the whole affair is in danger of becoming personal. I’d just talk to your consul, and then leave the bastards alone. By all means, post up any official corrspondences and your replies, as I would love to read them, but don’t attack them for the sake of it eh? You’ve made your point, now lets wait for them to be bitch slapped.
I agree with Kempion. I have no links with Evony in any shape or form or its legal advisor’s but I feel Bruce is digging himself a very large hole and maybe its time to stop digging. I don’t like to see companies threaten people but I feel that Bruce has abused the right to free speech by posting the comments he did. Evony have a right to defend their business against such accusations.
Bruce, you seem like an intelligent person (barring some ill thought out ramblings – all in my opinion of course – I’d hate to fall foul of your lawyers!) so is your pride and stubbornness going to cost you all that you’ve worked for in your life? You appear to have a good life, travel the world, have a home and likely a loving wife or partner, are you willing to put all that at risk being sued because you put your pride first? Don’t be a fool, you’re not ‘fighting the good fight’ you’re trying to defend your precarious position. Your choice, should you win you gloat for a while, a few sites will tell the tale of a blogger taking on a large company but you will be forgotten about like most things and become tomorrows chip paper so to speak. If you lose, which seems likely then you stand to lose a hell of a lot and all those ’supporters’ will soon disappear.
These are of course comments given assuming this is not a bizarre marketing partnership.
I’m with Jim. What I think is that this is more of a 50/50 scenario. What I want to see from Evony is, not a CDO, but a rundown of what ads they sponsored and which inappropriate ads were pushed through the adsense exploit by referrers.
Also this ievony app; it sounds like the protocol used could easily be used by a botnet. Evony spews some denials but they don’t expound plausible counter arguments. Doesn’t make me want to listen to them but makes me want to know what they are hiding. The Evony spam is real. Who is behind it, if not Evony LLC? Is there a botnet run by Evony affiliated companies/members/developers or independent, enterprising spammers?
Thanks Hugo, much appreciated.
The thing is that I know that I have no case to answer. Why should I remove the truth and let Evony censor the internet?
I think that their action is all mouth and no trousers. As evidenced by their proven lies and their shilling the comments here. (Are you one of their shills?)
So then free speech in and of itself is an oxymoron. Duly noted.
I can see its pointless commenting here in the negative. Its ironic that you claim your right to free speech yet anyone who disagree’s with your view is portrayed as a shill.
Easy there Bruce, it’s not for you, me nor even Evony themselves to say who’s ‘lying’. A case has been brought forward and it’s now up for the judges to decide.
If they have any sense, they’ll throw the case out before it even gets to trial, but in the mean time, don’t make is personal.
Many of us in the journalistic community are on your side, but don’t turn this into “One man’s fight for truth”. Leave that for Hollywood.
@Hugo – I agree with you to a point. What is this going to get for Bruce besides a big headache? Not much. But please explain this “abuse of the right to free speech.” Did he unleash a profanity-laced tirade against Evony? Is he trying to ruin their business by using this blog as a weapon? Hardly. He’s raised some interesting questions. Please, Evony, set the record straight. The part of Evony’s response that sparks distrust is their campaign to silence his voice once and for all. This isn’t only unethical, it also doesn’t work. Someone else will report the same thing on another blog post elsewhere, especially if they try to martyr this journalist. They should spend their time improving their game, not go after some hobbyist who has no money. And Bruce should focus on the parts of the game industry that he enjoys (for instance, that wonderful Plants vs. Zombies game) and not waste his time with these losers.
BTW, this is going to be nearly impossible to prove in a court of law:
[Bruce's blog] “caused significant damage to the company’s brand and the gaming experience for Evony’s users and millions of fans around the world.”
Man, they really know how to put a troll army to work don’t they!
Keep up the good fight Bruce, don’t let the bastards keep you down.
