Why are you so cute?

Adverts dont really bother me, i dont use Ad-block but i keep the ads up there. Its not like ive ever been like ‘I TRIED TO GET RIPPED IN 4 WEEKS AND IT DIDN’T WORK IM BLOCKING ADS FOREVER.”

The 3 dollars a month thing would be fine with me, I just dont think it would catch on that well.

Also this Sunday Im working on a Visual Basic project and studying for a Spanish test -.-

@Aaron “Wheaty”: Ugh excuse my abuse of the English language there.

@Aaron “Wheaty”: While getting ripped in 4 weeks is a total scam, I did find a totally easy way to whiten my teeth. It’s what the dentists don’t want you to know!

On topic, I feel like you’re concerned enough about not selling out that you would prevent yourself from going down that road, and even if you did I think this community is made up of the type of people who would point it out to you. Also, I’d like to reaffirm that the community podcast sounds awesome.

Finally, today I’m just getting over the sinus infection I had all last week, and I’ll likely be celebrating by doing absolutely nothing productive today.

I’ve spent most of the day falling in love with the GBA SP again after picking up one yesterday for a tenner. I also analysed a Channel 4 news report on the US-Taiwan weapons deal. As you can see, my Sunday is a paragon of excitement and wonder.

In all honesty I enjoy the occasional “top 10″ article. It’s a stylistic form that’s pleasant to read – as long as the content doesn’t conflict with your principles there’s nothing wrong with pleasing the audience.

Apologies for the ensuing wall of text, the topics just resonate with me and I don’t see a forum post to put this in.

I won’t mince words. Destructiod has really started to head down hill in terms of how obnoxious their ads are. In page full screen pop ins for dumb movies, and EVONY ads for god’s sake. Not to mention the constant ads before and after site videos. Next stop, IGN; ads in the content, before the content, and after the content. It’s too bad because I still like many of their Features.

As for Sunday, I finished my first play through of Mass Effect 2. Mordin died and I’m not happy about it. I’d be playing Star Trek Online now but the servers are down.

On the business model, that’s a tough one. The Internet doesn’t allow much room for exclusive content because its so easily retransmitted from person to person so you’d probably be looking at something like tangible goods and ad free experiences. How about an exclusive video podcast, called Negative Theater? Staff play through portions of either classic retro games or popular contemporary games and make snide and sarcastic remarks about how this is shit, both serious and joking. Not quite Angry Video Game Nerd, with a dash of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as these should be games people actually enjoyed, and it will have the distinction of sounding inherently more cultured to Americans as it the principle participants will have English accents. Cost of iTunes bandwidth per user would drive what the subscription would be.

If that sounds like shit or too much of an investment in video capture hardware and sound mixing, I’ll admit I’d pay a few dollars a month to hear the Pod Castle again..

I GOT RIPPED IN 4 WEEKS!

As I said before, if you wanted to start a subscription service you had better make it a one stop shop. I frequent many websites and can easily replace most of them, and I would assume most people are the same.

On my Sunday I bought a Godzilla VHS tape, and then played lots and lots of Fallout 3. The end of the game still isn’t in sight though.

Sunday I did just about fuck all minus buying, and playing a marathon session of, Tropico 3. Steam really is the gift that keeps on persuading me to impulse buy x.x

Today, though, we signed agreements to move into a new flat. I foresee some frugal living in the coming months.

Not selling out-ness :D

Sunday(yesterday) I woke up early to watch Federer knock about Murray then went to my chums to watch the Royal Rumble – Oh yes!

There needs to be a balance between making a decent wage to live on and not selling out.

Why do people sell out? They start to want houses, cars, and education funds for their kids.

Ignore selling out.

Selling out is reducing yourself, reducing moral value in order to get money.

to have a community driven site, hosted, and paid for in full by the community can only happen when a large community comes together, or, if you provide content/a product people are willing to spend quite a bit of money on (for smaller communities (and this is very rare to keep up!)).

By negative gamer being your job, you have a conflict of interest as breaking even isn’t an option.

“Ads of any kind degrade user experience, while products/services enrich the experience.”

Everyone wants to be ad free, everyone wants to get a paycheck and all be happy, but the fact stands that you are selling a product already, the content on the page isn’t bait, it’s a product people consume, and need more of with their daily coffee, and they pay for it through ads, This site is your product, the readers are -buying- it from you.

I consider selling out when you overcharge the people for what they take in (IE. unwarranted pop-ups/full page ads/bribed review scores (to the extreme)), not when you charge people what the “fair price is”

Haven’t been around very much recently so going through older posts and seeing what I missed. I agree with many of the points Pandara makes.

If you want to do something subscription based to help out you’d have to add value, something like daily newsletters with information on articles that are confirmed to be going live so subscribers get “insider info” on upcoming articles, or something similar.

In regards to advertising, you have to find a balance. Honestly in my opinion you could easily put another banner where the body ends and the footer begins without it being intrusive or detrimental.

I think if you advertise products relevant to the websites content then it would be even less of a problem because it feels like added value. For example I see one of those “as seen on…” muscle training ads, if they have a high payout and it’s helping sustain the site great. But I personally believe you could place more ad spots on the site if it was relevant content.

Check out this site:
http://www.advertiseyourgame.com/index.php?view=publish

They only advertise gaming related content, using AYG to place another advertising location on the site might be a route you guys can take. From sites I know that use AYG I find it adds value to the experience and I often find myself clicking the ads when I see a game I’ve never heard about and want to try and whatnot.