Evony Vs Bruce Everiss. The result

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Rather than write this myself, it has been written up much better than I could ever do by a professional journalist here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/31/evony-libel-case-bruce-everiss

I have many people to thank.

My legal team in Australia from Marque Lawyers: Damian Sturzaker, Hannah Petrie and Sally Kerridge. They are absolutely brilliant and I unreservedly recommend them to anyone needing legal help in Australia.

My barristers did a fantastic job in court. They are Dr Andrew Bell and Sandy Dawson. A formidable combination.

All this was only possible because of the great friendly advice I received from Danvers Baillieu at Winston & Strawn in London. He has been a pillar throughout these difficult months.

Gillian Phillips, Director of Editorial Legal Services at the Guardian, has been fantastic throughout. Her practical day to day knowledge of being in my position was priceless. She gave me much real world advice.

Mark Gerhard, CEO of Jagex, has been massively supportive throughout. His testimony to the court helped enormously.

The press have been very wary of reporting about anything with pending litigation. However two notable exceptions have been John “wardrox” at Negative Gamer and Michael Thompson at Ars Technica.

Finally I would like to thank the many people who work or who worked on the Evony game who have contacted me, from China and from the West, often at personal risk, to give me the information you have seen reported here.

It has been a very difficult 8 months or so. But all along I could take comfort and strength from the support of those named above and my family. And the knowledge that I had only reported the truth.

My thanks once again.

Related stories

  1. The Law Report, ABC radio, Australia. And Evony
  2. Evony fighting fund – a big thank you
  3. Evony want to sue me for telling the truth

81 Comments


  1. Yes the article says that the case was dropped by Evony but its a bit vague to as why. The accuser did not have a proper degree and Evony claimed that their players didn’t like the lawsuit. I dont see legitimate reasons here, other than as a coverup of a bad suit of course.
    The customers of Evony were never asked of their oppinion, nor were they even allowed to discuss it in the forum.
    Evony got cold feet and dropped it…thats it?

    I sure hope that Evony learns something from all of this!


  2. @Roger – A witness for the plantiff was found to have made false statements in regards to their holding of various University degrees. If the witness for the plantiff has made false statements about that, then I would think it would form the basis for asking what else might the plantiff be making false statements about? This is likely why they tip-toed away.


  3. Congratulations. 😀


  4. Wonderful news Bruce. It will be interesting to see what happens to Evony now, and if they’ll allow any sort of discussion about it.

    Meh, probably not, but miracles can happen. I wouldn’t mind catching a glimpse of those transcripts myself though.


  5. Glad to hear the battle is finally won. I’m sure you’re probably quite releaved to be free of the Evony business and able to get back to blogging about things OTHER then the lawsuit 😀


  6. Balls of steel. And the size of watermelons. Well done 🙂


  7. They dropped it because they knew they would lose. Congrats on your win. And keep calling them out. Their scam needs to end!


  9. Very interesting!

    I especially like the cross-examination of Gifford! Whats a little lying compared to good publicity? 😀

    Their statement about the reason is false, I never ever saw any sort of discussion about the lawsuit on their forum.


  10. I kind of like saucy advertising, yeah, it’s a little boost on a mundane drive down the A4. However, it needs to be true to the product. ‘Hello Boys’ etc. is fine. Advertise your underwear to me, I may buy some for the missus. What gets me down is when companies use sex to try to suck me in for an expensive waste of my time.
    Hats off to you, Bruce, and your skilled team.


  12. Congrates on the outcome Bruce! I am glad, not just for you, but everyone who speaks out against the dishonest and shady..


  13. @Roger
    Hey.. thats my name too… creapy. ANYWAY:
    I completely agree. I used to be a regular poster on the forum, giving advice, trying to help people. Was never a mod or anything like that, I just try to be helpful when I can. Then one day, after keeping track of things going on here, I post that I am worried about this game I’ve come to enjoy.

    Yes, I said it, I enjoyed playing Evony. More for the people I got to talk to in my alliance then anything else, but still. I talked about how I was concerned about the games future in regards to how the lawsuit would play out. And you know what happened? Not 5 minutes later I got a perma-ban from the forum. Some discussion huh?


  16. I am still bazzled as to how a company operating in America (supposedly) can take someone from the UK to court in Australia.


  17. Mark Gerhard, the CEO of the most played free MMO in the world, helped you. This is the beginning of the end for evony…


  18. I note that Evony’s public domain article produced by Benjamin Gifford (Aka Thalin Athasian – the person named in the Guardian article link in this article) who accused Bruce Everiss of libel and unprofessional conduct have not been updated to inform the Evony community of the outcome of their legal action against Bruce Everiss. This article can be found here http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=58646. In addition to this, an identical piece has been on public domain here and it has now been removed without any attempt to explain the results of this lawsuit http://www.evony.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=1&Itemid=50.

