Chinese web game overseas expansion means bad image

in Chinese web games

February 20, the British famous game man Brouse Avris (brusseveriss) blog updated.

In the comments on the increased number of photos taken from Guangzhou, China, Bruce wrote: "It's so funny, it's a Chinese company, with more than 20 people in Guangzhou, who lied in an Australian court that they are a pure American company with fewer than 10 employees." I have kept the evidence until it is ready for trial. ”

Bruce said "They" is in foreign controversial online gaming company Evony. The lawsuit he refers to is December 14, 2009, Evony company sued Bruce to slander himself in the blog case.

Interestingly, the Evony company has a deep Chinese background and is registered in Wilmington, Delaware State, USA. Bruce is British and has a blog on the UK website. According to common sense, if both sides have a lawsuit, the arbitration organization should choose in the United States or the United Kingdom, but Evony company chose in unrelated Australia to sue the other side to court. The matter itself is curious.

But this is not the case of the whole suspense, the nature behind it is, "Evony" with the current Chinese online gaming industry, some of the promotional means and fee mechanism in the United States has achieved a very good effect, but the attendant is the sky criticism and blame.

Blog comments Provoke a lawsuit

Brouse Avris, 57, a pioneer in the UK's computer industry, founded the world's first computer retailing company in 1979, and Bruce, a veteran of the gaming industry, has nearly 20 years of experience in media work. Since 2005, Bruce has commented on the industry on his blog and provided some consulting work for the network and gaming industry.

July 10, 2009, Bruce found a lot of spam comments on his blog, advertising links almost all point to a "evony" network game, so he published a blog "Do not play evony." After a thorough study of the Evony, Bruce discovered more questions about the game, and in subsequent posts, pointed out all the questions, further advocating that the player not play the game.

In addition to infringing plagiarism and pornography, Bruce also found that there were users on the official forum who pointed out that malware might be on the Evony game website. He worries about it. Bruce also found that the game can use the game currency to buy a lucky charm, to participate in a roulette game. Because the game currency is tied to cash, he sees it as a disguised form of gambling that could violate America's gaming laws. In addition, because the game does not have the classification limit, may have the negative influence to the minor player.

Because Bruce's blog has a certain influence in the industry, these criticisms against "evony" through the dissemination of the network widely disseminated, so that Evony company finally acted. The lawyer's letter was soon issued.

August 25, 2009, Bruce received a letter from the Warren law firm in Australia, said on behalf of the Evony company to sue for their blog behavior on the Evony company and its games to slander.

As mentioned earlier, Bruce was surprised by the letter from an Australian lawyer. He therefore applied for a hearing at the New South Wales, State Of Supreme Court in Sydney before the formal session to determine whether the Australian court had jurisdiction over the case. But the Australian court soon decided that it had the right to take care of the matter, which made Bruce ironic.

The bizarre lawsuit was ridiculed by Bruce as a "libel-case Tour". He also pointed out that the Evony company in Australia, in addition to its choice of law firm fees than the United States and British lawyers are lower, but also because the Australian law on libel prosecution is also relatively low restrictions, which is the other side of the guilty.

But in any case, Bruce now has to deal with the lawsuit in full. At present, he has made a lot of progress. From its updated blog, employees from inside the Evony revealed to him that the company's actual base is located in Guangzhou, China, and provided the corresponding photos as evidence. He believes the evidence is sufficient to show that the latter lied about his background in court and will influence the court's judgment of the plaintiff's integrity.

Copy the Domestic

The lawsuit between Evony Company and Bruce to have a claim to have a long time, but the "evony" net swims in the foreign network caused the great controversy and criticism is an indisputable fact. And the origin of the matter and earlier a section called "Civony" web game closely related.

Around April 2009, in the United States almost all games, technology-related sites, private blogs, Google image ads, you can see the "Civony" of the game ads, advertising content is a woman dressed in sexy underwear seductive look at you.

