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Of Ad-Blockers and Income.
Topic Started: May 15 2013, 04:54 AM (401 Views)
Focian
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I thought this was an interesting little read from SBAllen, regarding ad blockers, memberships and the future of GameFAQs.
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http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/11-sballin/66194632
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It’s no secret that ad blocking is a bit of a contentious topic on the Internet. This isn’t a new issue. Since the first banner ads went up, people have been trying to block them. There have been a hundred different arguments about the morality of ad blocking, whether or not advertising supported content is a bad business model, and whether or not ad blockers mean an end to the “free” Internet, but that’s for another time and place.

We’ve read other articles online from other sites talking about how many people blocked ads on their pages, so we wanted to find out just how much blocking was happening on GameFAQs. A few weeks ago, we ran a 24-hour test to find out just how many people blocked ads, and followed it up with a survey sent out to people who were blocking ads to find out some more about them.

The results? Slightly more than a quarter (26%) of all visitors to GameFAQs are blocking ads, and that number goes up to 40% when we count only registered users. That’s lower than some of the numbers we’ve seen reported online from other sites, but in line with what we expected on both counts. We found out some really interesting things about ad blocking, like how mainland Europe (especially Germany) blocks ads a lot more than North America, and that there’s very little blocking going on in Asia by comparison. The longer someone has been using GameFAQs, the better the chances they’ve blocked ads, but the good news (for us) is that ad blocking hasn’t taken root on tablets or mobile devices (yet).

We sent out a random survey to registered users who we spotted blocking ads with some interesting (and some loaded) questions, with the main purpose of finding out why they were blocking ads and what they thought we should do about it. The top reason by far was that many ads are just too distracting, often flashing, moving, and shaking to draw the user’s eye away the content they want to read. 70% of people responding listed it as a reason they block ads. On a text-heavy site like GameFAQs, the problem is even worse. When the only graphic on a page is an advertisement, it can be hard to keep focus.

Half of respondents just plain didn’t like advertising in general, or were tired of them slowing down and/or crashing their browsers. Over 40% had privacy and security concerns, along with just being overloaded with so many ads per page.

If we asked really nicely (and maybe made people feel really guilty about it) up to 75% of respondents said they’d be willing to turn off ad blocking on GameFAQs, but most of them only under the condition that we got rid of the flashier ads. Therein lies the problem. It’s the flashier ads that get the most clicks, and so they’re the ones that earn us the most money by a huge margin. Honestly, we’d love to roll back to the days of text and static image ads, but doing so would be crippling ourselves financially. It’s a no-win situation, and it’s not just our problem, but one the online advertising industry is going to be facing for a very long time.

The main alternative among sites like ours to being ad-supported is selling subscriptions, offering premium memberships that remove advertisements and provide additional content and privileges. The problem for GameFAQs is that our content is 100% user-generated and it’s not ours to sell. Providing additional privileges costs us time and money to build and maintain. It also creates a system of haves and have-nots, which leads to its own set of problems. Only 1% of people responding to our survey would be willing to subscribe to an ad-free GameFAQs membership outright, and that number doesn’t go too much higher even if we offered some kind of additional benefits (which we’re having a hard time even coming up with anyway).

What about funding the site through donations, like Wikipedia? Let’s face it, we’re owned by a multinational media company, and asking for our users to fund us while our parent corporation reports a profitable quarter probably wouldn’t sit too well with many people. As much as we like to think of ourselves as a public service for gamers helping gamers, we’re still a business, and have to operate like one.

So, what do we do now? Well, we’re not really between a rock and a hard place yet. As many people as there are blocking ads, there are more that aren’t, and that’s more than enough to keep us going for the foreseeable future. It’s something we’re keeping an eye on, but we can live with it for now. We don’t have anything to offer in the way of a premium service, but we might just look into partnering up with one of our sister sites to offer an ad-free GameFAQs as a bonus, or even just giving our best and top contributing users the ability to shut ads off.

At the end of the day, we’re definitely coming out ahead and will be for a long time to come, so don’t think that we’re having some kind of financial crisis. Rather, we are simply doing some research and thought we’d share the results with everyone. We hope that everyone reading this finds it to be interesting. On a closing note, we would definitely love for you to whitelist GameFAQs on your ad blockers, but it’s okay if you don’t. We understand.
Edited by Focian, May 15 2013, 04:56 AM.
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Focian
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On a personal level, there have only been two adverts that have irritated me. The one with the upwards arrow and "SWIPE", and the new Sony Xperia something, I click on the X to close it, and it loads it up... every... damn... time.

Ah well, as stated above, the that side of the industry is still finding it's feet.
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I actually saw that topic, and it sickened me.

"hey guys, we're doing amazingly......oh, we're making so much money and are so far in front... but your ad blockers mean we're not earning that little bit more.

C'mon guys. No pressure. How about you disable them for our website."
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Buttface McBoob
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I'm an ass man.
I didn't mind that post - seemed pretty honest.

If they start charging us... That's when it goes nuts.

I don't use adblock or anything - at work 95% of the time I use GFUCKs... Not really worried about viruses. :)

I also don't click the ads, so they get no money from me. :)

BUT I understand the need for revenue of some kind... Magazines / TV etc... All have ads, no reason why websites shouldn't... As long as they don't take up the whole damn page, or force you to click X.
Ooh Yeah!



