Poll: More ads on The Excpaist - Problem solved?

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Staskala

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Sep 28, 2010
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I like the "More adds aren't a problem, just don't click on them!" argument.
Banner adds aren't pay-per-view, if no one clicks on them they might as well not even exist for all they do is waste bandwidth.

I don't know much about the Escapist's advertisement deals, but let's speculate a bit.
Usually banner adds aren't even pay-per-hit, so unless you actually buy from whatever site is being advertised the Escapist won't get a single cent. So "normal" banner adds aren't really an option here.
I'd assume those direct advertisements when a game launches are most likely calculated on the Escapists reach, but I don't think the escapist has enough traffic to survive on that alone and I highly doubt too many publishers even consider a site like this worthwhile enough, as the rarity of those particular adds proves.
The only real solution would be more video adds and obnoxious pop-ups, because only obtrusive shit like that is still pay-per-view. And seriously, fuck that.
 

Saucycarpdog

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Sep 30, 2009
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Woodsey said:
More ads are fine as long as they're well thought out. Having them on captcha's when you're trying to post a comment is just obnoxious (as are the ones that jump out and fill the entire screen).

For starters, there's a banner at the top of the home page that's used to advertise LRR instead of actually advertising something. At the bottom of the page there's a big, white blank box, and there's nothing down the borders.

Oh, and if you can't afford to pay people, don't bring new people in.
What if that's the escapist's plan? Bring in new shows so you can put ads in all of them.

[sub]yes I know that sounded stupid[/sub]
 

bakan

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StBishop said:
lacktheknack said:
To be honest you have a point. The easiest way to generate traffic (and therefore revenue) it to hold fun competitions, like MM, where the only winners are games/game characters/game developers. I'm aware that people win shit in MM but that's not why I participate. I do it for the love of my favourite devs.

If they held similar vote based comps more regularly they could easily generate more traffic.

What about a similar competition for worst publisher (although they couldn't do that, because it's not only rude, but possibly slanderous) or best FPS hero, Best RPG hero, best platformer hero etc.

This is genius. Someone do it.
I don't see a problem with votings for the worst publishers, worst customer service etc because even the movie industry has the 'Golden Raspberry Award'.

OT: Well, I don't mind ads as long as they aren't intrusive like banners but for the escapist they are often just damn annoying as they pop up right in front of you.
 

MorsePacific

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Bobic said:
Honestly I think the solution is to not hire so many damned contributors. They're struggling for money yet they keep adding loads of shows. Seriously, only hire what you can pay for guys.
This. So many times this. We have so many shows and columns that I can't even begin to remember half of them. It seems like a new one pops up everyday. I get that you need to pilot something before you figure out what to do with it, but are half of these shows worth the space they're using and the money required to keep them running?

On topic: More ads will drive a lot of people away or into the arms of ad blocking software. Ads are far from being the most reliable source of income when they're so easily hidden. I feel there are more ways they could increase their revenue without making the site look like a travesty. Like getting rid of all the contributors they don't feel are meeting expectations.
 

StBishop

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bakan said:
StBishop said:
lacktheknack said:
To be honest you have a point. The easiest way to generate traffic (and therefore revenue) it to hold fun competitions, like MM, where the only winners are games/game characters/game developers. I'm aware that people win shit in MM but that's not why I participate. I do it for the love of my favourite devs.

If they held similar vote based comps more regularly they could easily generate more traffic.

What about a similar competition for worst publisher (although they couldn't do that, because it's not only rude, but possibly slanderous) or best FPS hero, Best RPG hero, best platformer hero etc.

This is genius. Someone do it.
I don't see a problem with votings for the worst publishers, worst customer service etc because even the movie industry has the 'Golden Raspberry Award'.

OT: Well, I don't mind ads as long as they aren't intrusive like banners but for the escapist they are often just damn annoying as they pop up right in front of you.
Because they are a pretty big player in the game review industry, and presumably want to be even bigger, it's not in their best interest to alienate publishers. Not even to encourage discussion of poor publishers.

There's nothing wrong with calling out publishers on bad moves, eg. Assassins Creed 2 DRM, but it's another thing entirely to say "Hey guys, huz the absaloot wurst ov all these guise? Lol!!11".
 

achilleas.k

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What I'm curious about is, when you came up with this idea OP, why wasn't your first thought the following?
"This is a business that's been doing ... business for years. If they are in financial trouble, the first idea that pops into my head would not be something they would find hard to come up with. If they don't have more ads, I doubt it's because they were waiting for ME to put the idea in their heads".

I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I probably am so I apologise. I'm just always curious why some people think they can solve other people's problems with the first idea that pops in their head, especially when the involved party is experienced in the sort of problem in question.

Also, the new pop-up ads are bloody annoying!
 

ShadowKatt

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You know, the escapist isn't the only gaming website out there. There are lots of websites out there that deal with gaming, sites like IGN. IGN isn't backrupt, EscapistMagazine is. One of them is doing something right, the other isn't. The obvious answer is look at one that IS doing good, either formally or financially, and take a lesson from them.
 

Jodah

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Use_Imagination_here said:
For me it's just baffling how they can be 14 months behind on payment and hire tons of new contributors at the same time.
That is exactly what irritates me. They knew they couldn't pay their employees, they should have been slashing content and telling the public why in the hopes that the community loved the site enough to buy more pub club memberships. Instead they hire new contributors and try to screw over existing ones.
 

