Evony is an Adobe Flash-based multiplayer online game by American developer Evony LLC with graphic elements reminiscent of other similar real time games and is set in the European medieval time period. Two browser-based versions as well as a mobile version currently exist. The game is notable for its controversial advertising.
Gameplay
Evony is set in a persistent world during the medieval time period in which the player assumes the role of a lord or lady of a city or alliance. A new player is given "beginner's protection," which prevents other players from attacking their cities for a total of 7 days or until a player upgrades the town hall to level 5 or higher. This gives new players the opportunity to accumulate a few resources and troops and get accustomed to the game before other players can attack them. The player sets tax rate, production and construction. The resources in the game are gold, food, lumber, stone, and iron, and the city's idle population. As with similar games, the player first has to increase the city's population and hourly resource production rates as well as construction of certain buildings in the city, and then start building resource fields of their city and building an army. An army can include siege machines, such as ballistas, catapults, and battering rams, and foot troops, such as archers, warriors and swordsmen. All of Evony items must be purchased with cents which can be bought with real money, through its item shop in game or won at the wheel. Some items will accelerate the player's progression through the game. Winning items in battle is the primary way to acquire resources and cities.
Interaction
The game features player versus playergame play making it possible to attack another player's cities, and almost impossible for players who have not formed or joined alliances to survive. The game allows the player to control up to ten cities through gain of titles. To gain a title, a certain rank is necessary. Both Title and Rank require Medals gained by use of in-game coins to purchase medal boxes, by attacking valleys or winning medal boxes from spinning the wheel. The game has two different monetary systems. The in-game monetary system revolves around gold. Gold can be obtained by completing quests, by taxing the city's population as well as attacking NPC's. It is also possible to sell resources for gold on the marketplace or to trade resources with other players within a player's alliance for gold. A player can also use real money to buy game cents with which to purchase items and resources from the in-game shop.
Controversy
Advertising campaign
Evony 2009 online advertising campaign was criticized for featuring what The Guardian called "a string of increasingly racy images." The images depicted women who, as the ad campaign continued, became increasingly unclothed. All of this had no connection to the game. In 2009 Gavin Mannion commented that Evony "latest ad is seriously pushing boundaries of what is acceptable to publish on Google". Other ads used stock photographs from pornographic DVD covers. Evony has also been accused of promoting the game via "millions of spam comments left on blogs". The company denies they are responsible for the spam. Others attribute the spam to players making use of the pyramid scheme-based iEvony affiliate program. Regardless of the widespread criticism of these advertising policies, the campaign was hugely successful. By late 2011, Evony counted 27 million registered users.
On August 25, 2009, Evony's lawyers threatened to sue a critical blogger for defamation over a variety of allegations as to the game's provenance and the practices of the companies behind it. The developers of Evony denied the allegations from internet blogger Bruce Everiss and sent a cease and desist letter for defamation based on Australian law. Everiss responded by linking to a documentary which reportedly showed evidence of Evony fraudulent history. Shortly before the case was due to begin in Sydney, Evony parted with their legal team and asked for an adjournment of the case. After the adjournment, the case was resumed with a new hearing in March 2010. However, two days into the case, Evony withdrew the libel claim against Everiss.