In the effect of advertising bombing, "civony" popularity soared. But then, its indiscriminate copying of competitors and other issues are also exposed. Since there are occasional Chinese error messages popping up in the game, many people naturally associate it with China. After digging deeply, "civony" the Truth: it belongs to a company called Umge, founded by several Chinese.

May 6, 2009, "Civony" official forum issued a notice, announced the game name changed to "Evony", and the operation of the company from Umge to the current evony. But Bruce investigation found that Umge and Evony's bosses are the same "David Guo", resident in Guangzhou. Online games renamed Behavior in the industry and rare, after the analysis, renaming is because of the network on its infringement, plagiarism, pornography and other acts of a series of accusations too much, in order to follow-up marketing, had to change the name.

At the end of May 2009, "Evony" opened the Nineth server, and began to continue on the Internet through Google ads, spam and other means of advertising bombing, publicity points in addition to permanent free, is dressed in lingerie sexy girl. In the game market rules perfect, the sound advertising system in Europe and the United States game market, this naked sexual hint of advertising and blatant violations are very abrupt, quickly aroused concern in the industry, and some media and gaming companies are also ironic.

July 15, 2009, the Guardian newspaper published an article, "Evony is not the Internet's most obscene game?" , condemning the game's abuses and pornography. Some game companies through their own products to the "Evony" to spoof. In the civil society, some netizens have also made a mockery of "evony" in different forms, and even set up a related group on Facebook.

A careful study of Evony's profit model will reveal a lot of web games in the Chinese market: such as the game was presented to the players in total "value of 150 dollars" two gift packs, so that players develop the habit of using game currency; players in the purchase of 30 yuan in the game currency 7 days, will be free to receive 50 dollars of the gift package, Attract players to spend the first time, there are a lot of consumption of game gold coins games, such as roulette with a gambling nature of the game; Ievony, a similar MLM behavior of the official program, download can be exported players on MSN, Yahoo, Skype friends and send games invitations, The inviter can benefit from the friend's consumption in the game, which will attract the player to promote spontaneously, enlarge the user and so on. Most of these marketing inspiration from the current domestic market network operation behavior.

Until in the recent investigation process, the people who are informed finally to the "it times" to uncover the secret, namely: whether it is now "Evony", or the early "civony", are the Guangzhou Excellent Digital Technology Co., Ltd. developed the game, the earliest in the early 2009 operation, But in the fierce competition to declare failure, so the company with the game to find business opportunities in the United States. Therefore, in essence, Evony company and its games, are authentic "Chinese products."

Lose face to the outside world

To confirm what he said, Bruce also surveyed China's web game market in his blog.

He found some problems in the operation of Chinese web games, for example, in the game and the promotion of the use of unauthorized material-a game and the "Street Fighter" has no association with the advertising picture used in the promotional phase of its classic role "Chun" image, apparently did not obtain the image of the designer's own consent, And in its official website of a login interface background is the use of animated film "Kung Fu Panda" in the protagonist image. Bruce concludes that this seemingly heretical approach is quite common in Chinese web games.

Some industry insiders told The Economist, because of the low threshold of web game investment, attracted a lot of speculative funds involved. Speculative money brings the whole Chinese web game market "fast money" mentality. In this speculative mentality, the web game from production to listing to capital recovery, are pursuing the highest efficiency and speed. The best way to achieve this goal is to imitate or even copy ready-made games, vulgar propaganda, and a large number of settings for the purpose of enrichment.

In this mode of operation, China has emerged in the past two years a large number of web games. According to incomplete statistics, 2009 the whole year a total of more than 500 web games available, in 2010, the number of games will increase to 800. Mass production of web games has caused the government departments to face the challenge in the supervision, how to effectively and realistically to the online game market to standardize the management has become the relevant department an urgent problem to solve.

Although Evony has struggled to downplay its Chinese corporate background during its operations, it seems to know that this unconventional online marketing behavior has had a bad impact on the reputation of Chinese online gaming companies overseas, but it is still being dug up. No wonder there is a domestic online games industry evaluation said: "No matter what the results of the libel case, this is a disgrace to throw abroad." ”