Do people seriously not understand why the Escapist protects their ads? (Warning: Ranty text wall!)

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

All this Escapist circlejerking is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that the Escapist runs on a very flawed business model. Any model that effectively comes down to "the goodwill" can, and probably deserves to, go under.

The customer should never have to suit its needs to the business, and this place is backwards if they think otherwise.

If you could offer any suggestions, I'm sure Themis would be willing to at least listen.

 

[Yopaz]

I wouldn't mind the ads I'm not getting since I live in Norway. I sometimes watch videos on Collegehumor and the ads there only annoy me when I have a lot of catching up to do, such as the time I went 2 months without internet good enough to stream videos... When you watch TV you have to wait a lot longer than 30 seconds to see your show. Usually there's a commercial in the middle, so taking The Simpsons where every episode lasts about 22 minutes there's about 5 minutes of advertisement. Then compare than to watching 30 seconds of advertisement before getting 4-6 minutes of video. With the same amount of advertisement you would get between 40 and 60 minutes of video for free.
Not a big deal.

 

[Miggiwoo]

I love this thread. So many people seem to fail to grasp the simple fact that any endeavor requires funding, and the people providing that funding are entitled to make demands on the endeavor.

The Escapist provides and extremely high quality service. It has interesting contributors on a variety of topics, and one of the best message boards getting around.

The price of using this service is that, for a 5-15 minute video, you may have to watch a minute of ads. You can mute them. You can do something in a different tab or application. If you register (for free) there is no adbar at the bottom.

Ads suck, but they make the world go around. The Escapist remains unbiased and independent. All they ask in exchange for all they give is that you let your browser load and play ads. If you don't like it, go watch some TV and see how much less intrusive this business model is compared to one that really prioritizes money over service.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Advertising on the internet is a terrible business model. It's the reason why the escapist has financial difficulties. It just doesn't make as much money as it used to and will probably make even less in the future as retailers discover that unlike TV, which is passive and where people seem to accept ads, on the internet usually all it does is piss people off (with some minor exceptions).

Frankly, they need to come up with another way to monetize their website/content (or maybe more accurately, their user base) than advertising. Wish I had some advice to offer here, but let's be honest - if I knew the answer to this question I would be a millionaire myself right now

 

[infinity_turtles]

I have no problems with the ads as long as they don't give me malware or the like. Captcha on the other hand...

 

[lacktheknack]

All this Escapist circlejerking is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that the Escapist runs on a very flawed business model. Any model that effectively comes down to "the goodwill" can, and probably deserves to, go under.

The customer should never have to suit its needs to the business, and this place is backwards if they think otherwise.

I'll say it's backwards... All the content is free.

I'm much more pissed that this thread hasn't been locked, rather than being pissed about ads. If the other thread got locked, why hasn't this one? What's the difference?

What other thread? The one complaining about the Slim Jim ads? How are they the same?

 

[Reaper195]

Ugh...god forbid you can't simply not pay attention to something for half a minute.

 

[lacktheknack]

Look, I definitely agree in theory and I understand how tight the Escapist is right now...

but...

The Escapist is also trying to bail out a sinking ship. The Escapist isn't a viable or sustainable business as it now stands. Fact is that the Internet is a significant game changer; there's no set way to succeed online and no idea of what is now morally right. Behaviour that is seen as unacceptable online (blocking ads) is routine in real life (binning ad supplements from the paper, switching channel during ad breaks) so The Escapist really needs to sit down and look at how it can create a competitive business.

Asking people to do something they find annoying to support a company they don't give two shits about is frankly unrealistic, but other websites survive without annoying ads so they're obviously doing something differently. I say go back to the drawing board and completely rethink how the website operates rather than ask your customers to sustain your business out of the goodness of their hearts.

Appeals to guilt just don't work online because there are no repercussions and there's no consensus on what's wrong.

They have sat down and thought about it... this is what they came up with.

So from where we stand, our options seem to be:
1) Migrate to being a mobile and iPad content company, and hope revenue trends there stay strong
2) Switch to pay-gates for revenue, infuriating many loyal customers who can't afford to pay
3) Change our content to be more mainstream to attract ads, and lose our old core-gamer focus
4) Stop paying for content and be like HuffPost, losing the quality of our content producers
5) Something I haven't thought of.

Personally, I hope they pull a ThatGuyWithTheGlasses and are able to support themselves on ad revenue.

Also, I'm not asking people to support the Escapist, I'm asking them to shut their traps about the ads. If they're really so pissed off about them, they can leave.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Somepony give this man a cookie. Seriously.

Also, for the record...The people complaining are a minority. If the adds were that bothersome, the site would have shut down by now from lack of interest/bleeding people.

Space out for 30 seconds if you can't handle the adds, or steal my idea. Mute the add and distract yourself with something in another tab. It's not the end of the world.

 

[JochemDude]

While this thread is running can someone explain why my ads only come at the end of videos? (Yes, I do get the pop-up ads, but those are clicked away in what half a second?)
I've no problem watching an ad, but I'm long gone to another thread or tab before it even starts.

