Advertising campaign
An Evony advertisement on a music streaming service
Evony's 2009 online advertising campaign was criticized for featuring what The Guardian called "a string of increasingly racy images." The images depicted females who, as the ad campaign continued, became increasingly unclothed, none of which had any relevance to the game itself. In 2009 Gavin Mannion commented that Evony's "latest ad is seriously pushing boundaries of what is acceptable to publish on Google". Other ads used stock photographs from pornographic DVD covers.
Evony has also been accused of promoting the game via "millions of spam comments left on blogs". The company denies they are responsible for the spam. Others attribute the spam to players making use of the pyramid scheme-based iEvony affiliate program.
Censorship
On 25 August 2009, Evony's lawyers threatened to sue a critical blogger for defamation over a variety of allegations as to the game's provenance and the practices of the companies behind it. The developers of Evony have denied the allegations from internet blogger Bruce Everiss, and have sent a cease and desist letter for defamation based on Australian law. Everiss responded by linking to a documentary which reportedly shows evidence of Evony's fraudulent history. Shortly before the case was due to begin in Sydney, Evony parted with their legal team and asked for an adjournment of the case. Two days into the most recent hearing in March 2010, Evony withdrew the libel claim against Everiss.
