Can Evony Ads Provoke An Epileptic Fit?

Written by Connor Beaton, published 6th March 2010

We’ve previously commented on the audacity of Evony’s marketing campaign, shoving ridiculous amounts of cleavage and suggestive slogans in our faces while simultaneously disguising what the actual game is, so it shouldn’t surprise you that the ads have sunk even lower in recent days. Take the ad on the left for example; you can’t tell because it’s a still image, but the actual advert has two flashing lights which quickly change colour. You’ll notice these lights are placed over the breast area. You might also notice that these lights could potentially trigger an attack of epilepsy.

Find it unlikely that such an ad would have been approved by the ad server? Well, don’t forget that Google AdWords have already blocked ads from the game company, and epileptic fits have been triggered by daytime children’s television in the past, such as the infamous case of “Pokémon Shock” in December 1997. While no Evony-provoked seizures have been reported, it could only be a matter of time if these offensive, unsightly and dangerous ads aren’t pulled soon.

It’s not just the audacity of the ads that have attracted criticism, but also the company’s own antagonism towards their critics; the ad campaign controversy was originally brought to the attention of the public by a number of forums and blogs, including our own recently-axed message board. In response, Evony’s parent company issued legal threats, accusing such articles of being libellous.

Evony have also been found to be stealing content from games such as Civilisation and World of Warcraft for both their client and website, a stupid thing to do, considering both of these games are far more popular than their own; Evony seem intent on setting up their own destruction. In response to Evony’s crazy development and marketing, PopCap Games ran a series of parody ads to promote their awesome arcade-style game Plants vs. Zombies, a game we reviewed last year and to which we awarded a score of 98%.

There’s also been concern that the game itself may be malware, utilising players’ computers to spam adverts for the game, harvest passwords and other malicious deeds. It is ridiculous that Evony still exists today, after already infringing the copyright of other game developers, making baseless legal threats, spamming the Internet with adverts, injecting malware into their users’ machines and running the most misleading and breastful ad campaign ever seen on the Internet.

Here’s a tip for all you Internet users who somehow find themselves tempted by Evony’s busty adverts: go to Google, search for “freeciv”, download, and enjoy. It’s a completely free version of Civilisation, free of Evony’s bullshit and microtransaction fees. And if it’s not the game, but the breasts, that you so much desire… then you should probably get out of the house and meet a pretty girl (read: go down to your local adult video store).