 

[doggie135]

Completely agree with you OP! Besides, ads are an incredibly small price to pay for all the high-quality content the Escapist offers!

 

[lacktheknack]

They have sat down and thought about it... this is what they came up with.

...

Personally, I hope they pull a ThatGuyWithTheGlasses and are able to support themselves on ad revenue.

Now personally I would say that (3) is the winner there, well a blend of (3) and (4). If the hardcore gamers aren't adequately funding the place then why pitch to them?

I think The Escapist maybe got a little too big for it's own good, there's a reason speciality publications tend to either be expensive or of lower physical quality so I'd say it's either time to take it to a bigger market by diversifying into other areas like film and music reviews, or time to rein the monster back a bit, lost say half the video contributors and go back to a mostly text based magazine.

I can't bring myself to agree, I like this specialty magazine. ;_;

But cutting contributors would be the LAST thing they would do. If you read Archon's comment on the new business model, he notes that each video costs them a bit of bandwidth, and every view rakes in a little bit of sweet, sweet money. It's a win win situation. Presumably, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses gets by on ads due to having about 50 contributors, all of whom gather a decent audience. Seeing how it costs the Escapist NOTHING to get more contributors, I think they should go hog wild and get as many new series as they can.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Advertising on the internet is a terrible business model. It's the reason why the escapist has financial difficulties. It just doesn't make as much money as it used to and will probably make even less in the future as retailers discover that unlike TV, which is passive and where people seem to accept ads, on the internet usually all it does is piss people off (with some minor exceptions).

Frankly, they need to come up with another way to monetize their website/content (or maybe more accurately, their user base) than advertising. Wish I had some advice to offer here, but let's be honest - if I knew the answer to this question I would be a millionaire myself right now

Best post so far, in my opinion. Ask anyone who tries to pay for a website with ads and they'll tell you it usually just doesn't pay enough, or barely pays enough. YouTube works because the point of the website is for users to upload content. All the site is is people watching videos, so they can make a killing. Plus they have actual recording artists, record labels and localization groups like Funimation who provide content people really want to watch. It's not competing in the same market as the Escapist is.

I've been on many websites, and the Escapist still has some of the most annoying ad designs I've come across. I can't stand the wrap-around ads which prevent me from clicking outside my video, or looking at other parts of the site. Captchas are annoying because they're active and they encourage me not to post. I don't care what anyone feels they're entitled to, if the ads get too annoying, I leave. Do what you like, but please consider how irritating an average user will find whatever program you implement.

 

[Sectan]

I really don't mind ads. I'm happy to give someone a paycheck just by sitting on my ass and ignoring something on the screen, but I keep getting a damn Slim Jim add in the hospital and that always locks up. Then I get to refresh multiple times until I get a different ad. (Happened on my XP and my W7 PC and both had the appropriate software) That's my only complaint about ads.

 

[lacktheknack]

While this thread is running can someone explain why my ads only come at the end of videos? (Yes, I do get the pop-up ads, but those are clicked away in what half a second?)
I've no problem watching an ad, but I'm long gone to another thread or tab before it even starts.

Because the end of the video is still ad space. It's much cheaper (due to lack of anything making the viewer stay), but it's still adspace. It's sort of like the ad page at the back of the newspaper, most people will ignore it because they've finished their paper but SOMEONE will still read it.

 

[TimeLord]

The Internet has made people complacent. People want everything now, without having to wait, and usually the Internet provides that. So when a video stops them watching something for 30 seconds they get annoyed at it. I admit, I've gotten annoyed at YouTube when I want to watch a small video and I have to watch an ad first. But the OP is right, ads hold up sites with their income. Everyone knows this but are happy to ignore it (or circumvent it) if that makes their personal experience better.

However, having not seen an Escapist ad for over a year, I don't really get a proper opinion on the Escapist's ads. BUT, the worst advertising on a site I have ever seen is PhotoBucket. Specifically when you are uploading images. I hate those ads, they play once you start uploading and if I'm uploading many pictures or tab out back to the Escapist while I wait and a stupid shampoo commercial blares through my speakers, and then I tab back and I can't find the mute on the advert and I have to mute my speakers. Which is even more annoying when I'm listening to music, I didn't go on a site for uploading images to see video adverts PhotoBucket!

 

[evilneko]

Advertising on the internet is a terrible business model.

Actually, you'd be wrong about that.

Ever heard of the Nexus modding sites? TESNexus, Fallout3Nexus, etc? Guess where the vast, vast majority of their income comes from.

Internet Advertising is also a good model if you're on the other end of the business deal. See Google.

The main problem Escapist has with advertising is their market demographics, or so I gathered from Archon's posts during the Extra Credits kerfluffle. Also a smaller audience than other gaming sites.

It's kinda sad that people still ***** about ads on free sites.

Ads that interfere with the content (such as the gaikai ads that infested the forums a while back) or with the user's computer (malware-laden ads NEED to be reported if they're to be removed. And some Flash ads are so "heavy" they can slow a browser to a crawl. Fortunately, most browsers have a way to only enable Flash on demand) deserve to be complained about. Such ads tarnish the site and potentially drive away users.