That damn Evony game…. got me too.. had to click on the damn thing! Eh though it’s a crappy game none the less. Makes me wonder why you even bothered with it. If everything you’ve said about the game/company is true and you can prove it to be then you’ll be ok. I’ve already looked at some links so ya.. If he wants to fight the good fight let him.. if you and the “journalistic” community are on his side why distance yourselves! Call to arms and go forth into battle! but ya.. kind’ve a waste of time
Well, Bruce, how often Do you backcheck your “facts?”
Best of luck to you Bruce!
In the least, all you have to do is prove your statements were factual. That shouldn’t pretty damned easy if they are.
Hey Bruce…
Can I get an interview with you on skype or something?
Haha! Evony is so shady. Now that you posted that link to UMGE or w/e it looks like they took the page down off of thier wiki. ( lol )
I hope somebody made a screenshot of it
Interesting, the first time there is a lawsuit and suddenly there are negative comments, how bizarre…
Simply thing, if there is a judgement in Australia it’s only binding in Australia, anyone who believes otherwise is smoking some crazy stuff (amazing how legal judgements only apply in the territories the court has jurisdiction in)
lol@interpol laws, libel is a civil case in almost any sane country, not a criminal one, therefore interpol have nothing to do with this, esp, as they only get involved in coordinating criminal cases (such as terrorism) that spread across multiple countries, thank you for your input Jim “Mr Evony Shill”, a civil case in a country to which you have no ties is basically pissing into the wind regardless of verdict, costs the individual making the claim a lot of money and does absolutely nothing, as it is unenforceable.
Saw this on Massively… interesting read. Honestly I would have NEVER known about Bruce’s post if Evony hadn’t made such a huge deal out of it, and I had in fact heard of Evony before.
I can’t say if Evony has stolen content from other games, seeing as I’ve never played.
However thsoe criticizing Bruce about how he responds to you here need to consider this.
A. He isn’t preventing you from speaking your mind, just disagreeing with it.
B. Even if he did moderate your posts that doesn’t stop you from posting your views on your own blog, thus retaining the right to freedom of speech.
C. Evony has every right to censor what Bruce says on THEIR sites and servers… just like he does here.
D. /em grabs popcorn.
Well to be honest with you Bruce, you’ve made this into a war. But not a war of hurting their business, but only hurting their face.
I live in China(but I’m not chinese), and you can’t just go around shooting people down for making money. (unless their begging)
I think you mentioned China tooooo much. I’m sure this struck a bone with them.
And the little thought about their software being maleware, could it be possible you were wrong?
Websites are always being hacked nad having code put in to feed people virus’s. Hell, wasn’t google even like this?
And is this website truly owned by Lam? I mean, one of my students yesterday used the nickname Lam. But he’s only 11 years old. There could be a lot more Lam’s.
But besides all the “I think” and “he thinks” and “we thinks”. You are perfectly fine to say anything you want.
I’m sure the rest of it, will be pulled up in the court hearing.
I know myself that Evony is well…. not worth anything to anyone except the company.
But, you really must swallow your pride now, and back down.
They have the upper hand.
Bruce, you don’t know what they are capable of.
Fuck Evony
Be careful, Bruce. Lawsuits don’t always work out the way you expect them to.
Even if you say “here’s the truth and here’s the proof,” you could still lose the case, you know.
After reading through all the articles and accusations, I’m with Bruce here. As an avid gamer since the days of DOS, I really want to see Evony take a big hit for those pisspoor advertisements. They’re farming for dopes under the pretext of eroticism, and I think that both Evony and its players are despicable. Now that they’ve levied their accusations, I feel that they’re really overdoing it. When their law representative claimed that Bruce has topped his fifteen years of practice, I nearly shit my pants. Who’s accusing who of libel here!? In my perfect gaming world, this company would not exist.
