Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Plants Versus Zombies Versus Evony

By Kieron Gillen on July 30th, 2009 at 4:32 pm.

Oh God. Thanks to the forum, I’m advert-blogging. Which can only mean one of two things: i) Post-Darkfall review I’ve totally lost it or ii) it’s an awesome advert that needs immortalisation. Or maybe both. Anyway, Plants Versus Zombies has a new ad-campaign. It’s been seen over at the Penny Arcade – maybe they did it? If so, well done you, Mr Penny and Mr Arcade – and is well worth nosing at. And it’s under the cut because it’s too long to go above it.

Of course, this joke won’t make to sense to anyone with an adblocker on. But if you’ve got an adblocker you’re a bally parasite, so who cares?

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61 Comments »

  1. 30/07/2009 at 16:34 Psychopomp says:

    Oh god

    I lol’d

    Hard

  2. 30/07/2009 at 16:36 Flint says:

    This is too brilliant.

  3. 30/07/2009 at 16:40 diebroken says:

    Ah, Evony ad-spotting, critics say it’s the better than the game itself! ;)

    http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html
    http://negativegamer.com/2009/07/07/evony-adverts-i-knew-there-was-something-different-about-her/

    As with Limbo of the Lost, I’m trying to identify all the sources of their images, for historical purposes…

  4. 30/07/2009 at 16:46 phuzz says:

    I’ve been playing PvZ again recently (Must. Complete. All. Minigames), and I found a little easter egg, type ‘future’ while you’re playing…

  5. 30/07/2009 at 16:47 goodgimp says:

    Hahaha. Best. Ad. Ever.

    I’m going to buy the game now, just for that.

  6. 30/07/2009 at 16:48 Serondal says:

    lmao, I peed

  7. 30/07/2009 at 16:49 Ian says:

    I subscribe AND I leave the adblocker off just for RPS.

    I OWN ALL OF YOU.

    Especially you, Gillen!

  8. 30/07/2009 at 16:51 Man Raised By Puffins says:

    Great stuff once more from PopCap.

    @ KG:

    It’s been seen over at the Penny Arcade – maybe they did it?

    Nope, it’s definitely the work of PopCap. There’s also a horizontal version of the banner in that thread if you want to stick something above the ‘cut’.

  9. 30/07/2009 at 16:51 Markoff Chaney says:

    @phuzz

    What’s the Hardest part about being you?

    Mustache

  10. 30/07/2009 at 16:51 Kieron Gillen says:

    Ian: And you, we love, master.

    KG

  11. 30/07/2009 at 16:57 qrter says:

    The horizontal one is also great –> click!

  12. 30/07/2009 at 17:03 t. carl says:

    Actually, the evony ads were brainchild of Popcap. There should be BWAv2 evony parodies going up soon too.

  13. 30/07/2009 at 17:05 LewieP says:

    Yeah, I don’t get it. Adblock strikes again.

  14. 30/07/2009 at 17:11 Psychopomp says:

    @Kieron

    D’AAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

  16. 30/07/2009 at 17:26 Starky says:

    Ever since getting infected with a key-logger from an ad on mmo-champion (didn’t even play wow at the time) I refuse to white-list sites anymore, and always keep my ad-blocker up.

    Sorry but, if you want to make money from my eyes seeing ads on your site, then keep them simple – I can see that GoG add, but anything script based loading in from an external site is getting nuked.
    Bottom line is as much as I trust RPS, I won’t trust ad agencies (giantrealm in this case it seems).

    Keep the ads simple (basic images that link), keep them Java Script free and host them on your own website and I’ll happily look at them, maybe even click them if they lead to safe sites (like GoG).

  17. 30/07/2009 at 17:30 The Hammer says:

    Ahahahaha. That’s so, so, so much fun.

    I love Popcap now.

  18. 30/07/2009 at 17:35 Hypocee says:

    I surf without images (via ImgLikeOpera), so I had to hit alt-m. So much better than AdBlock hassles! That’s brilliant, Popcap’s promos for PvZ have been more entertaining than many actual games. Also, I am a subscriber, so I do not think I am an parasite; UR RONG.

  19. 30/07/2009 at 17:47 MrBejeebus says:

    I was laughing for a straight minute from this, its brilliant.

  20. 30/07/2009 at 17:48 PleasingFungus says:

    That is amazingly wonderful.

    Now, to see if I can get ads to display on RPS only…

    (After this, what choice do I have?)

  21. 30/07/2009 at 18:10 NiceGuyShotgun says:

    Hilarious!

