How Not To Advertise Your Web Game

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This story is a few weeks old, so forgive me if anyone has brought it up here and I missed it, but...

On the Coding Horror blog, this article describes the increasingly risque ads that have been appearing for the web-based civilization clone "Evony". They started with reasonable looking ads like this...

IMAGE(http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7143/evonyad1.jpg)

and gradually put in more and more oogaba...

IMAGE(http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3673/evonyad3.jpg)

until eventually... well, I'll let you go to the blog post to see the stunning finale.
"PLAY NOW SECRETLY" indeed.

The punch line is the Plants vs Zombies ads Popcap Games started running recently:
http://www.offworld.com/2009/07/evon...

I love Popcap Games.

That's a big pair of zombie boobs for a Popcap game.

Kudos to PvZ for turning this Evony stupidity into a meme. Now excuse me while I log into my secret game...

BEWBZ!!1

Using big tits to hawk video games is nothing new, but what is really striking about these 'Evony' ones is the utter contempt they show for their audience with their transparent marketing. 'Play Anonymously?' Is there not a more subtle way you could have delivered that? Why not just say "Your wife will never find out that you like to look at large elven breasts on the Internet at work, you sicko"? These guys need to watch some Mad Men or something.

While PopCap's parody is full of win, if I had never seen or heard of Plants vs Zombies, seeing an ad with a bald zombie with a big rack would make me not want to play it.

4xis.black wrote:

Using big tits to hawk video games is nothing new, but what is really striking about these 'Evony' ones is the utter contempt they show for their audience with their transparent marketing. 'Play Anonymously?' Is there not a more subtle way you could have delivered that? Why not just say "Your wife will never find out that you like to look at large elven breasts on the Internet at work, you sicko"? These guys need to watch some Mad Men or something.

Even better, it's not even remotely "discreet" as they claim. It's a big ol' shiny flash applet. Good luck getting away with THAT when you're supposed to be working. Their advertising campaign wouldn't bother me as much if it weren't such a bald-faced lie. Their bewbs ads have nothing to do with the actual game.

Ahahaha, oh wow.

Well, that made me giggle, and for that I thank you

Well, implied necrophilia is always funny, right? Right?

Holy sh*t that game looks awesome!

Do you have to pay to play with the oogaba? If so, how much? Do the two chicks clutching each other come separately or are they a bundle deal? Do the developers intend on releasing some ass DLC? Oogaba is nice but in order for me to get the most out of the game I need some rump shaking to aid me in reaching the climax...of the game. Personally I don't see what ya'll are talking about. This game looks sweet. I want to save hawt chix with my sword extended towards their heaving bosoms. Oh yeah...I want to rescue them all over their chest.

Damn this firewall at work! It is anonymous and discreet! Why won't it let me play? I'm soooooo.....uh....bored.

Okay, the game is described as "a browser-based clone of the game Civilization". How do they expect to get people to stay long enough to pay for crap when it's blatantly obvious the ads give absolutely no idea what the actual game is.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Holy sh*t that game looks awesome!

Do you have to pay to play with the oogaba? If so, how much? Do the two chicks clutching each other come separately or are they a bundle deal? Do the developers intend on releasing some ass DLC? Oogaba is nice but in order for me to get the most out of the game I need some rump shaking to aid me in reaching the climax...of the game. Personally I don't see what ya'll are talking about. This game looks sweet. I want to save hawt chix with my sword extended towards their heaving bosoms. Oh yeah...I want to rescue them all over their chest.

Damn this firewall at work! It is anonymous and discreet! Why won't it let me play? I'm soooooo.....uh....bored.

Thank you, I've been needing something to put in my sig.

Just make sure it is anonymous and discreet.

Like this ad:

IMAGE(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/evony-ad-4.jpg)

Subtle, no?

You know, you can mock it all you like, but the depressing thing is that if they're still running them despite all the negative attention they've got, it probably means it's effective.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Just make sure it is anonymous and discreet.

Like this ad:

IMAGE(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/evony-ad-4.jpg)

Subtle, no?