Hi Bruce,
I just recently started reading your site due to this very story. This may come as no surprise to you but I was unaware that you could ’sue’ someone for their opinion on a blog. (I live the in the states, BTW)
I do understand that this would be considered slander under these circumstances. However, It is very odd that a game company would attack one person with so much force. Unless of course, they feared that Microsoft or 2k would get wind of this. So my advice would be to email Sid Meier and the creative director on Age of empires and ask them to play the game.
Good day and good luck!
How much are they paying you, Kempion!? HOW MUCH!?
Besides, he’s *not* blogging anonymously, he’s posting under his real name that anyone can google and he links to his resume and past employers in his profile which are things that can be verified against that identity. Scratch one blatant false statement…
As someone else has already brought up, how is it going to be possible to differenciate between the alleged damage you have done to evony and the players “gameing experience” and the damage evony has done to itself?
The evony forums are full of posts from players who have quit or are quitting the game, not because of anything you wrote but because of things evony has done or has failed to do to make their “gaming experience” satisfying.
The list of complaints range from in game abuse from other players to Evony taking their money and giving them nothing in return for it and no refund to boot.
Evony would be wise to heed an old saying “people who live in glass houses shouldnt throw stones”
The choice of jurisdiction is interesting. Evony claims to be based in the US but doesn’t sue there – no great surprise, the US laws really protect freedom of speech.
They don’t sue in the UK (which is widely regarded as the best place to sue someone for libel) but instead sue in Australia. By travel distance and time Australia seems to be about the furthest first-world country from the UK (with NZ as the only competition).
So it seems clear that the intent of the suit was not to establish a point or to receive damages, but instead to harass Bruce.
If they were to win in an Australian court then they would have another case in a UK court to try and enforce the judgement.
This is far from malicious, if blogging is now suddenly malicious when its convenient (lets face it, this is free PR) then diaries, community boards and word of mouth should be just as insidious and accountable. Bruce should counter-sue for the very same reasons “Gross dis-regard of the truth”.
This is getting way too scary. I’d like to support Bruce and all, but when a bully pushes its weight around like this… it’s just scary as heck.
Looks like evony is getting desperate with the recent increase in shill posters Bruce. Why the hell would you give up? Evony’s bleating is just getting more and more shrill by the day. They tried to bluff and intimidate you but you stuck to your guns and now they are the ones who have backed themselves into a corner – not you Bruce.
Stick it right up the bastards!
ROFL,
Do you guys really think your fooling anyone? (the shills).
Anyone with a IQ higher then their shoe size can tell your plants, or fanbios at best.
Typical arrogance to think everyone is too dense to see through your BS. There must be lawyers in the mix.
Keep up the good fight Bruce!
Thou if it gets too ugly don’t be throwing yourself on a grenade, we will understand.
Bruce, you are doing us all a great service in standing up to this bullying. I truly hope the cost does not become too great. The cost of fighting this must be enormous. Thanks for doing this.
Maybe Bruce should rename his schtick to “Bruce in flames.”
Maybe Kempion should change his name to “Hired Shills R Us.”
Best of luck Bruce!
Bruce, keep in mind most of your “supporters” are children. This is the interwezroxxorzrolfcopterspewpewpew after all.
@ S.E.Gordan – nope im just a fan of the game, a fan of bruce evriss’s blogs and the work he has done in the gaming industry, the leader of a online gaming group and a gamer for the last 27 years. There is a lot of speculation regarding evony, and critics regarding how it was born and so forth. Take for example the graphics issue – that was resolved very quickly. What people fail to understand is this – Evony was developed by independant gamers who hit on something that the RTS (real time stratergy) market was crying out for and as a result we have seen hundreds upon hundreds of spins offs from there version. The original developers may have found funding from “Gold Farmers” – WHO CARES
They brought us a great game.
They may have used modified graphics from another game (which incidently the version they used was availble under free liscene) SO WHAT, how big a compliment to Microsoft is that.
The world is RIDDLED with software, programmes, entertainment, clothes etc that take there inspiration from what others have done.
In addition, as soon as it became an issue the game developers CHANGED there artwork.
