Evony Vs Bruce Everiss. The result

81

Rather than write this myself, it has been written up much better than I could ever do by a professional journalist here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/31/evony-libel-case-bruce-everiss

I have many people to thank.

My legal team in Australia from Marque Lawyers: Damian Sturzaker, Hannah Petrie and Sally Kerridge. They are absolutely brilliant and I unreservedly recommend them to anyone needing legal help in Australia.

My barristers did a fantastic job in court. They are Dr Andrew Bell and Sandy Dawson. A formidable combination.

All this was only possible because of the great friendly advice I received from Danvers Baillieu at Winston & Strawn in London. He has been a pillar throughout these difficult months.

Gillian Phillips, Director of Editorial Legal Services at the Guardian, has been fantastic throughout. Her practical day to day knowledge of being in my position was priceless. She gave me much real world advice.

Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex, has been massively supportive throughout. His testimony to the court helped enormously.

The press have been very wary of reporting about anything with pending litigation. However two notable exceptions have been John “wardrox” at Negative Gamer and Michael Thompson at Ars Technica.

Finally I would like to thank the many people who work or who worked on the Evony game who have contacted me, from China and from the West, often at personal risk, to give me the information you have seen reported here.

It has been a very difficult 8 months or so. But all along I could take comfort and strength from the support of those named above and my family. And the knowledge that I had only reported the truth.

My thanks once again.

Related stories

  1. The Law Report, ABC radio, Australia. And Evony
  2. Evony fighting fund – a big thank you
  3. Evony want to sue me for telling the truth

81 Comments


  1. Told you on Twitter already, but here again – congratulations, Bruce! I’ve been following the whole situation since July with dread fascination. The implications had Evony actually won any significant victory would have been very scary indeed.

    Thank you for putting up the fight and not letting yourself be scared into submission.


  2. 😀 Well done Bruce!


  3. Great news! Now we can get on with getting stuck into their pestilential antics with a bit less worry about their frivolous lawsuits.


  4. Brilliant – well done Bruce. You took on a classic big bullying corporation and won! And in today’s social media world a LOT of people are going to hear about it.


  5. Congratulations, Bruce. I hope the naysayers who comment on your blog will take note of what is essentially a victory for someone reporting truth, against a bullying corporation.
    Coincidentally, today is also the last day of Evony for me. I’ve been playing for about 4 months but decided that I’ve wasted too much time on it and am done with it.


  6. A victory for freedom of speech and common sense 🙂


  7. Great job Bruce! So you got the CEO of Jagex, who is also the CEO of the most played mmo in the world to testify? Wow! Well I think this is the beginning of the end for evony. Great job!


  8. Congratulations Bruce! As a reader of your blog for the last couple of years I’m glad it can continue in the form and stance it can; ie reporting the truth.


  9. great job Bruce, you really showed some balls and in the end it worked!

    thank you for not backing down but fighting for justice and freedom of speech!


  10. Congratulations Bruce… but no thanks to your readers or those of us who donated to the fighting fund?
    Just an oversight I’m sure.


  11. Any chance of us getting to see the testimonies from the case (from both sides) without paying the Supreme Court for the transcripts?


  12. @Docker Al
    A very, very good point.
    I have already thanked the donors and was going to thank them again once all the financial side of things is sorted out.

    You are very right, the contributions were not just financially appreciated, they also showed much needed moral support which has been massively comforting through all the bad times .


  14. Congratulations Bruce et al, you have broken the silence of millions of gamers in bringing this issue to account.

    I am particularly delighted that you had the assistance Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex, because too many people remain quite ignorant of the type of abuse that transpires within rogue MMOs like Evony. I can well understand how his expertise and guidance would have been of particular assistance to this case. It should be pointed out that responsible browser gaming companies do exist and they offer an infinitely safer and more rewarding gaming experience than Evony. Naturally I hope that all legitimate gaming companies can benefit from this experience and begin to recognise that it is in their best interests to assist people like Bruce Everiss to challenge companies that employ unethical business practices.

