Orchid vs. Zombies

Contrary to what alot of people think, we originally stemmed from a TF2 clan, and then some of us formed up and became a WoW raiding guild and the same few guys branched off and became another TF2 clan with the same WoW guild name.

But it's a common misconception that we only play TF2 and WoW. I mean, we play other games competitively (lol) too. Games like Plants VS Zombies for instance.

But I digress.

Has anyone noticed these "Free MMO" adverts for this game called Evony? Well, I just found the cleanest boobiest 320x250 ad EVER for an MMO. Have a look:



So yeah, some marketing brains figured the association between boobs and a game might be the pull factors for the target demographic. I've been seeing these ads around the net for awhile now, and on "respectable" sites no less.

You folks probably saw it on Wowhead or MMOChamp. I never bothered to find out what this "game" Evony was about, but after looking at this ad, it made me wonder, is it a scam? I decided to wiki it... and I got some really interesting finds.

Clearly, sex sells and this sort of marketing works. I discovered this game has come under flak for its arguably low standards of advertising. When I say low, I mean low-blow low. Further googling revealed the marketing material frequently asks the user to "click here and save your queen" when in actual fact, there is no queen. This is the genius part, during registration, in the FAQ, you are actually told that, "there is no queen and 'the queen' is simply used as a marketing persona, hilarious!

It has also been noted that the game is very similar to the Civilisation series and the artwork, from Age Of Kings (citation), interesting, 2 games in 1 with cleavage!

Anyway, I decided to probe further and found that Sociological Images has done a trace of evolution of Evony ads, check it out here! It kinda shows how it went from something medieval looking with armor and soldiers to just plain sexually suggestive. It's a good read.

So what does this have to do with Zombies?

Because of my profession, I've usually got my cynical eyes peeled for the marketing magic behind every ad. Here's what I found:



The Escapist covers this viral marketing campaign by Popcap very well, and it's another good read if you guys have some time. There's a whole series of these PvZ ads that just spoof the hell out of the Evony ads, if I'm not wrong, they chose the same platforms for the media purchase:



Friggin genius.

So yeah, PvZ is awesome and I'm currently at Flag 51 for Survival Endless but it looks like the Giga-gargantuas are approaching the lawnmowers soon and I dont think I can hold out for much longer. There are youtube vids that have people at flags 100+ but that requires true timing and skill. I should get Severik to help me work out a PvZ strat and see how far we can go, maybe do a demo tute!