When it comes to casual games on the Web, there are many out there vying for our attention. While we've all played those addictive Flash games our friends have sent us, casual MMOs have been growing in popularity for the past few years. They've become big business, especially when they're implemented through social sites like MySpace and Facebook. Case in point: Zynga, the developer of Farmville and Mafia Wars has an estimated worth of $3 billion.

However, one game on the Web has been accused of being little more than an elaborate scam designed to bilk gamers out of their money. The game, Evony, has an extensive Web presence that has gained a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons, and that's just the beginning of the bad press surrounding the title. Accusations of shady business practices, legal bullying, and physical intimidation surround the game; some of these claims are easy enough to parse, while others are practically impossible to figure out because the real story has become so convoluted that it's a Gordian Knot of facts

The ads we all love to hate

Even if you've never played Evony, odds are that you've been startled by at least one ad for the game while you surfed the Web. The ads are particularly notorious because they've grown increasingly scandalous over time. Originally, the advertisements featured buxom women in fantasy-like garb and the text encouraged viewers to save either "the princess" or "your lover."

As time passed, the imagery has become more suggestive. Instead of revealing dresses, the women began appearing in lingerie for no apparent reason. One of the tamer ads shows a woman in jeans and a tank top, with a lot of attention being heaped on her cleavage (accompanied by the confusing tagline, "Play the new game everyone's talking about. It's obvious why they are: It makes you feel like King!"). The ads have yet to become truly pornographic, though there are some that feature nothing more than a pair of breasts over the text claiming Evony is the, "best free web game."

If some of the girls in the ads look familiar, it's probably because many of the more recent (and more scandalous) women are taken from stock photography sites like iStockPhoto. In at least one instance, the image in an Evony ad was also featured as the cover of a low-grade porn DVD.



Compare and contrast: the original Evony ads and PopCap's satirical ones. Click for NSFW version

Gamers clearly aren't the only people who have gotten sick of these softcore ads. Last summer, PopCap Games launched a Web campaign for Plants vs. Zombies that satirized Evony's. Not only did PopCap's ads feature (sort-of) busty female zombies showing off their sagging assets and remaining teeth, but the ads also included similarly nonsensical slogans sported in Evony's.

The satirical campaign was the result of a discussion between PopCap employees. While PopCap will no longer talk about the ads with the general public, the company's VP of Public Relations Garth Chouteau did explain the idea behind the ads with The Escapist shortly after the campaign began.

"We needed some quirky ads to help keep Plants vs. Zombies top of mind," he explained, "and following the PvZ 'music video' and zombatar and the zombies' and plants' takeover of PopCap.com when the game launched, we wanted to do something equally zany—and as gamers ourselves, these spoof ads had us rolling on the floor, so we figured other gamers would appreciate them too."

Not only did gamers appreciate the ads, but the press did, too. As soon as the parody banners hit the Web, PopCap received a ton of positive press for the campaign.

On one hand, Evony's ads are effective because they manage to immediately snag a viewer's attention and make them want to learn more. However, the advertising is also completely deceptive, since there's not a single princess or lover involved in the game's story. Instead, it's a MMORTS that has players acting as the mayor of a town in a medieval world. Moreover, while the game is technically free to play, the ads don't mention the numerous virtual transactions associated with gameplay.

Evony's marketing has also become hated due to numerous spam comments left on blogs and news sites. A number of sites have complained about receiving comments like the following:

I just started playing this new game called evony. It’s pretty sweet I think you guys would like it. Just a simple little flash game, but damn its addicting. You can sign up for an account at [LINK REMOVED].

I just found this cool new game called evony. Check it out at [LINK REMOVED]

Comments like these are common for less reputable companies and/or websites, usually peddling penis/breast enlargements, dubious herbal remedies, or free pornography. The fact that a game was being pimped with this technique makes it seem more than a little sleazy.

Of course, the game's publisher quickly denied responsibility for this spamming, instead claiming that it was the result of "some players [who] have abusively and unethically engaged in spamming practices," via a program known as iEvony. iEvony allows players to earn in-game credits by referring new players; more on that program later.

Beyond the ads

The hatred for Evony runs pretty deep throughout the Web, but its ad campaign is only part of the reason. Another major factor for this distaste is that there's little that's actually original about Evony.

The first crack in the game's façade is that Evony's original title —Civony— was a little too close to Sid Meier's classic Civilization for some critics' comfort. About a year ago, the name was changed from Civony to Evony, though no official explanation was given on what led to the switch. Also, many websites have documented how the game featured buildings blatantly ripped off from Age of Empires II before the company started creating its own artwork.

Art assets from Age of Empires 2 and their appearance in Evony. Images courtesy of hellforge.gameriot.com

As pointed out by The Guardian, the actual gameplay mechanics are also highly reminiscent of Civilization. Players gradually build up their cities by gathering resources, upgrading units, and eventually waging war against other players in the world. Even though the game is technically free to play, upgrading units and issuing commands takes a bit of time to actually accomplish. This means that if a player wants to get a leg up in the game, they need to buy items from the game's Item Mall. Some of these items include construction speedups and increases to a player's resource production rate.

While Evony seems like many other strategy games, this illusion starts to fall apart after a player gets through the "beginner" levels. During the introductory play sessions, fees don't really make an appearnce. However, things don't stay free for long. Once players advance past level five, fees are necessary to fully play the game; even basic actions like sending in-game messages will cost players a nominal amount of cash.