Poll: Haven't you just had enough of these f*!@&ing popups?!

[The Lost Big Boss]

Having ads on the site is a must, we know that. However, when they become such a hassle to the reader by taking up 1/3 of the screen, you have a problem. Then going and saying "Well, you can pay money for a pleasurable browsing experience" doesn't help people side with you. Then you go off and mod slap any one who mentions the use of ad block, can you see why people are starting to get pissed off?

To put it blunt.

Oh, and please find a way to make captchas' some what legible. They are starting to get out of hand.

 

[shintakie10]

Ya know whats really funny. We had this whole thing happen when the original Gaikai ads came up. Giant full screen ads for people with low resolutions and half screen ads for those with higher. Stuff popped up, blocked your screen, and happened incredibly frequently that it became an annoyance to even attempt to browse the site. We were educated about how advertisements work and then we were told that they'd look into changin some things around to make the ads less obtrusive. Thats when we ended up with the much nicer and much smaller corner Gaikai ads. Queue cheerin and all that. The Escapist gets money, us users get to actually enjoy the site. Everyone wins.

Now the giant frickin ads are back and are as annoyin as ever. Guessin Gaikai got annoyed that people weren't clickin as much since it wasn't possible to accidentally click them because it covered your entire screen so they wanted that back. Pity.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I joined the pub club to support this site. I never really had any problems with ads before that though. I do think that ads that appear before you watch a video especially if you cant mute it are annoying, but other than that I never got any pop-ups even before pub club. Maybe it is a computer setting or something.

Same here, no popups before joining the Pubclub, just the vid ads. However, I know some people who joined site and got dragon age popups appearing randomly, usually with them accidentally clicking it and sending them to Bioware's site. Looked annoying, especially when it doesn't open a new tab.

 

[josemlopes]

Having ads on the site is a must, we know that. However, when they become such a hassle to the reader by taking up 1/3 of the screen, you have a problem. Then going and saying "Well, you can pay money for a pleasurable browsing experience" doesn't help people side with you. Then you go off and mod slap any one who mentions the use of ad block, can you see why people are starting to get pissed off?

To put it blunt.

Oh, and please find a way to make captchas' some what legible. They are starting to get out of hand.

Exaclty, the "Well, you can pay money for a pleasurable browsing experience" is complitely retarded since a great response is "Or I can just go to a diferent site and get the same information without being annoyed but these ads".

I guess that I am going to start to come here just for the videos and nothing more.

And another thing, a lot of people are getting warnings and suspensions due to the "because we said so" attittude of the mods.

 

[Warforger]

I am a publishers club member and dont have to sit through any ads. Every site has to make money somehow to make ends meet.

Yes, but no other site is this intrusive and interuptive with the ads and it wasn't like this before. I was fine until they started appearing more often, they're just terrible.

I mean it's like say a multiplayer game that offers a special membership you pay for, but then it starts ruining the singleplayer by taking back maps that were normally free and having them in the special membership, sure you can still play the game but it's just annoying for that to happen and it's outrageous.

 

[devotedsniper]

What pop ups? i've never had a single pop up off this site and i have no popup blocker (other than when my AV detect it as malicious)

 

[Dr_Horrible]

Umm... You guys do realize that advocating or using popup blockers is against the rules right? And admitting to it will get you suspended? We all had to read these rules guys.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

See, I was really annoyed by those Gaikai things that pop up constantly when I'm in group chat. "Free Mass Effect 2 in my browser? Yeah right." Out of curiosity I actually tried to check it out. Within twenty seconds I was playing a fully functional Mass Effect 2 demo. No big downloads or anything, I was genuinely impressed. Seriously, for once it's not bullshitting you with it's promises, I've only tried the ME2 demo, but it genuinely works perfectly assuming you have a decent internet connection. You guys have to try this.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I don't see why the old adverts didn't work, and also, why are you advertising Mass Effect 2 constantly? That game is long released.