  22. 30/07/2009 at 18:21 ascagnel says:

    Saw this a little while ago. I lol’d. I want to see the forum come up with ads for all games based on the craptastic Evony ads. I see the new freakishly-bad Leisure Suit Larry being a great candidate.

  23. 30/07/2009 at 18:22 malkav11 says:

    Those Evony ads are so, so terrible, but this is brilliant.

  24. 30/07/2009 at 19:25 reaper47 says:

    Damn, because of not seeing an ad in years thanks to Adblock Plus (Now with LESS AD!), I had to scroll down 3 comments to get it.

  25. 30/07/2009 at 19:29 Tackle McClean says:

    Haha, I too lol’d.

    Seriously, the Evony ads are so lame. They look like those shady “come meet girls from your area” ads on shady sites. I don’t go to shady sites.

  26. 30/07/2009 at 19:43 Serondal says:

    Evony’s adds got me to start playing it (the one with the picture of the busty lady with a sword to her chest) Of course once I logged in and realized I was playing Travian 2 I asked in the world chat when I’d get to see the queen naked and the people said “What?” and I stopped playing after that :P

    Similar I got roped into playing FreeSkyOnline by similar ads, all thanks to armorgames ! :P But in my defense I have an addiction to that sort of thing that I’ve been battling with for years so SHAME on them for abusing me :(

  27. 30/07/2009 at 19:50 Vinraith says:

    RPS is one of the few sites for which I turn off Adblock.

    And yes, that ad’s hilarious.

  28. 30/07/2009 at 20:10 Mark says:

    Out of curiosity, how do sites like RPS get paid through advertising? Is it per view or only click-throughs? Are the ads smart enough to detect adblockers? If you get your RPS feed through Google Reader are you denying the site their ad revenue? So many questions…

  29. 30/07/2009 at 20:14 dsmart says:

    Talk about viral. That was freaking hilarious. Whoever thought this up over at PopCap deserves a raise.

  30. 30/07/2009 at 20:25 Alex says:

    Starky, what browser were you using that let an ad install a keylogger on your computer?

  32. 30/07/2009 at 20:49 AnneLee09 says:

    That ad was freaking hilarious!!! Seeing those chicks.. if they are really women is getting into my nerves. Everytime I surf the net finding tips for raiding or where to grind wow gold, I always encounter Evony’s ad as if I never opened a new tab for a browser. I learned that Evony is under Lam’s business (the people who were sued by Microsoft) and it’s said to be a malware. Funny thing though, I haven’t seen an Evony ad as of today, now I’m hoping for the PvZ inspired ad. ^^

  33. 30/07/2009 at 21:02 coupsan says:

    @Alex

    Doesn’t really matter what browser you have if your AV protection isn’t up to par–or if you don’t have any at all. I was seeing reports a couple months back of people getting alerts from their AV protection on FPSBanana. I doubt all of the reports were coming only from people who were using an “insecure” browser.

  34. 30/07/2009 at 21:49 Optimaximal says:

    Doesn’t really matter what browser you have if your AV protection isn’t up to par–or if you don’t have any at all.

    Further too that, no computer is 100% safe because new hacks and drive bys are being invented all the time – they can’t protect against something until they’re aware of it.

  35. 30/07/2009 at 22:03 Tei says:

    The universe is about to collapse, ADS GOING META!. whats next? Also, diebroken link of codehorror is awesome.

  36. 30/07/2009 at 22:20 Scarves says:

    Aah, I just saw this on PA and laughed coffee out my nose.

  37. 30/07/2009 at 22:20 Seth says:

    Yeah I use adblock plus so I’m not getting it.

    But I bought PvZ at launch! That’s cool, right?

  38. 30/07/2009 at 22:54 Tei says:

    I laught at real people.
    http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=11313

    I am a bad person?

  39. 30/07/2009 at 22:59 DarkNoghri says:

    @PleasingFungus

    If you have Adblock Plus, just click the arrow next to the icon at the top right, and check the selection for ‘Disable on http://www.rockpapershotgun.com‘, assuming, of course, you’re already here. If you have the icon on the bottom right, it should be a similar action. If you have neither, go put one up, because I have no idea how to do it without them.

    I had seen the thread before, but had forgotten to unblock RPS after my most recent browser update/install, and therefore couldn’t figure out what the deal was.

  40. 30/07/2009 at 23:23 Owen says:

    Just brilliant Popcap!

  41. 30/07/2009 at 23:24 Smurfy says:

    Adblock Plus stopped working a while ago :(

  42. 30/07/2009 at 23:49 Rei Onryou says:

    This ad is win. That is all.

