There is now a lot of interesting stuff about this Chinese browser game on this blog. Much of this has been contributed by readers with experience of the game, so I strongly suggest that you read the comments after every article, they contain some absolute gems.
The Chinese gold farmers came to my attention when they first started spamming the forums and blogs that I run. Gold farmers are part of the underbelly of the interweb alongside pornographers and fake Viagra sellers, so they use the same black hat marketing techniques that abuse the internet and its users and which are illegal in many countries, such as spamming everything they can spam. One of these gold farmers is an organisation with many names including Super Continental, UMGE and WoWMine. Article:
Then earlier this year Bruceongames was comment spammed regularly by a Chinese MMO called Evony, which was publicising itself as being the product of UMGE. (They have since gone into denial and tried to remove all mention of this association from the internet, including deleting the whole website UMGE.com). Because of the spamming I recommended that people avoid Evony in this article:
The response to this was so big that I found out a lot more about this game. And so on July the 15 this year I wrote the article More about Evony. On the same day The Guardian newspaper published an article: Has Evony become the most despised game on the web?
As a result of the feedback from this I got a lot of information from players of the game saying that it was causing problems with their computer, so I put this together as an article on July 16, specifically pointing out “I am not saying that Evony has a trojan in its client software”. This article attracted further comments from players with bad experiences:
Evony were obviously unhappy with the truth about themselves reaching the light of day so they made a tactical change. On 22 July they incorporated Evony LLC, a Delaware company. They then tried to become American and removed all mention of their Chinese heritage from the internet. Evony LLC then started to act against me for what I had written before they even existed! I got a threatening letter from Dean Groundwater, a solicitor from the Australian small town firm Warren McKeon Dickson:
Evony want to sue me for telling the truth
At about the same time Valerie from Evony distributed an email that told a whole pile of easily demonstrable lies about Evony, the issues I had raised and about me. I reported this and rebutted the lies with this article:
Then on September 14 Evony issued a press release saying that they were taking me to court for telling the truth. In the press release Dean Groundwater accuses me of fraud, a very serious allegation.
I then wrote an article explaining more about the people behind Evony:
Eric Lam, UMGE, WoWMine and Evony
I have also written a few background articles to try and put some of what is happening here into context.
The game mechanic and its subversion
How the internet is being censored
I also reported a few further bad things about Evony, brought to my attention by readers of Bruceongames. Racialism and the online gambling in the game:
Along the way we have also had some fun:
Evony advert ridiculed by PopCap
I don’t like Evony, that much should be obvious. I don’t like their black hat marketing, spamming blogs and spamming Google adsense. And I don’t like the way they have put gold farming inside the game, subverting the game mechanic by the payment of money so as to extract the maximum wealth from the player. But most of all I don’t like the way they try and suppress freedom of speech by trying to censor the internet to prevent people knowing the truth about them.
6 comments ↓
//But most of all I don’t like the way they try and suppress freedom of speech by trying to censor the internet to prevent people knowing the truth about them.//
Seconded! I’m trying to fight this in my own small way as well. Sadly some countries don’t have a strong notion of public participation, and they think that doing business means manipulating or coercing the customer.
Hi Bruce,
I’ve spent the past hour or so reading your blog, & searching the web for Evony malware reports – the majority of which are in someway connected to your post (presumably because you’re making the most noise about the issue, which makes Google happy).
The most notable report was a Guardian newspaper blog, which talked about their ad campaign, but interestingly didn’t report any malware issues (presumably because they have to make sure they have really substantial evidence before writing an article).
You seem to have a pretty smart CV, & I imagine should I ask an recruitment consultancy to scout for the creme de la creme for a new computer game launch, you’d be on the shortlist. However, as I don’t know you from Adam, especially with regards to your expertise on security, I am left wanting reassurance from a more recognized source.
Anyway, I’ve been on Evony for a few days, & think its a fun game & so do around 10 million other people according to the Evony website.
This isn’t surprising due to the pretty intense advertising campaign that they have initiated.
The advertising, spamming campaign is morally wrong, however it has to be admired. The upside of spamming is a marketers dream as the exposure is huge. The downside is that the recipient isn’t always too happy to receive spam, in the same way as they hate the Domino’s Pizza fliers being posted through the letter box. Computers, being a bit more advanced than a letterbox, have pretty efficient methods of stopping & permanently blacklisting the sources of spam, which is therefore risky for large companies, as their ongoing marketing strategies could be severely compromised.
But based on 10 million users, Evony’s marketting campaign has been somewhat successful & possibly entrepreneurial, with an succeed or get eaten alive by the anti spam software philosophy?