This is the one I saw on Quarantine a while back. I wonder how the logo sprouted a blade, and why it's menacing that poor sad woman.

kuddles wrote:

You know, you can mock it all you like, but the depressing thing is that if they're still running them despite all the negative attention they've got, it probably means it's effective.

Or dirt cheap to keep running.

No, it is effective.

Evony itself has a faq dedicated to the ads. Since the ads are begging you to save the queen people sign up with the mistaken assumption that the game actually contains a queen to save. When they realize there is no queen they complain to the devs enough that they put a faq on it.

The faq is something to the effect of: No there is no queen and the ads are only for marketing purposes. Also, based on the number of times we are asked this question it is highly effective marketing.

So...yeah. It works.

The question is, are people coming (and signing up, and playing) because they want a queen, or because they think they're missing something because it was clearly advertised and then not delivered?

TheArtOfScience wrote:

No, it is effective.

Evony itself has a faq dedicated to the ads. Since the ads are begging you to save the queen people sign up with the mistaken assumption that the game actually contains a queen to save. When they realize there is no queen they complain to the devs enough that they put a faq on it.

The faq is something to the effect of: No there is no queen and the ads are only for marketing purposes. Also, based on the number of times we are asked this question it is highly effective marketing.

So...yeah. It works.

But it's also a free game. How many of those people who ask the question then leave in disgust? We'll probably never know.

If the players don't buy "freemium" crap, the people running it make no money.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

But it's also a free game. How many of those people who ask the question then leave in disgust? We'll probably never know.

If the players don't buy "freemium" crap, the people running it make no money.

I'm just pissed off I didn't get to do rescue the queen.

TheArtOfScience wrote:

No, it is effective.

Evony itself has a faq dedicated to the ads. Since the ads are begging you to save the queen people sign up with the mistaken assumption that the game actually contains a queen to save. When they realize there is no queen they complain to the devs enough that they put a faq on it.

The faq is something to the effect of: No there is no queen and the ads are only for marketing purposes. Also, based on the number of times we are asked this question it is highly effective marketing.

So...yeah. It works.

I found the FAQ to see what it said and it was a bit ironic

How do I get my queen?
There is no queen in this game, the ad you saw is for marketing purposes and seems to be highly effective by the number of times this question has come up.

Who wants to (insert sexually explicit request here)?
Come on, grow up already. Leave this crap on the playground, not in our game.

Sexually explicit is ok for the ads, but apparently they're all perfectly legitimate people in game.

When you market to perverts, you get perverts.

(WELCOME PERVERTS!)

I've seen these ads EVERYWHERE.

WHERE CAN I HAZ THIS?

Ahem... I mean, it's very interesting on an intellectual level.

Oh, it gets better.

The Guardian reports:

It turns out that the site's backers are equally unpopular. Evony is the product of Universal Multiplayer Game Entertainment (UMGE), a developer linked to a Chinese gold-farming operation called WoWMine. That site has also come in for regular criticism, but the real kicker comes with the news that the company's owners are being sued by Microsoft over allegations of click fraud.

Awesome!

Don't mean to necro a thread (which isn't too old), but these ads are hilarious. Scrolling down the article with all the ads, each one left me feeling that it was a little tasteless, but not too bad. And then the last one, straight up porn ad. I'd expect the first ad for their next game will just start off at the hardcore porn animated gif with "blur" in it to keep it "acceptable."

LobsterMobster wrote:

The question is, are people coming (and signing up, and playing) because they want a queen, or because they think they're missing something because it was clearly advertised and then not delivered?

Or maybe they want to be a queen...

LobsterMobster wrote:

The question is, are people coming (and signing up, and playing) because they want a queen, or because they think they're missing something because it was clearly advertised and then not delivered?

Are there tits or not?

Just blue tits,

(not a Mass Effect link and safe for work)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_tit

Don't forget about the Plants vs. Zombies spoof ads: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...

Play now with secretness forever.

A crucial demographic was being ignored:

IMAGE(http://www.doesnotwant.com/evony_fixed.jpg)

You're welcome!

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