Evony
A chronological series of ads for an online game highlights the cheap advertising appeal of the misogyny strategy, and a blog post about it highlights its Achilles' Heel.
Coding Horror posted what just so happened to be an interesting follow-up to my post from last Monday later last week. Their post, How Not to Advertise on the Internet, is about the in-browser Civilization-style game Evony.
Jeff collected a series of advertisements for the game, and displayed them in chronological order. I’ve collected them from him and done the same below.
He’s insistent that "these are real ads that were served on the internet. This is not a parody." Take a look:
These ads are a perfect example of someone succombing to Seth’s shortcut to cash when times are tough, and Jeff’s blog post is itself yet another case substantiating DLB’s first axiom: Be good, because when you’re not, the Internet will call you on it.
| Tagged with: | Advertising, Design Ethics, Games, Misogyny, Taxonomy of Unethical Designs, Women |
Post a comment
Want to know more?
You're reading BlogLESS, a thrice-weekly blog about the ethics of advertising, branding, design, social media and business. We are also fans of zen, although this itself is perhaps not so zen.
Comments on this post
1.
There is a lot more than just sexist advertising going on here.
Evony is from a Chinese gold farmer, they are going first party. And they are spamming the internet like crazy. I have been collating all the info here: http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/10/dont-play-evony/
2.
Thanks for the heads-up Bruce. In the comments of your post, I found this nice wrap-up.
The total list apparently includes:
Pretty interesting stuff.
3.
While what @Bruce has found about spamming and stealing on part of Evony is wrong, I have to take contention with calling Evony out on the direction their advertisements took.
I just read on Copyblogger about master copyrighter David Ogilvy, whose view seemed to be that the ends defined the means (the article is at http://www.copyblogger.com/get-rich-copywriter/ and the part I am referring to is, “[Ogilvy] had no patience for advertising that won awards and praise, but made no sales.” Evony used sex to make more sales (and from the progression of their ads, it seemed to be working). I don’t like that women are being objectified but I also find it difficult to argue the idea that if it works, use it.
I don’t like it. I am glad you called them out on it. But I don’t agree.
4.
Hey Diwant,
I can certainly see the logic of the position by which you’re persuaded. One of the major projects of BlogLESS, though, is to argue against unethical design and advertising moves like this one by deploying normative and practical, practice-specific arguments.
For my money, the ends only justify the means if the ends are themselves justifiable. Of course, that’s not the first time I’ve disagreed with Ogilvy.
Thanks for continuing to read and comment.
Paul
5.
They’re constantly advertising on my website http://www.darnkitty.com/, I’m worrying that the advertisements are becoming more and more risque and less and less appropriate for my site!
6.
all i want to know is how old are you guys cause you youse big words like means and justified
using boobs to sell a game is wrong!
7.
…but you have to admit, those are some pretty nice tits, am I right guys?!?!
Boo Yah!
8.
Hey guys!
I’m currently writing a complete review of Evony LCC. Everything to it advertising portfolio, right down to how it selfishly makes its profits.
Some of these quotes are excellent and I was wondering if I could use them in my thread to back up my article/evidence.
Thanks for your time!
Best Regards
Conor
9.
i just dont get why men are so obsessed with boobs…
10.
its funny, cause I went to high-school with the girl that is on the sexy new adds
11.
men are so obssessed possibly because some were weened too early during childhood and yearn to be back in mothers ‘embrace’ so to speak. :P
12.
Theyve gone up a level now!!
http://www.evony.com/image/evonyrb4.jpg
13.
Sorry i put the wrong link its actually this one.
http://www.evony.com/evonyrb4.html?ad4game
14.
Im glad to see that other people are annoyed by these ad’s.
i really just thought it was some amature designer that assumed that everyone wants to see tits. yeah of course i want to see tits, but thats what internet porn is for. And ive been noticing that designers in all genres are just going for the cash and not the true art of designing, yeah yeah they are cheap ad’s, but make them look interesting, dont just paste a fucking boob on my web page and hope i accidentally click on it.
15.
Lolz: http://tinyurl.com/yhv2tpt
16.
Hey whether you love or hate the Ads – you have to admit, they did their job well.
Evony is raking in tons of money, so I really don’t think they care what we think about their tactics… Microsoft basically tried to Bully and Monopolize the computer industry in the 90s yet we still use their crap… Point is, people get over it. lol