  43. 31/07/2009 at 00:02 Sitting Duck says:

    wait, i use ad blocker plus, and can still see the ad. Me thinks something is amiss

  44. 31/07/2009 at 01:12 LionsPhil says:

    APPROVE.

  45. 31/07/2009 at 01:18 GamerV says:

    There’s also this Bookworm Adventures one, which is “NOT FREE FOREVER” and “Spell Now, My Lord”

    http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CMbEvNTv5IW6gQEQ2AUYWjIIr6zmvGaAHYc

  47. 31/07/2009 at 04:08 Stromko says:

    I’ve had several nasty run-ins with adverts installing malware and adware on my machine, and they were both wickedly hard to uninstall. I received those things off gaming websites no less, porn sites never gave me such trouble!

    My laptop just plain overheats if I browse RPS without no-script fully enabled, its GPU crapped out three months after I bought it and it refuses to do any sort of graphics for any length of time.

    A lot of sites and services have static visual ads and links that appear when you block the scripts. That Good Old Games ad on the right works just fine, and hell it’s even well targeted (I have actually bought a few games on GoG because of RPS). If I want Giant Realms or Clear Spring ads, I have to add about six different sites(!!!), any one of which could get hacked and screw me up the rear with malware.

    Heck, I just tried accepting scripts globally, allowing everything on this page and on the main page, and browsing around RPS. Those spaces remain blank. Apparently they’re so complex they just don’t work on my config of Mozilla Firefox 2.

  48. 31/07/2009 at 06:45 Captain Haplo says:

    Good on you PopCap. Evony can go to hell with its patronising, insulting, desperate ads.

  49. 31/07/2009 at 06:59 Katastrophe66 says:

    Hooray!
    I truly hate those Evony ads popping up everywhere no matter how many cookies I try to block, but this is epic-ly amusing.

  51. 31/07/2009 at 13:45 Gap Gen says:

    That advert is sexist. Women like her should be recognised not just for their body, but also for their brains.

  53. 31/07/2009 at 14:20 sfury says:

    Kudos to PopCap, also kudos to Opera’s selective integrated adblocker for allowing me to leave all the really dirty ads.

  55. 31/07/2009 at 16:17 Malibu Stacey says:

    I don’t get it.
    What’s this ‘Evony’ malarkey all about then?

  56. 31/07/2009 at 17:12 Hypocee says:

    It’s a casual play-it-and-leave-it web strat/MMO. Its ads have become the latest omnipresent X10/True/etc., while following this progression.

  57. 31/07/2009 at 18:20 Diogo Ribeiro says:

    There are titties on our lawn,
    Wedon’t want titties on our lawn.

    (wait wut?)

  58. 31/07/2009 at 18:41 Starky says:

    @Alex

    I was using Firefox with no script and ad blocker, and at the time I was running Nod32 2.8 I think, it got through all of that because I white listed websites that I wanted to support.

    So yeah as has been said new hacks with no signatures known and HIPS didn’t catch it…
    There’s not much more I could have done to protect my PC, Nod32, Firefox(+no script), Spybot S&D, sitting behind Comodo firewall (mainly for outgoing control) and a Hardware firewall built into the router.
    The infection didn’t do any harm and I got rid of it easily enough, but fool me once…

    Now I’ll never white-list any kind of external ad-service.

  59. 31/07/2009 at 21:02 Stromko says:

    I’ve went ahead and subscribed to RPS, I’d rather part with a couple bucks to support the site than have my laptop burn a hole through my desk running animated flash ads.

    From various readings around, I’m pretty convinced that Evony could be hard-core malware. As in, keyloggers and trojans and other doohickeys to steal your money. They’ve already stolen content from Age of Empires and Civ games, so why NOT rip off their customers?

    Supposedly Evony is also owned by a company associated with a major Chinese goldfarming organization, and such organizations have been known to hack into accounts on WoW and the like and steal everything of worth.

    Now they want you to install IEvony, which merely downloads all your contact lists from instant messengers, Skype, etcetera and sends them invitations, which you then get credited for in-game. … And that’s just the features of the program that they will tell you about, a program you download and install, made by a company that steals most of its ads, content, and then has the gall to collect people’s credit card numbers so they can buy any manner of in-game item.

    Stay the f**k away from that company!

    The Popcap ads are amazing, and they deserve infinity-billion sales for it. I picked up Plants vs Zombies for its recent pricebreak on Steam, it’s a very polished doohickey that keeps mixing up the gameplay just often enough to make things interesting.

    Now if only that zombie queen ad could be more ubiquitous than the google-spammed Evony ads ..

  60. 01/08/2009 at 13:46 postmanX3 says:

    That is the best thing ever

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