History VideoGame / Evony

** ...and then it shifted back into full bullshit mode in ''King's Return'', featuring puzzles that don't even show up past the start of the game.

The ''Evony'' developers have now launched a sequel, named ''Tynon''. It uses the same advertising strategy. It's safe to assume it's also rife with spyware. ''Evony: The King's Return'' does not use sex in its advertisements, instead advertising it as a "pull the pin" puzzle game, but the puzzles are only present for the first few levels.

* TamerAndChaster: The still-misleading ads for ''The King's Return'' features little to no scantily clad women and more endorsements from A-list celebrities, and puzzles.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Some of the units are labelled this way. The "arquebusiers" and "Musketeers" are both armed with a bow and crossbow, respectively, instead of gunpowder weapons. The "Trebuchet", meanwhile, is just a catapult with extra spikes on it.

'''Once more, in case you missed it, readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' [[RunningGag It is a spyware program in disguise.]]'''

%%* AllegedlyFreeGame: Like most games of its type, but taken UpToEleven.

''Evony'' is a BrowserGame {{MMORPG}} where you start off in charge of a tiny village and presumably build it up into a mighty kingdom. It's best known as the source of those annoying banner ads with the random, mostly-naked women that you see on Website/LiveJournal and Website/FanFictionDotNet (and, for that matter, Wiki/TVTropes).

* CoversAlwaysLie: Ad Campaigns Always Lie in this case. ''Evony''[='s=] '''entire''' marketing campaign is false advertising.

* EasyCommunication: A particularly blatant example with how fast mail can reach other players. Consider that you're role-playing lords in a medieval setting. Averted, in how long armies take to reach distant destinations.
* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: Evony game advertisments frequently feature scantily-clad women that do not appear in the actual game.

** ...and then it shifted back into full bullshit mode in ''King's Return'', featuring puzzles that don't even show up past the first portion of the game.

* LadyNotAppearingInThisGame: The trope could very well be called "''Evony'' Ad Girl". And it is, [[EvonyAdGirl albeit as a redirect.]]
* MayContainEvil: [[Wiki/TVTropes We]] repeatedly remind Tropers that Evony is spyware so as to (hopefully) prevent them from downloading said spyware.

* ContemptibleCover: Ads of softcore, game of civ, code of spyware.

* AllegedlyFreeGame: Like most games of its type, but taken UpToEleven.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: A game design student reverse engineered ''Evony''[='s=] client, and discovered not only is it very poorly made, but '''it harvests massive amounts of data''', including such things as your browser history, which websites you visit while the game is open, and what applications you run.

* SlaveCollar: For alliances. Shown above.

* FrivolousLawsuit: As detailed [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/31/evony-libel-case-bruce-everiss here]], when blogger Bruce Everiss revealed Evony's links to shady Chinese companies, Evony launched a libel lawsuit against him. Despite Everiss living in the U.K. and Evony being registered as a business in the U.S., Evony brought the suit in Australia; they tried to claim Everiss had readers there, but they got accused of "libel tourism" in return. Also, under Australian libel law, only companies under 10 employees can sue for libel, yet Evony had vacancies for 14 jobs. Evony dropped the case after only two days, supposedly due to the opinions of their player base, but most likely to cut their losses before Everiss' legal team could poke even more holes in their case.

* OrwellianRetcon: Multiple:
** The owners of ''Evony'' have become somewhat infamous for their many unsuccessful attempts to RetCon '''real life''', such as deleting all mention of the company they originally proudly touted as being a product of and now outright claiming that the company in question never even existed, and they've '''always''' been owned by the new company.
** For several years, the company claimed they had somewhere between 20 and 30 employees...until they sued Bruce Everiss. Australian law prohibits a company with more than 10 employees from filing a libel lawsuit, so they deleted all mention of "over twenty employees" and claimed (in fact, continue to claim) that they've never employed more than nine people. More info [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/31/evony-libel-case-bruce-everiss here.]]
* RunningGag: The repeated mentions on this website as to how Evony is spyware. Though this gag serves a practical purpose.

Not to be confused with [[Fanfic/MyImmortal Enoby]], even though her name ''is'' spelled "Evony" a couple of times.

'''Readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' It is a spyware program in disguise.'''

[[quoteright:315: https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sex_sells_-_evony_7460.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:315:Actually one of the tamer ads.[[note]]Apparently nothing '' else'' you do will be "unnoticeable" to the developers...what with the whole spyware thing...[[/note]]]]

Not to be confused with [[FanFic/MyImmortal Enoby]].

BrowserGame {{MMORPG}} where you start off in charge of a tiny village and presumably build it up into a mighty kingdom. It's best known as the source of those annoying banner ads with the random, mostly-naked women that you see on Website/LiveJournal and Website/FanFictionDotNet (and, for that matter, Wiki/TVTropes).

[[caption-width-right:315:Actually one of the tamer ads.[[note]][[HilariousInHindsight Apparently]] nothing '' else'' you do will be "unnoticeable" to the developers...[[/note]] [[note]] And then there's the whole spyware thing...[[/note]]]]

'''Once more, in case you missed it, readers are encouraged to avoid this game ''entirely.'' [[RuleOfThree It is a spyware program in disguise.]]'''

The ''Evony'' developers have now launched a sequel, named ''Tynon''. It uses the same advertising strategy. It's safe to assume it's also rife with spyware.