I think people are failing to understand the MASSIVE OVERNIGHT GROWTH of the game, no one, and i mean NO INDEPENDANT developer could ever predict what happend with evony. Its time for people to let it go and stop the developer bashing and working on solutions instead of whining and complaining.
I’m not entirely sure as to why Kempion, Hugo or anyone else crying “abuse of free speech” would want to jump on Bruce’s case here.
The issue isn’t just free speech, the issue here is “defamation”. Unless I understood that process wrongly, in order for Evony to prove their case against Bruce, they need to prove that what he’s spoken about in his blog is false, that his blog posts have caused their reputation harm and that harm has led to loss of income.
Now, I won’t deny that last 2 parts, but surely they’ll have a heck of a time fighting that first case, no? So if Bruce found some highly questionable issues with Evony, tells the blogosphere about it AND IS RIGHT, then why would anyone want to say “dude, it’s time you learnt your lesson”?
So people reading such comments can only conclude a) you folk are being illogical or b) you guys are hired guns. Just sayin’.
Be strong Bruce and win this one! /Gamer
For the commenters here:
There’s another place that’s getting attention with regard to Evony. A gaming e-zine called thirteen1.com posted an article on Evony with quotes from disgruntled players, and information taken from Everiss’ research.
Mag can be found at http://www.thirteen1.com/Issues/1313909/mag.php and article begins on page 53 of the e-zine.
As it happens, Kempion was one of the first to post on the forums trying to, I guess, discredit or “reason out” with the original author of the article (and goes on trolling for numerous pages till he gets banned).
Thread is at: http://www.thirteen1.com/forum/index.php?topic=3496.0
As of page 13, Benjamin from Evony LLC has weighed in with some clarifications, and the folks at Thirteen1 are in talks to get Evony’s side of the story as well.
… Why do I get the impression that Kingory is Evony in disguise? Could it possibly be the copyright infringing “Kung Fu Panda” and the suspiciously similar font, or is it just the blanket ad campaign?
This whole episode reminds me of the McLibel case brought against 2 activists in the late ’90s (http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/). Should the people cower to mighty corporations or take them to the task?
I can’t believe it
this game sucks and if they wanna sue me for that let them do it
Pixels and Policy Analysis of this story
http://www.pixelsandpolicy.com/pixels_and_policy/2009/09/breaking-evony-sues-blogger-bruce-everiss.html
Could someone explain exactly how an australian based company filing an australian based lawsuit is an attempt to make it harder to defend against. Kinda makes it seem like its a kid with his hand in the cookie jar trying to blame it on his parents.
I’m a newbie at international law here, but how can a civil suit filed in Australia affect someone operating from the UK? The Jurisdiction thing was what kept the Pirate Bay operating for so long after all.
Kempion Said…
Bruce, keep in mind most of your “supporters” are children. This is the interwezroxxorzrolfcopterspewpewpew after all.
Seriously??
I think you will find most of Bruce’s audience to be older more refined gamers, not kids, you have seen Bruces photo right?
He is in my age group, ie: he looks like most kids “grandfather” (no offense Bruce lol) Not many “kewl kids” are going to listen to someone about games that could pass for their grampa.
The kids in the internet only care about the latest Halo clone, not an actual experienced gamer.
Obviously there are exceptions, but they don’t constitute a majority by any means.
@Fabian
Unfortunately they do not have to prove that I am wrong. I have to prove that their many (and often blatantly silly) accusations against me are wrong, which is a different story.
@olstar18
@Chaos
Australia and the UK have reciprocal arrangements where a judgement in one country can be enforced in the other.
Silly, I know.
By the way, Bruce, neglected to say it — FIGHT ON!
This entire debate is just plain sad.
When Civony/Evony decided to spam the entire internet with their ads, I was curious. Boobs are a great selling point, no doubt, but I was certain there had to be more to the game than breasts. The more I researched, the more I realized it was exactly what I thought it was; a scam.