With regards to the copyright issues, being a businessman, I am constantly frustrated how the chinese culture accepts large scale copying of product, without regards to intellectual property & copyright. This doesn’t however suggest that the business is rotten to the core.
The business model of getting maximum exposure for a free product with paid bits later which create revenue is by no means a rare concept & is frequently used from happy hours in night clubs, to sampler cosmetics in magazines, or free cases of wine with these new online wine merchants (namely that company that also is an airline, cola drinks manufacturer, world record balloon flight sponsorer etc…).
So, with these comments in mind, Evony is on the face of it, a typical, well funded entrepreneurial chinese company.
I have searched Evony with a number of large security provider names such as Symantec, & can’t find anything of meaning.
You, according to your Linkedin CV are no small fry in the software industry. In my profession, I am in a similar position-although somewhat more localized demographically, & far less prestigious. However, that position allows me to get things done with slightly higher powers, who know my name.
Therefore I ask you this – Could you please use your resources, to get someone such as Symantec, McAfee, or some other respected name in the security sector to answer the question of whether or not Evony has malware issues.
With over 10 million players already signed up, they would undoubtedly be happy to provide some formal consumer advice. If there is malware that aggregates data, numerous US, EU & possibly global regulations will be broken. With such a high number of users potentially at risk, governments would be inclined to use powers to ensure that the Chinese government sorts out Evonys operators.
Also, if you are proved correct, you will have a powerful report as evidence against the legal action placed against you, which I imagine will be the least of their worries, should such a respected company find serious malpractice by the company.
Lastly, thanks for making me aware that there is potentially a risk with using Evony, & good luck!
Me thinks thou dost protest too much.
One thing that made me chuckle was the Anti-Semitism article. While you are here bashing Chinese web censorship, you post a conversation applauding someone who has attacked Evony for TOO LITTLE censorship. Are you kidding me? This has to be some kind of satire. right? You cannot support un-censoring “freedom, democracy, etc.”, and in the same breath support censorship of things derrogative of your particular race/creed/color. If you want free speech, you need thick skin. If you promote censorship of anyone’s ideas (anti-semitic or not) you are simply a book burner.
As a separate subject, the Evony community tends to take care of its self. I was personally loged in one night when a “KKK” alliance was started, hunted, and crushed by players in a single night. You should point out in your other article that the “Nazi” alliance has one member, a player with 3K prestige. Obviously some kid logged on, played for about an hour, and decided to create a “nazi” alliance, which probably lasted another hour.
Anyway, I’m off to try to find a Rose Medal in a valley. Peace!
It’s also interesting to note that Evony brags about it’s 10 million users, but if you check the lists of members on each server, probably 75% are inactive. Their ad campaign brings thousands of peopl to the game who then quit within minutes of starting, and adding yet another false number to the millions of “supporters” of the game. Furthermore, it doesn’t take into account all the people who have used multiple emails, or used false emails, on the game to control multiple accounts at teh same time, or even all the people have have quit and left their account to other people in the game. I would not be surprised to hear that 1/10 of the number of people said to play the game control all active accounts on the game.
Just a few examples: on Server 1, there are currently about 7,080 members with 0 population on their accounts, meaning completely inactive. There are about 260 accounts with 0 prestige, meaning they were started and no one ever did a thing on there (this type of account is usually reset after a matter of days, so they hide how many people they lure to the game that instantly quit, but I’m sure they still count them in that 10 million) Another 340 members have under 1,000 prestige, which likely fall into the same category as the above. And there are numerous other accounts that have long since been abandoned but the statistics do not yet show it. They like throsing numbers around, yet thousands of members on each of their servers are completely inactive. Thousands of the active accounts on each server have the same user. I personally know hundreds of people that use multiple accounts, and some have as many as 8 that I know of. So 10 million players? I think not.
Hello Bruce. About 2 months ago, I started playing Evony. I had invested close to 500 dollars in the game. I thought, what the hell. I don’t do anything else, I’m disabled and spend all my time at home, can’t do anything else. I may as well spend something on myself and make the game more entertaining and speed things along. Kill some time.I had put anywhere between 10 and 14 hours per day into the game. All my heart and soul. I had met some very good people and to this day have become very good friends with them. Well everything was going well until about a week and a half ago while being a higher ranking member in a higher ranking alliance, i was attacking one individual. Every time I had attacked this person, I had received a very stern threat that this person had an uncle who is an administrator for Evony and if I attack him again, he was going to get my account wiped. I had copied and pasted this for my whole alliance to see. This had happened on 3 separate occasions. Many had witnessed these threats to which they were starting to make me nervous. In turn, I sent emails to Evony stating my concern and the threats I was receiving concerning the integrity of my account. I had not received any reply. Well a few days later, a friend of mine and myself, quit the alliance and moved onto a different one. Was a very friendly alliance that wasn’t having much action. We wanted to grow and expand quicker without the worry of being attacked so much. A day after we started the new alliance, I had changed my password. Being paranoid about losing my account to someone who may figure out my password. So I made it more complicated. Only 2 days into that alliance, we were getting attacked. My friend and I annihilated the enemy. Within minutes of the conclusion of the attack, my game froze. Upon reloading the game like I’ve done many times before, I couldn’t get back in. My password wouldn’t work. I tried everything.
