October 9, 2009 – MMO Fallout

SUMMONING

Jagex, makers of the browser based MMO Runescape, recently struck a marketing deal with Zapak to bring Runescape’s marketing and distribution to India. For those not familiar with Zapak, the website is a portal of web based games. The Indian version of Miniclip if you will.

But one bit of advertising caught my eye: On Zapak’s front page, the following image can be seen advertising Runescape:

I’m hoping this is Zapak’s artwork because, if it is, we can play it up to ignorance. Evony, formerly Civony, was widely panned for its continuing advertising campaign, featuring nothing but women with large breasts, a marketing campaign that spiraled down into just breasts. In fact Evony was voted the most despised game on the internet for just that same reason.

Then again, it could be worse. Jagex could be owned by a goldfarming-I said nothing. Maybe I’m just a little tender to anything that reminds me of Evony, considering I would estimate 60% of the spam comments I get are advertisements for this scam game.

Some Evony banners, and breasts, after the break.

Continue reading “Play Runescape Now, My Lord”

archlord2

Ok, you caught me. I have to admit, however, that for a title that was as widely panned as Archlord (As I mentioned in my previous news bit, Archlord was panned for being “dull and repetitive” among other issues) Archlord is quite resilient. Last September we learned that the free to play title was to be shut down after Codemasters lost the rights to run the title in North America and Europe. Ever since the title launched, it was wrought with controversy, as I mentioned coming across quite a large number of claims of corruption within Codemasters, and convenient bans for people who purchased large amounts of in-game currency (The game runs on a micro-transaction format, shop currency is specifically what I am referring to).

Archlord shut down on the first of this month, for two days when the newest host, Webzen, officially launched the new North American and European servers. Webzen is offering a transfer service to players coming over from Codemasters, that is expected to complete on the 14th. In order to sweeten the deal, Webzen updated the game offering transfer players some microtransaction currency, and the new Archlord now features a female-only swashbuckling class.

A change of pace should be just what the doctor ordered for Archlord, but it may be too little too late. I foresee the next news story you see here on MMO Fallout related to Archlord will be its shutdown notice.