Rift ads...

[brunothepig]

Because while some people may be offended by the fact, but the majority will click on something if it involves sex. Look at Evony. That game had absolutely nothing to do with anything the ads described... In fact, they had accurate ads for a short time. I found out about it that way. I hear traffic skyrocketed when they changed the campaign.
I'm not really offended by this. As somebody above said, everybody likes breasts. And if it keeps selling, advertisers are gonna keep using it. So don't take it personally.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

I think you mean close to the breast.

http://instantrimshot.com/

Sorry couldn't resist ;p But to be constructive, advertisers should tap into the sexy man ads, might make gaming seem less sexist. Or something

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Oh, you silly floating boobs. I'm more interested in that giant crystal...looks like tasty rock candy.

 

[Lizmichi]

You all some to forget this is a beta that the Escapist is promoting. It's not out yet and won't be for a month or so. Granted I'm a pub cluber so I see none of this but I got a VIP key from the Escapist for RIFT and I enjoy it quiet a bit. As for the boobs well all I have to say is oh well. I had to put up with things like this and I didn't really care.

 

[Ellen of Kitten]

So I check in for my weekly Zero Punctuation update, and I noticed that having the standard nearly-naked woman (in what is, as standard, literally the worst possible armor for withstanding any attack more serious than harsh words) on the margins was not going far enough to demonstrate the attractions of this latest game, apparently called RIFT.

They also wanted to show that it had CRYSTALS. Big orange crystals. What do they do? Are they collectible? Do they give you mana or do you craft them into crystalswords? Nobody knows! This ad is clearly playing it's cards close to the vest.

I've taken a screenshot to demonstrate:

This ad does tell us one thing besides the fact that there are crystals, though; the SN-NW has not one but TWO breasts! Thanks for putting my mind at ease.

Look, let's be mature here. I've always felt that Escapist kinda represented a different class of gamer. The class that treats games as art, not that class made up of Halol Bros. These sorts of ads hearken back to the old comic-book cover maxim of getting a set of cosmic spheres as close as possible to the center of the page. I for one do not appreciate such obvious pandering, and I hope that there are others here that agree with me.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that saw this. My browser window is small enough to only encapsulate the content of the site, so I only see the crystals and the one breast. o_o I was shocked, and figured it was a framing error. I now see it's a graphical oversight, or a web design choice that boarders on immature.

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

I think this is the successor to the EVONY ads.

 

[Best of the 3]

To be honest, who cares, do they really affect me / you? If they're so much of a big deal, become a Pub Club member. If not, put up with it. It's as simple as that :3

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Come on, the chain mail bikini has been a staple of role playing games since D&D first started advertising, and it's been a staple of pulp fantasy cover art for even longer than that. Let's face it, sex sells. Also, the Escapist isn't any better than any other well moderated gaming website when it comes to the overall intelligence of the posters. If anything, the "games as art" crowd we play host to has a tendency to be annoyingly snobby -- remember the thread from earlier this week, where some guy was all upset that Duke Nukem Forever of all games wasn't arty enough? Not all games need to be Bioshock, just like not all movies need to be Blade Runner; sometimes we need a game like Duke Nukem, or a movie like Highlander.

There was something about the Rift ads that did annoy me, though; for a while there, they weren't working properly, so all of the borders around the site, which usually are either ads or a blue background, were pitch black, but if clicked on, they took you to the Rift site. While that can be an effective way to get clicks, it's not a very good way to get people to know what the ad is for, and I'm glad The Escapist fixed it.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Ads sure are subtle these days:

Queue half-naked woman

Also the "this isn't Azeroth anymore" makes me roll my eyes. How many times do we have to say it? You can't beat WoW by directly opposing it, you have to go AROUND it and try a game that isn't clearly in the same genre.

That really made me cringe too... Its like having a fps commercial going "you arent fighting the covenant anymore" or rts going "the zerg isnt your biggest problem anymore". Its so stupid, and it doesnt help that rift is a WoW-clone.

No, not a WoW-clone like WH:O or GW, were talking 100% copy paste from WoW, just with other graphics engine, another story and extremely unstable servers. Seriously, watched the "rogue class" in rift play pvp, was like playing a sub rogue, right down to the range of the skills.

For me, Rift is just trying too hard (anyone else getting the Evony-feel of it?), and its just turning into a pathetic pile of WoW's leftovers.

I KNOW! I played the beta and the rogue is CARBON COPIED! People keep making WoW clones and they keep failing, does putting on a suit and owning a multi-million dollar company blind people?

 

[PTTG-10000]

OK, I admit that this new half-torso is marginally less manipulative...