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Giant Bomb Thread #5 - We love you, Ryan Davis

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smr00 said:
Still, Adblock is bullshit, piracy is bullshit.
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The thing is that it's an option and a widespread one at that so it's something that websites have to acknowledge.

I use AdBlock on some gaming websites. I didn't use AdBlock on some gaming websites for a long time.

They've introduced ads that make every page load take about 4-6 seconds longer and it slows the whole browser down to a chugging pace every time.

I really like some gaming websites and I want to support them, but if the effort isn't put in to make the site usable for people who want to support it then I'm not going to whitelist it.

It's like tipping at restaraunts. I know servers get most of their money from tips and when I go in I want to and fully intend to pay them. But if I get shitty service I'm not going to reward it.
 
Alo81 said:
The thing is that it's an option and a widespread one at that so it's something that websites have to acknowledge.

I use AdBlock on Neogaf. I didn't use AdBlock on Neogaf for a long time.

They've introduced ads that make every page load take about 4-6 seconds longer and it slows the whole browser down to a chugging pace every time.

I really like Gaf and I want to support it, but if the effort isn't put in to make the site usable for people who want to support it then I'm not going to whitelist it.
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Dangerous waters.
 
smr00 said:
adblock is bullshit.

Hurts a lot of people. Granted, Alex going berserk and filling up my twitter feed makes me want to remove him i still like Alex, i like his tweets and enjoying hearing what he has to say about most things. Going on a huge rant about Adblock on twitter? Isn't really the place to do it.

Still, Adblock is bullshit, piracy is bullshit.
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Hell no. Its great, I just whitelist the sites I want to support (LIKE GAF NOBANPLIS). Its not an "all or nothing" switch.
 
Erasus said:
Hell no. Its great, I just whitelist the sites I want to support (LIKE GAF NOBANPLIS). Its not an "all or nothing" switch.
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This. NeoGaf and Giantbomb are two of my white listed sites. I don't want to see ads anywhere I deem them intrusive. NeoGaf had negligibly noticeable ads and I want to support Evilore because I love this place. I pay for Giantbomb premium to support those guys.


Everyone else? It's my computer and my bandwidth.
 
Tan said:
I'm not sure I understand what you mean? How would they acknowledge it?
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They have to recognize that NOT viewing ads is an option available to anyone who views their website so their implementation of the ads shouldn't be invasive or harmful to the website viewer.
 
So I decided to watch this Bioforge playthrough I've heard so much about, but the description of episode 1 says "We grab our flute, put our shoulder down, and charge...limp our way back into BioForge." So, is there an UPF or something I should watch before episode 1?
 
Man, I never get why people get so worked up over ads. Xbox dashboard, Giant Bomb, Gaf, wherever, they're usually so easy to ignore that I've never even considered using adblock.
 
A Sentient Keyboard said:
So I decided to watch this Bioforge playthrough I've heard so much about, but the description of episode 1 says "We grab our flute, put our shoulder down, and charge...limp our way back into BioForge." So, is there an UPF or something I should watch before episode 1?
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Go to the text interview and there are links to all the videos.
 
A Sentient Keyboard said:
So I decided to watch this Bioforge playthrough I've heard so much about, but the description of episode 1 says "We grab our flute, put our shoulder down, and charge...limp our way back into BioForge." So, is there an UPF or something I should watch before episode 1?
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Boy, wouldn't it be great if they implemented a tagging system for their videos so people can find this info out, or so Patrick in his podcast can give the actual video of the first episode, instead of just saying "... some Unprofessional Friday video; I don't know the date"?

Yes, they started on a UPF video, but, like Patrick, I don't know the date. Sorry.
 
brianmcdoogle said:
Boy, wouldn't it be great if they implemented a tagging system for their videos so people can find this info out, or so Patrick in his podcast can give the actual video of the first episode, instead of just saying "... some Unprofessional Friday video; I don't know the date"?

Yes, they started on a UPF video, but, like Patrick, I don't know the date. Sorry.
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Except that he linked to the actual UPF in the interview.

Unprofessional Fridays: 04/19/2013
 
I've messaged Dave about using Adblock as a silver member before and he didn't seem to care. I remember a few years back having a gigantic ad that became even larger when moused over for a few seconds (usually where I unconsciously left my mouse idle) next to a video on the site. I always enabled Adblock on GB since then. I'm sure it's gotten better but really... I pay more per year than gold members and can't see how it's logical to still see ads.

I understand no ads being part of the gold sub and not silver, but I'm not going to feel like a dick for using it when strictly in terms of the site's profit, I'm not helping any less than gold members.
 
