The game apparently still downloads while you're watching the ads? Even if it's a game that's already downloaded, crying about having to watch an ad every now and again is just childish. Get over it and stop being impatient. It doesn't cost you anything to sit and watch/listen to an ad.
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Well the obvious alternative would be to reduce running costs. By say ... not running the hub at all. The ad route taken is essentially a product of "this will give a much-needed boost to revenue immediately, with little effort" in response to a financial crunch, to avoid a switch-off situation that would have left the majority of users simply unable to find hosted games at all, login etc.
So when discussing alternatives, one needs to take into account the development time required to put together the new business model, versus the short-term need for finances. And ... well, if you factor in the developers longer-term intentions, you can come to understand why the present route was taken. Is there any obvious alternative, that meets those short-term criteria, that comes to mind? | |
I know ads are needed and all. But I've never seen one person say anything positive about the ads that play before a game starts. Infact all I've seen it do is make people refuse to update BYOND, to the point that I've actually seen people write guides on how to downgrade BYOND to a version without ads.
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This is the internet. Everything's free! And if it isn't, it SHOULD BE!
This is the mindset we're dealing with. Kids that grew up in a world where you can download anything you want without paying a cent. Kids that never had to buy their music or pay for movie theater tickets. Hell, kids that (thanks to DVR) don't even have to sit through ads on TV anymore. So a little 30-second ad that runs before playing their game of choice? Complete blasphemy. Because they're hopelessly spoiled. | |
Right, so the question goes:
Is there any obvious alternative, that meets those short-term criteria, that comes to mind? | |
So a little 30-second ad that runs before playing their game of choice? Complete blasphemy. Because they're hopelessly spoiled. Agreed. And they need to stay off my lawn while they are at it. | |
Also agreed. Oh, and it would be nice if they would stop needing to be told how to do everything in a game repeatedly, and actually just remembered or figured it out like people did on the first few generations of consoles or so.
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Ter13 wrote:
And they need to stay off my lawn while they are at it. Oh man. As soon as I re-read my post, it immediately hit me that that's exactly what I sound like. But that doesn't make it any less true...lol | |
I don't know, I know very little about marketing or making money off of the internet, all I know is people hate ads.
Personally, if the ad is small, I don't usually mind them. If they're big flash things, they're obnoxious, but the worst ones are when they take up most of the screen or god forbid have sound. Like I said, I understand why they're needed, but you're not going to win anyone over while they're around. It kind of reminds of the whole anime game issue we had around here for years (couldn't survive without them, but having them around wasn't doing anyone any favours). It's a bad situation to be in and I don't know the way out of it, but maybe it's about time professional help was sought? | |
I don't know, I know very little about marketing or making money off of the internet, all I know is people hate ads. I'm just gonna throw this out there, but about 90% of the people who come onto the forums to complain about the ads do not have a membership. Kind of proves a point, if you ask me. | |
The point that only people without a membership see these ads?
Obviously people with a membership wont complain about ads, because most of them don't even see the ads in question. | |
I don't like ads, myself, because they are annoying. But if they weren't annoying, they would be ineffective, for both the advertisers and for us. So that's kind of the point.
What bothers me is that we have people complaining-- some having used BYOND for years--without even considering the possibility of our very cheap Membership, which is what we really want from this. I don't know if that's not having the means to pay or simply being so opposed to paying for something formerly free, but it is killing us. The other thing is turning off developers who don't want to make a game that will show ads first. We have the existing standalone solution for that and are working on improving it, and may provide a means to donate to a hub to keep it ad free on the pager too. Although I am very skeptical these things will make a difference since the audience is so small. I do want to make it clear to new developers that they can make an ad free game not associated with BYOND if they spend some money. The best solution to all of our financial woes would be to have more successful games participate in our revenue sharing program. At the moment we have a handful of games that bring in regular income, but that has not changed in a while. If there are things we can do to encourage this (eg the recent renewal of the cash shop idea), we'd rather put our focus there. As much as some may dislike the ads, they have brought in some money and probably more Memberships (hard to say in tandem with the fundraiser generosity), and that is the main reason we've had more development this year than previously. | |
If the ads aren't intrusive they don't get noticed, and no money is made on them, ads don't pay-per-view, they pay-per-click in most cases. Video ads are obviously a bit different but they still don't pay much unless the client clicks through.
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There's honestly no reason to not have ads. Gotta make money somehow and if people aren't willing to pay for the membership then they'll have to sit through the agony of a 30-second ad.
Things like these remind me that the community's average age hovers around 12-15. | |
Admittedly, I haven't had ads enabled... ever -- but 90% of my time on BYOND has been spent on dial-up; thems video ads be mean on the ancient technologies.
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Well of course if you have a membership you keep the ads off.
That's the only reason you're paying for the membership unless you want in-game benefits. | |
Yes... paying... *steps back slowly before running away*
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Ha! Silly Nadrew, we still love you! :)
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I think it's pretty silly since I could log into a game, watch a 15 second video ad, then sit in said game for as long as it's being hosted if I want.
If there's 86,400 seconds in a days worth of playing a BYOND game I really don't see 15-30 of those seconds in advertising as "malicious." I actually find that MUCH preferable to having to see an annoying banner ad all of the time. | |
Rather than calling people "too young", or getting on some BYOND Membership high horse. How about we try to be constructive and come up with better ways to deliver ads to the userbase without needing to resort to shoving it in their faces whenever they try to join a server.
I, along with many other users, will simply refuse to update our clients. Due to this, there are already several severs i cannot play on now due to my outdated client.