Screenshots showed me an amalgam of Civ 4/AOE, all wrapped in a thinly veiled “free2play” moniker. I perused the forums, read reviews, and then said to myself, “Yup, this is garbage.”
I think most avid gamers see through the ads, and don’t even allow Evony on their gaming radar. The ones who do get suckered in chalk it up to a lesson learned, or hell, they might end up enjoying getting fleeced. To each their own.
The problem here is that it seems that Bruce found out Evony’s dirty laundry, and now they’re pissed that someone has drug it out into the open. I applaud Bruce for that. Evony isn’t, and they’ve got money. Like the old saying goes though, a fool and his money are soon parted, especially if Evony goes through with this ridiculous plan to sue Bruce, and possibly anyone else, into submission.
While I don’t quite see how a supposed US company can sue a UK citizen via Austrailia, I’m also not a legal expert. Though if it is indeed possible, I’d counter-sue them back, and raise the issue to such a point of absurdity that Evony would have to back down. I’d get local and national news involved, I’d find a lawyer who’d work for me pro bono, and shove it back in their face.
There’s a reason why larger companies don’t care what is said about them. If you believed everything that was said about Blizzard when it came to WoW, and if Blizzard sued people for every “libelous” statement made on weblogs, forums, tweets, etc, Blizzard/Activision wouldn’t ever get out of court. Nor would they have the massive cash cow they have because they would have spent billions of dollars and only succeeded in gunking up the courts even more than they already are. Evony should sit down, shut up, and realize than in a way, this is free press.
The more that the suits are thrown around, the more the Evony fanboi’s like Kempion come in and throw their tantrums, the more people are going to back away from Evony. Even bad press can attract you customers, but the more if turns into a mudslinging contest, then you’ve got nowhere to go but down.
Leave Bruce alone, continue making your crappy Civ-wanna be online scamfest, and continue to rake in your not-so-hard earned money. If you continue down this path, then the truth WILL come out, and you’ll be out of business for good. The smart people of the world will recognize and evaluate Evony for what it is, and let it rot of it’s own accord.
At the end of the day, the courts will decide if you’re telling the truth or not.
Haha! Bruce, I think Evony are on to you mate.
For Evony employees who are reading this (you will deny it but you know who you are) CHANGE YOUR AD CAMPAIGN. It is only creating more negative than positive hype.
The only reason I am here is I got sick of the ads and wanted to find out where the hell they were coming from.
Evony is a copycat of Kingory. I should say that one million times. Actually Kingory was released in 2008 but Evony was in 2009. I’m veteran in both games. I’ll kick your ass if you said Kingory is Evony in disguise
Anyway, it’s first version is Chinese. The game is very popular in China and has hundreds of servers. I guess they’ve finally released the English version in the recent days. I like Kingory. It’s more fun for its simulation battles and PVP & PVE Arena. *Roarrrr*
@ Bruce – Really? Hmm. Well, regardless of which, from what I’ve been reading you pretty much have most of the *internet* on your side Bruce. Really hope this wins out in your favour, and that the disgrace that is Evony finally get their just desserts.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but, isnt evony the same game that was found to be infecting computers with malicious code, not too long ago? Don’t go getting your panties all in a bunch just because you got called on it.
Bruce, I’ve not read your blog much, but you’ve always seemed level headed about things. To think, a company whose ad campaigns are usually a few threads from pornographic, are trying to label you as unjust. It troubles me greatly that such situations as these can even make it as far as our so called “justice” systems.
-Caid
444
@diana
WHOIS information for kingory.com :
Domain ID:
Domain Name: kingory.com
Created On: 11-May-2009 00:00:00
Expiration Date: 11-May-2011 00:00:00
Kingory is a copy cat of Evony.