IamMattFox said:
Man, I never get why people get so worked up over ads. Xbox dashboard, Giant Bomb, Gaf, wherever, they're usually so easy to ignore that I've never even considered using adblock.
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Yup, I literally don't "see" 98% of ads. Maybe I'm just old enough to remember the late 90's/early 00's when ads were actually insanely intrusive even on 'normal' websites, so the current status don't really affect me at all, especially since it's the only "price" I have to pay.

To the bandwith arguments - anybody on this website complaining about bandwith that doesn't live in the backwaters of the world (or Austraila) shouldn't really be bitching about a 5MB (if that) ad.
 
The BioForge interviews are some god-tier content. Amazing work, Patrick. The Chicago move is already proving incredibly worthwhile, if this is the shit he can get done on his own (even if it relied on his in-office presence for Backflips 'N' Bioforge).
 
I understand where Alex is coming from but I lose sympathy when sites like GB have scripts from nearly 20 sites attempting to run on their homepage
jiu.png
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I know it's something 1% of users would care about but that doesn't fill me with confidence from a security perspective
 
So for everyone that missed it and I just wanted to tell you all the story.

Last week I had a few missions at Gamescom 2013 but one of my main ones was to meet John Drake.

drake1xexiv.jpg

drake24ayir.jpg

BSMIUtnIMAAFjIp.jpg


I bought a tray of diet coke before hand in the Netherlands and brought that over to Gamescom for him.
He is such a cool guy we talked for about 5 min because he had to you know work also, just like I had to work.

Talked about the games about gamescom and about Giantbomb, about PAX and future plans for GB and that its been very hard on them (DUH).

Drake if by some miracle your reading this I want to thank you again for everything and I really hope you enjoyed you coke :D
 
I've been a premium member for every day of the service's existence (and for many years to come). I don't actually mind the ads on the odd occasion when I visit the site on a new device or if my login expires.

However, the overall attitude towards say...playing old games on emulators in reference to criticising, for example, Nintendo's supposed high pricing or half-assed emulation, is one of scorn and veiled admission that it's 'okay' for reasons that outweigh the legalities.

A direct quote about Nintendo's early Virtual Console offerings from Jeff is: "They're competing against free." (and note that I fully recognise that Jeff goes to a lot of time and expense to do things the right way, buying hardware to play from the original carts etc).

So really, I don't sympathise with Alex's anti-adblock views. They should concentrate on adding value to their paid service which actually, he and the whole Giant Bomb team are already doing. What Valve, CD Projeckt and others have shown is that the correct way to combat piracy or circumvention of monetisation is to add value and give legitimate customers more reasons to stay legitimate customers, rather than punish everyone for the behaviour of those who don't realise that not supporting the product will eventually result in no product to support.
 
Do you people actually expect a business where, I'm guessing, a significant part of the revenue comes from ads, to be sympathetic of adblocker? As essential as adblocker is to safely browsing the web nowadays?

I understand and appreciate the need for it but to those guys it's a significant loss of revenue and you know what, fair enough. It's ok to feel shitty about that.
 
People who use AdBlock will never be converted. Once you start blocking, there's no going back.

The only thing you can do is encourage whitelisting. And even then that battle is so easy to lose, because so many sites just have fucking TERRRRRIBLE ad policies. The AV Club has auto-playing audio ad videos on the home page, for example. And they're supposed to be savvy! They probably get by anyway, given the large amount of baked-in product placement on their site, but yeah.

IDK. I think assuming an ad-free browsing experience is an entitlement, but on the flipside, thinking you can cruise by with shitty ad implementation straight from 2003 is equally entitled. Writers and editors get more sympathy because, hey, it's their income, but the point remains.

Anyway, I do think AdBlock as a team is getting ahead of itself as of today - they're a convenience, a tool, not a fucking necessity, unless you're really into porn or torrenting, and they need to dial it back a bit. Not to mention the hilarious hypocrisy of it all.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was just one that snuck by them. They've been somewhat reasonable with their ads most of the time.
 
Antiwhippy said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was just one that snuck by them. They've been somewhat reasonable with their ads most of the time.
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Really, the point is that you aren't even whitelisting the company you want to support. By whitelisting Giant Bomb or any other site, you're also whitelisting whatever company they choose to work with, and assume that everybody involved is doing their due diligence.

And they clearly aren't. They're working with shitty companies full of shady fucks (It's not really their fault, when working with advertising that's your only option) and you need to assume that they're working with some of the less shitty companies in the field. I whitelist Giant Bomb and any other site I visit regularly, but I absolutely understand people who don't.
 
JesseEwiak said:
Yup, I literally don't "see" 98% of ads. Maybe I'm just old enough to remember the late 90's/early 00's when ads were actually insanely intrusive even on 'normal' websites, so the current status don't really affect me at all, especially since it's the only "price" I have to pay.

