I tend to like Civilization style games; I've liked them since before there was a Civilization game, in fact. But there's a Web-browser MMO game that I find more than a little distressing. In its current version, it's called Evony; the Chinese company that owns the game and site originally titled the game Civony; in [cough] respectful homage, I'm sure, of Sid Meier's Civilization. It's a real-time strategy game. The underlying game conceit is medieval civilization; it's a typical online pseudo-medieval feudal warfare game, first created in the venerable Apple II game Santa Paravia by Reverend George Blank. Basically, you settle a city, plant crops, harvest them, and exploit natural resources while you fortify your city and raise tropps—until you can invade your neighbors, or settle new lands.

Evony has had almost explosive growth since coming out of Beta this spring. Already there are over seventy servers. Much of the growth as been fostered by aggressive advertising. The ads have become increasingly exploitive. In fact, you can chart Evony's growth by bra size. Or rather, depth of cleavage. The first ad I saw for the game was a Google ad; it's linked at the top of this post. Then on September 19th I saw this ad:I note that the ad has nothing to do, at all, with game play in Evony. I also note that the female figure is clearly mammalian. She looks rather like she's waiting for a suitor. The captions on these ads certainly support that interpretation; they say things like "Play Now, My Lord." There's one older ad that is no longer in circulation that said "Play DISCREETLY on your Browser, Now!"

But wait, on September 24th, I saw this Google ad off to the left: Again, the ads have nothing to do with game play; but they are very much designing to appeal to a particular set of adolescent male fetishes involving scantily-clad supine women. There's the whole voyeuristic aspect of the "sleeping beauty" post as well; the woman is being watched in a predatory fashion. I can't help but be reminded of the bizarre stalker-like behavior of Edward Cullen, the creepy Twilight sparkly vampire from Stephenie Myers' books and the Twilight movie.

Evony is primarily, of course, designed to produce income for its corporate owners. So, while the ads trumpet that it is "free forever!" in fact players are encouraged at every turn to purchase "Evony coins," virtual monies that are used within the game to buy various add-ones, that speed up play, or enhance a player's prowess, or produce more goods. The pricing of these add-ons is arbitrary, to say the least. But what is really odd about Evony is the game culture; I've been playing MMOs and MORPGs for a very long time, and have written for a number of pseudo-medieval strategy games. I'm not a novice. But Evony's game culture, as evidenced by the in-game chat, email, and play, is the most sexist, racist, and offensive I've ever encountered. There are, consequently, far fewer women playing the game than any other similar game. This is the only game I've ever played where I was attacked for politely declining to join an alliance—even though I explained I was only a temporary player and would be gone in a couple of weeks.

I'm not the first person to notice Evony's ads. A sociologist has also tracked the increasing décolleté, even more diligently. Blogger Bruce Everiss, a game industry veteran has written a number of well-researched posts about the company and its practices. Britain's Guardian newspaper has also noticed Evony. You'll notice I'm not linking to Evony anywhere in this piece; there's a reason for that. I don't want to help them make more money.