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.
2 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!
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