Believing it was a problem with the system, I had gone to bed. Giving up on it until the next day. Well the next day had arrived and I booted up my computer to load up my game. I tried my password and it still didn’t work. I checked my email account to check the Evony update mail to make sure I was typing it right and to my surpirse, my password has been changed to “finished”. I went to the login on Evony and typed in my password and to my amazement and shock, my game had been restarted. Restarted with my second city gone and the city I had left had absolutely nothing in it. Completely erased.
I was in tears as this was what I’ve worked so hard on. Put so much into. Only the day before, I had spent another 70 dollars to boost things up. And now I was also without an alliance. At this
point I had contacted Evony about the situation. I received nothing back. My friends and all alliance members also contacted Evony about the situation. I was ranking 500 out of over 10000 members and here I was with nothing at all. Nothing. You have no idea how depressed this has made me. Why aren’t they listening to me? I want my cities back or at the least get my money refunded. Why would I want to quit a game I just invested more money into and I have all the payment history available. Was also the 6th highest ranking individual in my alliance. Its not like I’m trying to screw something out of them. I just want back what was rightfully mine. But 2 days later, after numerous mails from myself, my friends and my alliance members, I have not received any sort of reply. The further along this goes, the more depressed I am. I have just given somebody a fair bit of money, money I really couldn’t afford to give, but i did, just to play a game for a limited time? Then they take it away from me without regards. I’ve never harassed anyone. I’ve never abused anyone. Never even called anyone a name or ridiculed or made fun of anybody. Yet this one player I had attacked, I believe to be the culprit. I have a whole alliance as proof to this but yet nothing is being done. Favoritism doesn’t belong in this game nor any other game. What did I do wrong? Just what did I do to deserve this? I put so much into the game just to have it all taken away. I want it back or my money back. One of the two.
I haven’t bent any truth whatsoever in regards to what happened to me. If I would have given my password away to someone else, I would chalk that up as an experience and continue on with my life. But I never gave anyone anything that would jeopardize my investment into the game. Can you give me any information on where I can start. I’m on a fixed income and can not afford an attorney. I’m lost. I’m depressed. This has made me feel like complete garbage. Can’t give up pursuing this. Lost too much.
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hmm…the wheels within Evony…
Firstly, i came upon this article/website reading up on Bruce Everiss. As a paying player of Evony, i have to admit, ‘Its all in the Advertising”. I have never had any desire to play MMORPG’s. I am an x-box live fan. I created an Evony Account prolly only because of the advertising. Come on…scantily clad chicks, begging me to ‘Come Play’? Once i had my account running i started spending time improving my situation to keep from being Farmed, or wiped out..I mean after all, these fine looking chicks wont want to have anything to do with me if i am a Newb? Right? So time goes on…i find out i can spend a bit of RL cash and advance even further? Well count me in, out comes the bank card… 500 usd later i figure out There are no chicks..that part is just an advertising ploy (Sex Sales). I loose. So now I guess i have been active on Evony for about a year…give or take.. just dont want to quit because of my investment. Now i log on daily, dont chat much, i just farm a few NPC’s, defend my city, and make occasional raids against other players. Now i find out the server i play on is about to merge with two other servers and i might be loosing my account. Why?? I didnt register for the transfer. I check my system mail daily, but never received any notice of the merger. 500 usd and a couple thousand hour’s of work and now it may get wiped??…
SO…with this in mind i read dallas’s comment above, and do believe that his suggestion may be likely. Evony does Boarder on operating in a ‘Crooked’ manner. Enticing advertising that has NOTHING to do with actual game play.. possibly wiping accounts where people have paid RL cash is also possible. As far as Malware? I use 3 different security programs, usually when i run scans, everything comes up clean, or at least nothing pointing to evony, However i dont run scans with a browser open, and evony loaded. This would make sense, the malware may only be present while the game is running? Guess i will stop typing and try it….. GOOD LUCK BRUCE.
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