8 years ago
15
'Ad-blocking is the biggest external threat to online games journalism'
Paying ad-blockers to be on a white list is 'giving into blackmail', says IGN
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The idea of journalism being for-profit at all continues to vex me. If the purpose of journalism is to present objective facts and report on happenings, then for-profit models automatically corrupt that purpose. Journalism should be funded in ways similar to nonprofits -- if we want the service and believe in the work, we contribute, we volunteer our efforts, we hold fundraising events. Ad blockers are the least of the industry's problems. It needs an overhaul, a new direction.
As soon as a reporter's salary is determined by administrators looking to turn a profit, journalism becomes entertainment geared toward generating controversy. And if those profits come largely from paid advertising, then any potentially unbiased message has to sit next to specifically persuasive, manipulative ads, confusing the whole thing.
Crappy news sites and even crappier ads are the biggest external threat to online games journalism.
If they didn't have autoplaying videos, popups, auto redirecting (this is a plague in mobile websites) and crap like that I wouldn't have to use an ad blocker.
This mentality is extremely frustrating to me. I'll just copy a previous comment I made on this subject...
And to add to this... If you can't get readers/viewers to support you monetarily, maybe your product isn't as valuable as you think it is. Ego check.
They definitely are exploring, but you aren't going to like what they find. Because it's ads intertwined with content. You can already see that in YouTube and podcasts, where in the middle of a video/audio the host simply starts talking about their sponsor. More worrying, content creators and advertisers might find, that the best way to advertise, is ads that are indistinguishable from content. And that too is already happening.
Well, sure... What is a value of a game reviewer, news podcaster, "let's play" video maker? I certainly enjoy a lot of them, but I wouldn't pay a subscription fee for any, practically no one would. Does that mean their work is worthless?
Native advertising and embedded commercials aren't new, it's as old as TV itself. Looking back to the '40s for a solution to a modern technological problem is IMO lazy.
We have the creative ability and technology to get out of the paradigm of ad-based revenue being the only viable solution. The only thing stopping it is the entrenched mindset that ads are the easy way. Alternatives are popping up all over the place.
I'm not claiming to know what the solution is, I'm saying that there is a solution to the ad problem, and it requires creative thought and new ideas - not artificial technical limitations spurred on by guilt trips.
Not worthless at all... but maybe it's not a business. Maybe it's a hobby, and most people don't get paid for hobbies.
That being said, if a 'hobby' gathers 5-10k followers, and you can get 5% of your most loyal followers to donate $1/mo (which has been proven time and again to be quite possible) you can make some decent side-income off of it, maybe even enough to pay the rent.
Again, I'm not even against ads myself... My problem is when people blame users instead of giving any real thought to identifying the problem and finding a real solution to it.
Honestly, I find your post quite insulting. Really, a person who creates awesome content, doesn't deserve to get paid, just because he enjoyed creating that content? A person who can't come up with some intricate scheme to monetize his work is lazy?
We, as society, need to move in entirely the opposite direction and make earning money easier, for people who crate good content.
I'm really not sure how you got that out of my comment. I specifically stated the opposite. Not sure how to explain it any other way.
Again, I agree with that... but think ads are NOT WORKING, as stated in the original article, because of TECHNICAL REALITIES. We need a different way, and the potential is endless.
It isn't about every individual content creator having to come up with some 'intricate scheme' - it's about a new, simple solution being found by the industry or society as a whole.
I feel like you are not really considering what I'm saying, as you are asserting that I'm expressing the exact opposite of what I am saying.
You essentially said, that it's okay for someone to not get paid for his hobby, even when that hobby provides value to people, right? That's the same attitude, that a lot of people showed when discussing paid mods, as if that would be so wrong, for someone to ask money for work he enjoyed doing. But whatever, that's offtopic anyway.
Right, but money comes either from advertisement/sponsorship or from end users and end users aren't going to pay for anything, that they can avoid paying for. If we want to get rid of advertisements, I see only two paths, one is where everything is behind a paywall and you can't get anything for free; other is where a massive change in attitude happens and people start donating regularly. In reality, that isn't going to happen and advertisements aren't going anywhere. They work just fine, same as they have worked since before Internet, but on Internet they don't work for certain audiences and content creators are moving away from those audiences.
