kory I’m so incredibly fascinated by these fake games and feel like there must be an interesting story behind the company (or companies) that produce them, but I suppose it’s entirely possible that the full story is just as uninteresting as the hollow and cynical advertising tactics themselves.
There’s this article about Evony in particular. It’s been heavily advertised for quite awhile. (I think it’s ok to link to Kotaku now? I can delete the link if it’s not.)
I agree that I wish there were more journalism on the games like these that aren’t as popular as Evony is. I occasionally see ads for stuff I find very cool looking (Trading Legend is the most recent one that comes to mind). When I search them up though I just find reddit threads of people sharing tips, asking questions, and talking about how much money they’ve spent. I want to know the whole intellectual history behind these games, what the influences of the creators were, what their lives are like, what their dream games would be if they didn’t have to worry about money, etc. Some are very cynically made. Some do very cool creative stuff, even if they are pay to win. It’s possible to sort of understand ”where they came from” by a playing a whole bunch I think, but I want to hear more from the creators.
I suspect there are people on this forum (maybe @exodus or @Syzygy) who know a lot more?