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HeavensDemise
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I run FF with Adblock Plus on everything I can. It's bad enough I have to deal with ads on t.v. and I'll be damned if I'm going to let every site I visit shove them down my throat. To be quite frank some websites bottom line is nothing I'll ever concern myself with.
Edited by HeavensDemise, May 15 2013, 08:00 AM.
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Winternova
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PRO-GEAR SPEC
May 15 2013, 05:38 AM
I actually saw that topic, and it sickened me.

"hey guys, we're doing amazingly......oh, we're making so much money and are so far in front... but your ad blockers mean we're not earning that little bit more.

C'mon guys. No pressure. How about you disable them for our website."
It's not so much that they're doing amazingly as a company...he's worried about how HIS little fiefdom is showing up on the balance sheet. If GameFAQs is reducing the overall profits, then they've got to be concerned.

With that being said, I'm NOT disabling my ad-blockers on that site. Perhaps my recent suspension is a blessing in disguise - I need to get off of that hell-hole and never go back.

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I just think he should look at the sad sack of moderators he has, and wonder why anyone would feel like GameFAQs is worthy of a white list.
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Buttface McBoob
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Winternova
May 15 2013, 08:00 AM
I need to get off of that hell-hole and never go back.
This more than anything else...

That place is becoming unbearable.

I don't care about ads on anything... Just ignore them.
Ooh Yeah!



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Focian
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My only input on the situation is that I stopped using the site for about two or three weeks when the "SWIPE" ad irritated me to the point of keeping me off the site.

Also, advertising online is still a reasonably new business, what works and what doesn't, for both the site owners and the consumers, is still being hammered out.

Right now, in print, radio and television, we have a number of grounded and accepted methods of advertising, it'll take, I would fathom, a couple of decades before we have that kind of universalistic approach.
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Gabrius
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I'll make a deal.

Make me a mod, and I'll unblock the craptastic ads.
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Appo
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I use Adblock, only because I can't stand any form of ads. lol

That being said, I totally understand where he is coming from, and I appreciate that he has spent time trying to find a middle ground for advertisers and the user base. Will I whitelist because of that? Nope, but it was a good effort on his part. I'm sure it's bound to cause some people to whitelist.

Also, I don't mind the mods. It's easy to find a way to get around moderations, and the only time I get modded is when I deserve it. ^_^
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CapwnD
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I tried turning ads back on... I can't. I'm not sure what I did, but I can't get ads at gamefaqs. I thought it might be part of gamefox, but I enabled ads in that, and they're still not showing up.
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Appo, it's more the fact that the mods actually troll people, especially if you have a valid point against them. They'll even reveal your moderation history, openly in a topic.
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Winternova
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Appo
May 15 2013, 02:06 PM
I use Adblock, only because I can't stand any form of ads. lol

That being said, I totally understand where he is coming from, and I appreciate that he has spent time trying to find a middle ground for advertisers and the user base. Will I whitelist because of that? Nope, but it was a good effort on his part. I'm sure it's bound to cause some people to whitelist.

Also, I don't mind the mods. It's easy to find a way to get around moderations, and the only time I get modded is when I deserve it. ^_^
I have no clue what prompted my current trip to purgatory on GameFAQs. What I posted was not horrible and it certainly wasn't a repeated violation. If the user has no clue what they have done wrong the sanction won't be effective.

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Appo
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May 15 2013, 02:54 PM
Appo, it's more the fact that the mods actually troll people, especially if you have a valid point against them. They'll even reveal your moderation history, openly in a topic.

Eh, the mods trolling is actually quite funny, IMO. They do get modded for trolling quite often, too, at least on CE. I find most trolling funny, though, so I'm sure I'm in the minority.

Winternova
May 15 2013, 02:56 PM
Appo
May 15 2013, 02:06 PM
I use Adblock, only because I can't stand any form of ads. lol

That being said, I totally understand where he is coming from, and I appreciate that he has spent time trying to find a middle ground for advertisers and the user base. Will I whitelist because of that? Nope, but it was a good effort on his part. I'm sure it's bound to cause some people to whitelist.

Also, I don't mind the mods. It's easy to find a way to get around moderations, and the only time I get modded is when I deserve it. ^_^
I have no clue what prompted my current trip to purgatory on GameFAQs. What I posted was not horrible and it certainly wasn't a repeated violation. If the user has no clue what they have done wrong the sanction won't be effective.


My issue with suspensions is that you can't appeal them. I got suspended once when MGS4 was about to release for making a topic saying, "Edge gives MGS4 a 6/10" then in the message, I said, "I bet it will happen." Hardly worthy of a suspension, but I had to wait and hope I didn't get banned.
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“Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.”
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Winternova
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My original GameFAQs account, Winterstar, was banned in the past.

I now use it as my "alternate" account and will be posting from it for the next week.

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kungfucolin
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SBAllen can kiss my ass.
Gamefaqs is only what it is solely due to the user created content.
It wouldn't be much of a website if nobody posted on the forums, and nobody submitted FAQs, reviews, etc.

The site content is basically 100% user generated.

I say it again: SBAllen can kiss my ass.
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James
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kungfucolin
May 15 2013, 07:04 PM
SBAllen can kiss my ass.
Gamefaqs is only what it is solely due to the user created content.
It wouldn't be much of a website if nobody posted on the forums, and nobody submitted FAQs, reviews, etc.

The site content is basically 100% user generated.

I say it again: SBAllen can kiss my ass.
Pretty much exactly what I planned on posting after reading the article.

I'm not offended by it or anything... but why would I even begin to care? Even if they did start having financial issues, I'm not white listing them.
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Winternova
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The entire site is run by, and populated mainly by, complete morons.

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