[B]Online game [I]Evony[/I] has come under some serious scrutiny lately. Touted as "the game everyone loves to hate" by [/B][URL=http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/evony-investigating-the-game-everyone-loves-to-hate.ars][B]Ars Technica[/B][/URL][B], everything from its NSFW imagery to its game design have been scrutinised. [/B][URL=http://www.gossipgamers.com/evony-files-lawsuit-against-blogger-for-criticism/][B]One particular blogger[/B][/URL][B] found himself in hot water last year when he received legal documentation from Evony's lawyers for commenting on the specifics of the game in a negative light.[/B]

Ars Technica recently published a [URL=http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/04/evony-speaks-to-ars.ars]particularly detailed article[/URL] after being contacted by [B]Benjamin Gifford[/B] of Evony, LLC, and [B]Walt Yarbrough[/B], the vice president of operations on the East Coast for Regan Mercantile. It seems that there just might be 'method to their madness' and the two Evony representatives had the following to say about the imagery and the 'scams' to get gamers to pay huge amounts of money.

"In [I]Evony[/I], you can do everything in the game without ever paying. Much of that is based off of the random nature of the game," said Yarbrough. "In many battles, you get awarded random items which are things you would normally pay for—or that you would pay for from a convenience perspective—but many of our highest-level players have never paid for the game... you can take any aspect of our game... and say, 'well, this is what I want to do, but I haven't gotten that item randomly yet, so the game is forcing me to pay for it,' and that's just not accurate... there's nothing that you have to do that you have to pay for."

[URL=http://www.gameculture.com/2010/04/07/problem-evony]read more[/URL]

[url=http://www.gameculture.com/2010/04/07/problem-evony]More...[/url]