    Because Evony have developed forum terms whereby they have prohibited their users from talking about this lawsuit and indeed have banned people who have done so, it means that they are legally and morally responsible for their public domain reportage on this lawsuit. Should they fail to do this in all public domain areas where it has been listed, Evony will have intentionally slandered Bruce Everiss without offering due process. This may permit Bruce Everiss to instigate libel action against Evony for the false accusations they have made against him. Naturally this will mean that Evony will have to formally admit to the fact that Benjamin Gifford, the person who runs Regan Mercantile US, LLC’s Legal Department (As can be confirmed through the Evony Terms of Use Agreement that has been binding since 30th July, 2009 http://www.evony.com/index.do?PageModule=Static&type=TandC ), has admitted to lying about his qualifications (BA and MBA degrees) to the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

    AC


  19. @AC

    Somehow I think Bruce most likely desires to end his sojourn through the New South Wales legal system. If it were me I would just declare victory and go home. [After the check for the legal fees from Evony cleared]


  20. Oh that was the day when my forum account was permabanned the day after the lawsuit when I PMed Thalin Athasian in response to a prior suspension he gave me where he claimed Bruce Lied and asked for a comment in regards to Benjamin Gifford’s fake BA/MBA. I opened another forum account to warn people about Evony dishonesty and that resulted in two [2] permabanns in one day. I am very proud of getting banned by Mr. Gifford. It’s like being called dishonest by Bernie Madoff. A badge of honor.

    I really liked the part of his testimony where Gifford says he just changed his mind about dishonesty used for PR being wrong in the last 10 seconds. He got shredded so bad I almost feel sorry for him. Almost…but no cigar. I just wonder if the judge busted up laughing at him. And audio recording of that would be priceless. The transcription on that web site looks like the order of a few words may have been slightly mixed up also. Is the audio available?


  21. Well done!! Great job. Uncover the truth. Next JFK??

    Did Benjamin even finish highschool? What a con artist.


  22. It really, truly is over now, isn’t it? Evony paid the legal fees before the 12th, so the case isn’t reconvening?


  23. Im sure Bruce is really tired of this legal and moral mess and wants nothing further to do with it. As he wrote, more mainstream media has taken on the issue and exposing the lies of evony.


  24. I heard Evony offered Bruce 5,000,000 game cents, 50 holy helm heroes and 300 Easter Packages as compensation but Bruce turned them down….

    That would be the only compensation I reckon evony would offer. BTW Bruec, Age 2 is a monumental flop. Thought this might make your day. People are fleeing from it in droves.


  25. Do you recognize where we all just recently heard this exact same PR damage control rationale? Here is the ARS article excerpt.

    Can you trust Evony’s side of the story?

    While the interview didn’t exactly put all the unsettling rumors to rest, it did manage to make Evony seem like a game that had grown a little too quickly for its development team to keep up with. As a result, communication had broken down between the developers and the rest of the world, both in and outside the Evony community.

    Have you figured out where they got the “We grew too fast” PR repair campaign excuse?

    Evony ripped if off from > MR. TOYOTA

    Mr. Toyota actually seemed sincere, but it just amazes me they ripped him off. The rips just keep on coming. Evony needs to buy a few autos from Toyota as payment for infringing upon his PR slogan. Honestly though, I actually BELIEVE Mr. Toyota. Which is why Evony ripping off a CEO like Mr. Toyota is just so dang slimy… I can’t even think of an appropriate analogy.


  26. Congratulations, serves the Evony people right. Their game is nothing but a money sucking timewaster, starting from their ‘Gifts’ to their dodgy item deals.
    I have been following your court case with great interest, as a player of Evony and a resident of Australia. Could you please email me the transcripts?


  27. Freaken excellent.. did my time on evony. Finally got booted for using the evo-bot. Had evony put one iota into gameplay, listening to peoples suggestions in the forums they could have a GREAT game.. but alas greed greed greed.

    DO NOT PLAY EVONY


  28. I started following this right around last January, and I have to say, I’m suprised you got the CEO of my favorite MMO to help you!

    Also, Sirnot1 up there, he’s on the wiki for said MMO.

    Just saying. Glad that Evony has been busted!


  29. Youb guys are such BAst*.
    Claimgin your shi about evony.
    I have been palying evony for a year and have had no problems with the game. i emt alot of peopl over my time and enjoyed gameplay.

    It is my beleif that peopl who ahve such thigns agisnt evony has ghad a bad experince on evony doesn’t approve the way the agme was set up or violated the rules and were expelled and banned form the game.
    And if you say freedom of speech there is no such thign on a game run by a company.When you play you ahve to lsiten to the rules.
    Rules are the veyr fabric of our society which keeps utter chaios from happaning.
    And If bruce is so agnit liberal laws the prhibit free speech eh will elt me say what I need to say for I belive it is right. If he dopens’t aprrove of this messege here would go his case aginst freedom of sapeech crap.

    Let me say that yes there is freedom of speech however there are consequnces.
    This ant my real name nor email adress.
    I won’t be no target of anyone just cause I have a different belief.


  30. Oh and by the way. I could asure you if any othe rgame companies are helping you gusy go after evony.They are doing it for personell gians of eliminating the competition.


  31. Ethan, my friend, from the looks of your post, you could stand to put Evony aside for a bit and spend a few days in school. I’m just sayin’…

    I’m not saying this for personell gians 😀

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