They're advertising it because they're releasing information for ME3 and they just recently released more DLC for it. In short, they want to try to use ME3 as a way to increase sales for ME2.

 

[robert022614]

I dont know I turned off my pop up blockers and went to the site without signing in and the pop ups were not that bad. I just click the little X and they went away. I dont see too much of a problem. I guess it is a preference thing.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

I cannot tell why some people are getting suspended, other just a warning, and others nothing at all, when they are all saying get 'adblockplus'.

Because the ones getting suspended already earned themselves a probation, making a suspension the minimum punishment for them. The ones with warnings haven't had many past infractions, and the ones that didn't get anything will be taken care of.

 

[Andy Shandy]

To be honest, I'm more annoyed with the "The ads suck" threads more than the ads themselves.

Although I'm assuming these Bioware ads are region exclusive, as the last time I remember getting a particularly intrusive ad was for March Mayhem or something.

The only ad that particularly annoys me is the half-minute one with the chicken sitting on the phone. But I put up with it.

 

[loc978]

The only pop-ups I get are occasional when a video plays (and they close with the video). I'm using chromium under ubuntu, so maybe the other popup scripts aren't compatible with it. I hope the hit on the adsite happens and the Escapist gets paid... but there's no way I'm going to install IE just to see them.

 

[Alon Shechter]

the ones that didn't get anything will be taken care of.

Will there be bloodshed?

Spoiler

Anyways, yes I did.

 

[Lionsfan]

I cannot tell why some people are getting suspended, other just a warning, and others nothing at all, when they are all saying get 'adblockplus'.

This is just my take on it but it seems like the people getting suspended are saying, "I use adblock" whereas the warning people are only advocating it's use like "Just download Firefox 5.79whateverthenumberis and it won't be a problem"

As for my take on it? I don't mind them at all. I had Dial-Up for the longest time so I'm used to having very very very slow internet well after it was clearly outdated. And second I don't have a DVR either, so any TV show I want to watch I have to physically be there and sit through everything so I'm used to just about every type of ad

 

[NinjaOnXTC]

I haven't experienced any popups... No idea why as I'm not a pub clubber, no ad block either, as Im not gay...
Gutted to be you?

Might want to rephrase that.
It's a tad offencive.

Well, I was saying it in a heavily childish and sarcastic voice, would if help if I put an infantile tag by it? [\infantile]?

 

[silversnake4133]

I have encountered the infamous pop-up ads, and at first they didn't really bother me, but I must say their random timings really do create frustration. Granted there isn't really anything I can do about it. I just grin and bear it. It does get annoying too when I'm trying to click on a link to a newsfeed or a content video or review and at the very last second an ad for DS2 pops up. There's also one for Dragon Age II. This really has me wondering if the sales for these games were so bad that the companies are coming to sites like the escapist and pleading with them to put in these ads in the hopes of drumming up some more sales. Granted this is just my opinion and it probably isn't true, but it just behooves me that there are ads displaying games I could care less about and not relevant content like pre-order games or gamestop sales or something.

 

[Kross]

Also out of curiosity how come TheEscapist doesn't seem to run "out of site" banner ads anymore, like for gaming related products or other websites. The only banner ads I see are all for Escapist shows or Pub Club, I'm sure you guys know more about marketing than me but it seems a little odd.

It all depends on who wants to buy ads on our site. Also, a lot of advertisers only seem to want to buy ads targeted towards North America, so the UK gets a lot more filler/house ads.

 

[Chibz]

DISCLAIMER: I neither use nor endorse ad block.

You know what I love? Ads became increasingly intrusive as a way to push pub club. Then the friendly neighbourhood mod/admin team realized: There's a free & legal alternative to their pub club. So they tried to paint it as an "illegal or mature" topic and banned endorsing it from the site entirely.

Spoiler

090002052000090007052000020114140504000615180020080919##