It doesn’t surprise me, your ex Codemasters do exactly the same to people when they are telling the true about them… check http://codemasters-uk.blogspot.com/, after you do it I am sure you ll understand Evony’s attitude, they are just doing what you teach similar companies to do. LOL
Now talking seriously, If you have money and a good lawyer they cant do nothing, they only try to scare you. The things you show to all the people are obvious stuff. No court of law ll go against you.
Thank you for your alert, we need more people like you to make internet a much more fun and safe place to use.
Thank you and good luck.
GOODLUCK MY FRIEND. I HOPE EVONY ADS WILL GO AWAY FOREVER. IT OFFENDS GIRLS
Bruce, I found my way to your blog via Scott Jennings’ “Broken Toys” blog, and I wanted to add my comments here to those offering their support.
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[quote] #54 Kempion on 09.15.09 at 10:21 am Bruce, keep in mind most of your “supporters” are children. This is the interwezroxxorzrolfcopterspewpewpew after all.
[/quote]
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Kempion:
I’m a 25 year old gamer who works in the IT industry. While immaturity knows no age limit, I will let my words judge me and I try to conduct myself in a manner that I wouldn’t be ashamed of, either online or in real life.
From the comments I’ve seen on Bruces’ blog both here and in the past I would wager that the majority of his supporters are my age or older, and that the “children” you speak of negatively are more of the vocal minority (or people who choose to act as a child due to the anonymity of the internet).
Back on topic though,
Bruce, I hope things go well for you in the suit, and I hope you can counter-sue for financial losses and defamation yourself once the current suit is decided.
I honestly had never even noticed the Evony ads as being advertisements for a serious game until reading about it on the Broken Toys blog. I *DID* however chuckle to myself at their choice of advertising, and the approach their marketing department chose when promoting the game.
Best of luck Bruce! Please keep us up to date on the changes as best you can (legally
)
Here’s an odd situation that I discovered while trying to figure out what or who Regan Mercantile (from the Evony Terms and Conditions) is. From http://www.asbs.net.au/news.html and the Google cache:
NEW:
23 May 2009 Assist Strategic Business Solutions Pty Limited is appointed for Strategic and Operational Solutions partnering with global based Evony, LLC.
OLD:
23 May 2009 Assist Strategic Business Solutions Pty Limited is appointed for Strategic and Operational Solutions partnering with Hong Kong based Regan Mercantile Hong Kong Limited and global based Evony, LLC.
Why would they remove the Regan Mercantile Hong Kong connection? Could it be that Benjamin Gifford of Evony fame was or IS employed by this Australian company (See “3 MARCH 2008″, “ABOUT US”) and now needs to hide something, namely the Chinese connection?
Regan Mercantile US is registered in the State of New York (at an apartment or condo). There is also another Regan Mercantile listed in the Hong Kong business registry. For Evony’s purposes, Regan Mercantile US is the trademark applicant for “Evony” in the United States, though strangely at a different address than the registered business.
As far as the Hong Kong Regan Mercantile, Evony listed cs@reganmerc.com as a support contact. The domain reganmerc.com is registered to a Hong Kong address. Alongside this email address, a phone number is also listed – a phone number that is curiously shared with… WoWMine.
Again, it is very odd that a company would try to conceal news of a business relationship that happened 4 months in the past, unless of course that relationship totally discredits public claims one has made about a company he now represents! Naughty, naughty Benjamin!
If you want my most honest opinion, you could’ve made a separate blog and filed any attack you want. That way they’d have to dig deeper to “believe” that you did it.
The internet is large. With it several articles both with and against the law.
All the law can be written in a book, yet no man can make justice.
They’re “going” against the law, and you’re getting a lawsuit in the name of “justice” for all the degrading they are going through.
And a bunch of damn articles over the internet would degrade them.
Its not like all fans of Evony will read it till Evony makes a giant fuss out of it.
-EPIC FAIL-
Keep fighting the good fight Bruce, there are too many mavericks out there now exploiting unsuspecting users.
Where can we donate to the cause?