    Here is a toast to all involved in helping Bruce over these past few months.

    AC


  15. @Matty J

    I don’t have the transcripts yet. When I do I will happily email them to anyone who wants, just send me an email request. Because they were spoken in open court they are in the public domain.


  17. Aussie Croc attacks Libel Tourists!

    Can you just post the transcripts online when they are available please?

    And the Evony guy faked a claim for a BA and MBA!?!

    I wonder if they will pay up or run out on the court obligations.

    Happy days are here again!

    Now we need to know which other games are suspected of being associated with this company so we can avoid them. And time for you to turn back to the original purpose of your blog, which kind of got hijacked by legal filings.

    Here is a funny game for all your Jewish readers>

    http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/matzohball/


  18. @Steve A

    They are far too big to post here. Two days talking.
    I will gladly send them to anyone who wants to host them, or analyse them for journalistic or academic purposes.


  19. Congratulations Bruce! I’ve been following the proceedings on your website since you first wrote about it. Glad to see that the outcome was so good. Instead of posting the entire transcript, maybe you could post the highlights?


  20. @Em
    Thank you.
    My feeling is that now the facts about Evony are mainstream I have done my job and can move on. Articles like the Guardian one above and this http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/evony-investigating-the-game-everyone-loves-to-hate.ars reach far bigger audiences than I can ever achieve.

    Also I want to write about where mobile is going. Android is looking to overtake iPhone this year, yet most people don’t realise. And where the gesture interfaces are going now that Sony and Microsoft have revealed more. And where 3D is going now that the movie industry has run out of seats to fit their audience on.
    You get the idea.


  21. Congratulations Bruce! This is really great! 😀


  22. Congratulations, Bruce. It’s been entertaining.


  23. I’m sure you’re glad its all over. Just out of interest, did your lawyers have proof of the things you wrote to produce in court other than things that you’ve already posted here?

    Now that Evony have assured you they won’t sue again, it would sure be interesting to see what you were going to bring up.


  24. Careful, no-one likes a bad winner 😉


  25. Congratulations – It really is unfortunate the degree to which Evony (and their shady founders) have gone to squirm out of the spotlight they brought on themselves by engaging in the kinds of activity that they have. Once people start making real money through abusive practices (especially in a highly unregulated and corrupt legal environment like China) they have nothing but incentive but to keep pushing the envelop and shouting down anyone that criticizes them.

    The other side of this story is all the advertising publishers who still gladly accept Evony’s advertising – it is perfectly possible to opt out of these ads and avoid sending users to Evony’s clutches (and further incentivizing their behavior on a worldwide basis).

    When will Google and other ad platforms currently still serving this garbage make the right decision and blacklist these butt holes once and for all – they have done so many times in the past (the most recent being tooth whiteners in my memory). How is this any different?


  26. congrats!
    i’m sure all those “what have i brought to myself” moments that you probably felt through this ordeal are now all behind you.

    what a life experience you got from all this.

    congrats again, it takes big courage to do what you did.


  27. I am so pleased with the result, I found your blog some time ago and loved the articles. I’ve been following events with evony since they started and this is absolutely a victory for free speech, common sense and most of all the truth. I take inspiration from your stand against a company whose actions speak for themselves and that you did not back down, well done and here’s to many many years of stress free blogs, you deserve it!


  28. So I am guessing Evony used the old truce-dream truce move and hoped you would just port away. Kudos to you Bruce for building your army up and hitting them when they came out of truce. Nice to see you are getting all your legal costs back as well.

    Out of curiousity, did their lawyers have big breasts? I can just picture a big breasted lawyer eating a banana in court saying “Come my lord, you must find in favour of us” while unbuttoning her shirt.


  29. Congratulations, Bruce! Great to see the (insert whatever expletive/s you want here) over at Evony get what they deserve. GG!