I don't like advertisement any more than the next person and I would love for something like Flattr to really take off, but I just don't think it's possible.
I said that the value is dependent on the number of followers, and the level of engagement of said followers. Your analogy of the paid mods completely misinterprets what I said. If anything, what I'm saying supports 'paid mods' not denounces them.
That is an assumption that has been proven wrong over and over again. I myself have donated to podcasts, musicians at bandcamp.com, etc. In my original comment I linked to Patreon and the Flattr idea is another great example.
The fact that you don't think it's possible speaks directly to the entrenchment I am talking about. Participate, share the idea. Pessimism, and complacently embracing the status-quo never achieved anything worthwhile in the history of mankind.
If you think it's a good idea, do it. If you don't, then continue with ad-supported media... but don't blame users for using ad-blocking software when it's an existing technology that is becoming more and more ubiquitous.
That is like the music industry suing users in the mid 2000s instead of offering a reality-based, realistically-valued digital distribution method... like we have in spades a decade later. You can't just denounce reality and expect it to change.
Has it really? I would think, that getting gamers to voluntarily pay for anything would be a huge challenge, when they so often aren't willing to even pay for games they're playing. Sure, there are some successful Patreons and Kickstarters and whatnot, but it's not as simple as replacing ads with a donation button, that isn't going to work for the wast majority of content creators. When even Wikipedia, a resource used by half a billion people each month, struggles to get donations, what chances does everyone else have? I agree with you, that donations would be the ideal future, but I don't share your optimism.
The instant that compromised ad networks stop being a major malware infection vector is the instant I'll start feeling guilty about running an adblocker. And not a moment before.
I blanket block ads and only white-list on a case by case basis. Malicious ads (especially of the flash variety) have ruined it for the online advertising revenue model. I no longer trust advertising networks.
Want me to unblock ads on your site? Then quite simply ask me to. Nicely. That last part is important because if I see the adblock message calling me an ass for blocking ads, I'm just going to block that entire frame and not see it.
Linux Tech Tips did ads another way that I liked as well. They got their own sponsors and gave them a blurb at the end of the videos. Even if I could block those, I wouldn't because 1, they're entertaining; 2, they're usually very relevant to the content; and 3, very non-intrusive. Sites could do a similar thing by actually getting their own sponsors and putting up ads hosted on their own domain. Chances are it won't be on the black list, and I won't bother blocking it. Also they could control the ad and how it effects their users. Much better than giving an entire side of your site to an ad network to put whatever the hell they want up.
For me the problems are obtrusive ads. I try and turn off adblock when I am happy with a site but so many sites are bad that I don't turn off ad block until I find I really like the site.
I'm going to take this opportunity to express my dislike for adblockers. If you want quality content, somebody has to pay for it. So either you pay a subscription fee or you get ads. I understand the conflicts of interest that arise with advertising, but I don't expect quality content for free, and I don't want to pay for it.
Honestly, gaming journalism is a relic of an older time. When we were getting monthly subscriptions to Nintendo Power, EGM, GamePro, or whatever else it was because information like that was hard to come by. Nowadays people get their information about games from let's play videos, streams, walkthroughs, and user submitted content on sites like snapzu. Meanwhile ads are a constant threat on the internet. They aren't just annoying. Sometimes they are downright dangerous and it's a shame because ads lets people monetize things online that they otherwise couldn't. It's too bad, but untrustworthy individuals and companies have made it so that users don't want ads. Look at Netflix for example. No ads at all, but it still manages to rake in dough by just offering something that consumers want. The guy in this article sounds ridiculous comparing adblock whitelists to piracy. He sounds like he's just trying to stir up trouble by using buzzwords that get people in a tizzy. Am I supposed to feel bad for advertisers? I do think it's too bad for content creators, but if you have something of value, people will pay for it one way or another. You can't try and cast shame and doubt on adblockers and call them blackmailers or pirates just because people don't want to put up with garbage on the internet. He even goes so far as to blame users for not understanding that what game journalists do comes at a cost. I think he will be sad to learn that gamers will get along just fine without sites like IGN. Honestly, a lot of us have been for a very long time. I'm sure there are advertising solutions out there that benefit both creators and consumers, but vilifying adblock is not going to get you what you want.