Hopefully this leads to Evony shutting down for good. I’m getting sick of seeing the same ads everywhere I go. I’m sick of seeing this:
http://blog.themoviequotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/evony.jpg
I have no idea who or what that specific ad appeals to.
come on they are obviously at fault (evony)
kempion is obviously working for evony
and just look at evony’s front page they are asking ppl to write positive rewards for 500 cents in game
which is bull cuz they have to aprove it to get the award and they say u “May” win i used to play but am quiting cuz even though i have an addictive personality towards games this is to much
the game is ok and did kill a week or 2 of my life and i dont mind it was my own stupidity or bordom one of the 2
bruce just keep fighting the good fight
oh btw someoen who was in my alliance bought $30 of cents and then never recieved their product or the special gift for purchasing that amount
this what turned me off of the game and all the bad ads i see while on 90% of the internet (or at least what i view)
once again bruce keep fighting just tone it down a bit no use killing urself over it but dont let them push you around
Ok, a few things.
1. Kempion (AKA probably Eric Lam) is a loser.
2. I made a post in the evony forum talking about Wowmine, Eric Lam and that stuff. They deleted everything except my sentence saying I hate the ads.
3. You have to pay coins to speak. BS!
4.Bruce, you rock!
Hey best of luck with this shitstorm, bruce. It is obvious that what you are doing is the right thing.
these guys are losers. You have everything you need to prove yourself right, just be sure to have a lawyer on your side, to help you more effectively call these clowns on their bullshit.
In the end, regardless of the verdict, I see this whole thing having a huge barbara steisand effect on Evony’s head.
To those UMGE employees reading this from China, look up “barbara steisand effect” on wikipedia. I mean, if your government hasn’t banned that site yet…
srsly tho..It would save you guys a lot of money…
But yeah, because it bears repeating: STAY UP BRUCE!
wow i cant believe that evony is doing this how many times i saw people post crap and stuff about other game companies larger than evony and they never did anything like this well i played wow for a while and those gold farmers were annoying as hell. sorry for my bad grammar but i dont speak english i speak french. by the way iam with you on freedom of speech and press evony looks to good to be truth and to be played for free but the truth is that so many times i got their adds on my pcs screen multiple times so who is atacking who, keep the good fight the evony game sucks only lossers could play that sucky game
this seems like this situation is getting a bit out of control.
Ya got ballz Bruce. It’s your life man do what feels right to you. Someone told me once that the difference between courage and Valor is this. Courage is doing the right thing when you have an audience that may not all approve. Valor is doing what you know is right when no one else sees it that way. Good luck to you Bruce. There are some places we all will inevitably “pass through the fire” “alone”. I had never even heard of you or Evony or this lawsuit until I did a search on who the owner of the Kingory game was because it looked like someone that needed their ass kicked. Now I know my hunch was right. That’s the only real reason they’re suing you anyway, you that right is to advertise their own crap. That’s the way many companies see things these days – in such that there is no such thing as bad PR everything is just another way to spread advertising. Unfortunately there are obviously enough idiots and morons inundating the internet this ploy is having positive effects for those that use these tactics. We’re all gonna know in probably the next ten years as to whether or not any of it is gonna matter anyway. The way things are going the whole internet project could still go belly up. At least as we know it today anyway, ya know? Fear and loathing. None of us can change the world. All we can do is try to live the way we want in the middle of it. If you’re an American the odds are very much against you. At least, thats the way it may appear at times. Tricky times we live in.
Ok yeah so I got my facts mixed about Evony and Kingory being associated. Who cares. Point is nobody cares about these crappy little flash games that are rip offs and spin offs of preexisting games anyway. Besides what pisses me off more than anything is places like this and fusionfall and free webs and all these flash based tools and game makers are the ones pushing the campaign against file sharing (when it has nothing to do with copyright infringement – it has to do with bandwidth consumption) when they got more and more schmucks signing up to play these crappy flash games that ravenously consume system resources and bandwidth. People are stupid.
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