  30. Congratulations Bruce,

    A great victory for morals and truth over the power of the libel laws I think.

    Well fought.

    Looking forward to your insights returning to the matter of gaming now 🙂


  31. Yeah, right on Bruce! I’m glad this is over, it was clearly such an enormous emotional and time-consuming burden over many months for you. Congrats from Brazil!


  32. You should now take down your “Fighting Fund,” Bruce.

    Oh, and congrats on this. My only problem now is, how shall I get my bi-weekly drama?

    At least the head ache is over for you.

    Well done also on all the hard work conducted by Damian Sturzaker, Hannah Petrie and Sally Kerridge, and everyone else.

    Please post the odd update, Evony is how I found I, and I visit almost on a daily basis now.


  33. Phew! Its not over yet but, seems that theyve lost!

    +1 to free speech!


  34. Ah, how it must have felt to be in that courtroom and watch as Evony got caught with its pants down…

    Cheers mate! I salute you for sticking on even when David Guo was sending crooked cops to beat people up.

    I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief… and maybe things will start to quiet down around here.


  35. Re the court transcript, it has a copyright notice at the top of each document which prohibits the reproduction of the transcript for any other purpose than the conduct of the proceedings.
    Also where the transcript contains personally identifying information, including particularly witnesses’ addresses, that information should not be disclosed.

    So presumably it could only be used as if you were in court actually listening to the (public) proceedings.


  36. Glad that all went well for you, Bruce. 🙂


  37. Y’know Bruce, I was on one of the many forums where you were being laughed at and pilloried for not just caving in and pulling the features.

    You must have been through an incredibly stressful few months, but as cliche as it sounds, you really have struck a blow for freedom of speech here.

    My sincerest congratulations and respects to you for taking the right path, and not the easy one.


  38. Congrats Bruce. I donated a couple of days ago after reading the Ars feature – I hope the money can still be of use?


  39. Congrats Bruce. We now finally know the difference between you and a certain Scottish games ranter. You can go to court and win! Well done.


  40. @Chris
    Also, unlike the Scotsman, I actually work in the video game industry.


  41. Congratz Bruce!

    Its so lame of Evony to back down due to that reason, everyone who has any inside into evony’s forum knows that any posting regarding this lawsuit was deleted and suppressed.

    How exactly was the case dropped?


  42. @Roger
    Thanks.
    The details of the dropping of the case are best explained in the Guardian article.


  43. Interesting. You can remove the paypal donate box from your page now, unless you feel this isn’t over yet!


  44. @MattB

    It isn’t over yet, as the Guardian article states!
    However you make a good point, I will ask my webmaster to remove it when he returns from Spain next week.


  45. Congratulations Bruce! I’m so glad that the outcome was a positive one for you.


  46. Congratulations Bruce. Proof that sometimes common sense and morality can prevail in a court of law.

    Although I do think that the judge should order Evony to be investigated for the things that they are doing, but that’s probably not likely, we should just be glad that the law worked well this far.


  47. Congratulations, and well done!!! I’m truly pleased to see this result. This is clearly a major victory for free speech as well as a triumph of the little guy not caving to a corporate juggernaut. Unfortunately, I don’t believe, as others have indicated above, that this is the beginning of the end for Evony and in fact I’m somewhat surprised that they bothered to take the point as far as they did. I expected them to be more inclined to let the criticism flow freely as long as it didn’t affect the cash flow significantly (perhaps it did?).

    Anyway, the irony of reading this post adjacent to an ad for “World of LordCraft” featuring a woman wearing a (presumably medieval?) bra and panties set is competely astounding to me, and reinforces my fears that Evony rolls on unaffected.


  48. Nice. Congratulations, Mr. Everiss! It’s nice to see someone take a stand on principle and stick to it.


  49. Ya want to get Evony tossed off their Texas USA based server host if possible.

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