Evony

And to lighten the tone here:

 

Bruce has a special bonnet that he keeps his bees in.

 

They're taking over!!

10 Chinese browser games: http://www.playbbg.com/features/chinese-english-browser-based-games.html

 

*facepalm*

 

Coming over here, taking our gamers.

 

Looks like Empire Craft is OK:

Dear Eclectic,

Greetings from Megan Liu, head of Overseas Business Department of Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI). I joined OPI just over one week ago and my responsibility is to lead OPI’s overseas business(game).

I happen to find your website: http://www.bruceongames.com/ and read some your articles. I respect your expertise and I already found many interesting points of view in your blog.

I bumped into a short comment you made on your blog (dated July 15th, 2009; subject title: Empire Craft, the next Evony). In you comments, you link Empire Craft with Evony. You then suspect that Empire Craft is malware. I would like to clarify that Empire Craft and Evony are in no way related or similar. I will share some facts about OPI and its products.

OPI is one of the leading (browser-based) webgame developers and operators in China. OPI has reputable venture capital funding from Softbank (Japan) and General Atlantic, Doll Capital Management. Last year Softbank invested over $US430 Million and Son Masayoshi now sits on our board of directors. The company and development team are not associated with either Evony or Eric Lam. Empire Craft is developed by OPI and has no hidden agenda or malware to gain revenue. None of OPI’s products are malicious. OPI is targeting long term growth, has expanded into overseas markets and is trying to attract loyal players. It also developed The Secret of Heavely Book (http://t.mop.com/) which won the 2008 ChinaJoy Jinling Game of Year and is gaining popularity.

I understand some game operators might use inappropriate or deceptive marketing information to increase their market and profits. This short term strategy always leaves a bad taste in players’ mouths and negatively impacts the serious industry players such as OPI.

I admit there are areas of improvement in OPI’s current English product offerings e.g. the User Agreement that you found so similar to Evony’s. I am determined to help OPI to improve these areas so that we can introduce a wonderful, enjoyable webgame experience to players outside China. I really admire your background and marketing experience and I hope we can keep in touch and to see if we can find some potential opportunities to cooperate in the near future.

For more information about OPI please check: http://www.oakpacific.com/english/about.htm
For OPI games in China please check: http://www.imop.com/

If you have further questions about OPI and our products, please feel free to contact me. I’ll be very glad to assist you in the future. .

Best regards,


Megan Liu ([FONT=宋体]刘春华[/FONT])

Overseas Business Department - Game Center
Oak Pacific Interactive
No.8 North Third Ring Road East, Chao Yang District ,Beijing, P.R.China Zip Code: 100028

 

Another email, this time explaining the Chinese industry:

Dear Bruce,


I could not help but take an interest in your recent blog post “About Empire Craft” (http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/07/19/about-empire-craft/) where you received an email from OPI staff. If she was the one responsible for writing the e-mail then, like her, I am part of the new wave of foreign-born or foreign-educated Chinese who are joining companies in mainland China to oversee their overseas expansion into English markets. I work at Snail Game in Suzhou (www.snailgame.net) and like Megan I have also just joined my company in the past week to head their North American games operation division.


The Chinese market and its games are still relatively invisible in the eyes of Western press, so very little people in the West know much about it. I just wanted to drop a few words to tell you a little bit more about the local market. Most of the games produced here in mainland China are imitation products of previous market leaders and it really is a market that is relatively void of originality, but having worked at a couple of game companies and interacted with many more, I can assure you that the games developed for the Chinese market wouldn’t contain a drop of malicious software. The Chinese government is extremely strict, and most games even have anti-addiction systems that limit the number of hours an account can play for a day, and any such movement could possibly prompt a move from the government that would destroy their entire company.


What OPI and Snail Game want is simply profit. I can tell you that there is movement in the market where these companies are trying to bring over to North America some of the unique co-operation business models employed here in China that will cause a complete sea-change in how games are reviewed and recommended in the Western market, but it is hard to get the media companies (IGN, 1UP, Gamespot) to budge.


I am hoping to develop a blog soon where I can write more about the gaming industry in China. It’s an incredibly huge and successful market that is only growing every year — if only because millions of new “netizens” come into the market each year as China continues on its economic growth path and the rural areas slowly become urbanized and the farmers turn into city dwellers.


Companies like Snail Game and OPI have difficulty penetrating the Western market because we do not have many contacts there. I believe Perfect World is one of the only Chinese companies that has enjoyed success in North America, but they are still lacking and marketing consultants like yourself could definitely develop a Chinese clientele if you so desire. Please quote me your consultancy rates as well; I think that I would not be able to afford you given the strength of the British pound and the relative shoestring budget that I am on but hopefully we will have the opportunity to work together in the near future.



Hendrick Sukardi
North American Division Manager,
Snail Game

 

More on Oak Pacific Interactive:

http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=134099_0_5_0_M

Charges by Internet company Qihoo that Oak Pacific Interactive vice president and DoNews founder Liu Ren had blackmailed Qihoo resulted in Liu's arrest, reports National Business Daily quoting a Qihoo senior executive. According to the executive, several companies have sued Liu for tens of millions of Yuan for using his DoNews.com articles to blackmail them, and the Beijing-based Internet company turned Liu in after he requested Qihoo pay a "publicity protection fee." Qihoo has paid a significant amount to prevent Liu from writing articles damaging to Qihoo, said the report quoting unnamed sources.

 

What's the most controversial part in that case?

- cool gameplay
- its controversial operator with a cool lawsuit
- stolen graphics and text during localization
- malware, mailspam, blogspam and viruses
- queen contest
- marketing budget
- enough profit to operate 37 servers
- the viral sum that brings 5 million regs
- envy of all people who posted in that thread
- amusing bashing of Eclectic

(did anyone actually confirm it's developed by ummmge guys and not licensed from someone else?)

 

My spies tell me that the Evony people will be coming out with thae Age 2 update for the game within a month.

They don't see what they are doing as a scam, just another free MMO. The difference being their unconventional business practices and money grabbling business model.

What is for sure is that the interweb now has a lot of anti Evony content.

 

I hope not too much. You wouldn't want to plug the tubes with too much info. Then you won't be better than those damn Chinese!



Thank God they can only have one baby. Imagine if they had TEN children in every family. They'll take over the earth, finish all the resources and start eating us white folk!!!

 

PopCap have got in on the parody action with new ads for Plants vs. Zombies, up on Penny Arcade at the moment for instance.

 

Brilliant marketing.

 

That is awesome. Much like Plants vs. Zombies itself which i CANNOT stop playing.

 

Queen of Evony competition. Some entries:

 

That last one died. Oh dear.

 

From a blog comment:

To do the math, the game collects on average $5 a day from players. Some spend nothing and others spend a lot. At $5 a day, with 5750 players on each continent, and 30 continents per server, and 46 servers in operation, that’s a pretty good scam I think. Yes, almost 36 million dollars a month. The game owned and operated by an actual Gold miner, who realizes he can make much more money this way than having to discover, claim, mine and refine actual gold.

 

How dare anyone make money from video games. Especially the kind of made-up pulled-out-of-someone's-arse money that starts with total guesswork and extrapolates from there.

 

Shut up. This data came from a blog comment, so apologize!

 

Wow - I can't believe after all this time we still have the usual crew following Bruce out from the private forums to the public ones, still insulting and goading him - many now going so far as calling him racist for his dislike of Evony.

What a sad bunch of lads, many of you have gone way beyond any realm of acceptability.

We get it - you don't like Bruce - well shut the fuck up and stop reading his posts.

Very sad.