JezebelinHell

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Bobic said:
Honestly I think the solution is to not hire so many damned contributors. They're struggling for money yet they keep adding loads of shows. Seriously, only hire what you can pay for guys.
No kidding. Didn't they just take submissions for reviewers as well? I can only imagine how EC was feeling watching them add more shows while they were being nice and letting them slack off on paying them. It really is like loaning a friend money for bills and seeing them sit at a bar and drink. You are going to get pissed and feel taken advantage of. It should not have been allowed to get so bad that you are $20k behind on paying anyone no matter how nice they are being about it when you ask them.
 

lacktheknack

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achilleas.k said:
What I'm curious about is, when you came up with this idea OP, why wasn't your first thought the following?
"This is a business that's been doing ... business for years. If they are in financial trouble, the first idea that pops into my head would not be something they would find hard to come up with. If they don't have more ads, I doubt it's because they were waiting for ME to put the idea in their heads".

I don't mean to sound like a dick, but I probably am so I apologise. I'm just always curious why some people think they can solve other people's problems with the first idea that pops in their head, especially when the involved party is experienced in the sort of problem in question.

Also, the new pop-up ads are bloody annoying!
However, the Escapist MUST be in financial trouble. See: The Extra Credits debacle.

However, they keep putting up new kinds of ads, only to take them down.

Presumably, this is because everyone goes "BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH ADS" every time they try.

Thus, these types of threads are good for increasing goodwill towards ads via discussing their PURPOSE versus how annoying they are. Thus, these kinds of threads are perfectly warranted.

Personally, I think they should get some Pay-Per-View ads and hold popularity contests bi-monthly. March Madness attracts some traffic.
 

lacktheknack

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Use_Imagination_here said:
For me it's just baffling how they can be 14 months behind on payment and hire tons of new contributors at the same time.
They're probably trying desperately to attract more viewers. It's the only situation that makes sense.

They should try more popularity contests. March Madness is a big success every year (in terms of traffic, anyways).
 

BoredDragon

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TestECull said:
Where's the "I'm already highly annoyed by the spam of ads we currently have so if they add even more I'm going to leave" option? Because that's what I'll do. I already think there's too many ads as it is. They add more and I'll just take my business elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
lol you kidding? Other sites that I go to do all the wall paper adds plus they require you to watch an ad everytime you start up a video even if it's only 5 minutes and have those annoying pop-ups during the video.

There isn't such a thing as a free lunch. One has to give up something for a service and since that something in this case isn't money out of you're own pocket I don't see the problem.
 

LostintheWick

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Bobic said:
Honestly I think the solution is to not hire so many damned contributors. They're struggling for money yet they keep adding loads of shows. Seriously, only hire what you can pay for guys.
If they stop bringing in new content, repeat visitors will decrease (less money). The show must go on. Content that doesn't do well should get canned. Ones that do, should be encouraged and rewarded to continue.

Successful shows and entertaining content... that is what's key. I also fear mismanagement on the escapist end may play a larger role...

EDIT: Maybe mismanagement ISN'T playing a larger role... Tough economic times make for tough business decisions. Those unavoidably leave someone unhappy somewhere.
 

TwentyEight

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Apr 30, 2009
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I'd be fine with more ads, but not the kind of ads that are animated, and definitely not the kind of ads that have sound and streaming video. I come here to watch videos one at a time. My computer can't handle a website that shows three different videos at once that I can't pause.
 

Jumplion

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Mar 10, 2008
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The thing about this is that the Escapist has had plenty of flings with ads.

From what I can gather, The Escapist seems to be at the mercy of ad agencies rather than the other way around. The recent Gaikai advertisements where they literally took up half the page stirred up some annoyances, and when I wondered why The Escapist allowed them to do this kind of thing they responded "We don't make the call" or something like that, which I find incredibly odd. Not only that, but they need money so desperately that they put ads in the goddamn captchas!

And yet, The Escapist is apparently hiring more news reporters, picking up a show or two and then dropping the same shows relatively early, and generally are just fumbling with their money. They haven't payed many of their contributors for a while, so lord knows why they're still trying to spend money elsewhere.

I don't think more ads are the solution, that just seems to make the problems even worse. They just need to assess the situation and try to keep the money they already have and try to fix things up with everyone first.
 

Kross

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Sep 27, 2004
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EcoEclipse said:
The Virgo said:
If you look at most of the ads here, they are mostly for other features on The Escapist, like the Miracle of Sound, Jimquisition and the like. And I just watched the latest Zero Punctuation episode and there wasn't an ad while the older ones have ads. And I don't even have ad blocker!

Really, it doesn't take a genius to realize that they actually need to run ads for non-Escapist stuff! -_-' Methinks that their lack of funds is due to bad management.
This. Completely this.

So much of the ad space here is put toward things that are on the Escapist, and that most of the users already know about.

A good place to start would be using that space--ad space we're already familiar with and used to--for real ads.
Unfortunately the hard part is finding people to buy ads on our site. Even the ones we do manage to get often don't want to pay for non North American ad views. At all. So they get filler and house ads. We've gone months at a time with no third party ads on the site at all because nobody wanted to buy on a small site that didn't have the page views of some other larger gaming sites.

Now (like... this year) we're finally starting to fill our ad inventory because we have some ad sales people who are good at their job (or do it at all, we've had remote ad sales people who literally did nothing for months until we were able to tell it was more then business being bad and replace them) and are finally breaking into the top trafficked gaming news sites so ad buying people will look at us. But now we're suddenly rich corporate douchebag overlords and out to screw over the people who help make our site interesting. :(

As far as PubClub, it's great and helps us get ahead of some of our bills, and we love all of our supporters very much... but it's not a significant contributor to our ongoing bills as of yet. We would need to sell hundreds (if not a couple thousand) pubclub subscriptions a day to even come near to covering our various server/bandwidth/salary/office/contributor/etc costs. We are not selling quite that many yet, although we can always hope. :)