To the bandwith arguments - anybody on this website complaining about bandwith that doesn't live in the backwaters of the world (or Austraila) shouldn't really be bitching about a 5MB (if that) ad.
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A lot of people have caps, not just underdeveloped countries. There is not a single ISP I can get just outside Toronto that doesn't have a cap. I pay a lot for a huge cap (275GB) so that part doesn't bother me, but I'm not going to pretend everyone can afford that or maybe they live with family or something.
 
I find the whole AdBlock discussion really alien, because despite never using any ad-blocking service I can count on one hand the number of times i've opened a website and been genuinely annoyed by the ads. Maybe i'm jaded because i'm a YouTube Partner; I see videos i've worked hard on, then see that half the views earn me nothing because of adblockers. But, I dunno, it just seems kinda nasty to liberally use a service like that and be unhelpful to content-creators in that way, based on specific examples of intrusive ads in the past. I guess it's fine if you only use AdBlock to specifically blacklist sites with extremely intrusive ads, but I don't think that's what most people who use the service do.

I can also sort of understand AdBlock if you live in an area with very tight caps on internet. That's just a crappy situation to be in.
 
Woo, finally caught up with the bombcasts. I'm ready for tomorrow.

These last 3 podcasts were fantastic too.
Even the one with Alex
. I'm really glad they are hitting a new stride. Keep up the good work guys, it is appreciated.
 
Seems like a serious case of entitlement to me (it's our right to get paid based on a bullshit business model that offers nothing for the consumer) . If anything, I should be the one getting paid having to look at product placement and ads.
 
feeble peanut said:
Seems like a serious case of entitlement to me (it's our right to get paid based on a bullshit business model that offers nothing for the consumer) . If anything, I should be the one getting paid having to look at product placement and ads.
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it's entitlement that people want to earn a living doing a job?
 
sneaky77 said:
it's entitlement that people want to earn a living doing a job?
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I don't think he worded that very well but there's a point to be made in there, I think. It shouldn't matter to the games press where the money comes from. Why do they have to be earning a living through ads?
 
xanavi said:
I don't think he worded that very well but there's a point to be made in there, I think. It shouldn't matter to the games press where the money comes from. Why do they have to be earning a living through ads?
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Because unlike print, you don't pay for access to them! Talking about their free stuff exclusively obviously.

Also print has ads like crazy.

Are you saying they don't deserve any compensation for doing their amount of weekly free content? That's what they're making a living out of along with their subscriber stuff, problem is it's difficult to monetise it other than through ads. Can you imagine if everything but trailers are put behind a paywall now?
 
I wouldn't call someone a pirate or whatever over adblock. But if you do use adblock, you should be comfortable admitting you're not supporting <insert ad driven website here>.

Assuming you don't give them monies in other ways of course.
 
xanavi said:
I don't think he worded that very well but there's a point to be made in there, I think. It shouldn't matter to the games press where the money comes from. Why do they have to be earning a living through ads?
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I think it's more of the fact that page clicks are the only way people know how successful a story is, and ad revenue from a story is the only straight up measurement that whoever owns the company gets money from.

And whoever runs a company tells their editors that their money comes from AD Revenue, and if we have no AD Revenue, I'm sorry but I have to fire you.

So I think everybody (except Jeff) automatically goes into "hey advertisement is where my salary comes from, so you shouldn't block it!".

Sorry Patrick, but your example is too good not to be used: Patrick's statement of "People who use adblock should die in a fire" is perfect. It was his gut reaction to the subject, because AD Revenue IS what pays his salary. Then somebody messaged him on twitter saying "hey, I pay 50 bucks a year to read your material and I should die in a fire? oh, ok", which apparently made him remember that he's supposed to care about the user enjoyment of his stories, not the amount of clicks and page views it's generating, which made him apologize saying "Giant Bomb is nothing without its support base. People can do what they want. Biz models aren't really their concern, but I care about good content."

Alex's statement of "hey we know AD Revenue is not going to last forever, but hey, don't block the advertisement while we figure something out" also has a good heart behind it, but he believes too much on the companies. I doubt they'll ever change the AD Revenue model unless something drastic (like nobody watching the Ads anymore) happens.

Also, I don't get the hate on Subscriptions alternatives. Before the internet, the only way you could read news regarding anything was buying a goddamn magazine or newspaper. And that also came filled with ADs, which made me annoyed back then already.
 
Antiwhippy said:
Because unlike print, you don't pay for access to them! Talking about their free stuff exclusively obviously.

Also print has ads like crazy.

Are you saying they don't deserve any compensation for doing their amount of weekly free content? That's what they're making a living out of along with their subscriber stuff, problem is it's difficult to monetise it other than through ads. Can you imagine if everything but trailers are put behind a paywall now?
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As someone who plans on being a GB subscriber for the foreseeable future I would love it if that was a viable option for them.
 
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