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They can gently caress right off with their auto playing video ads. It's almost as if there are dozens of other websites that also repost the exact same news they do, I can live without their "exclusives".
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Oct 11, 2018 03:06
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I'll stop using adblock when the ad companies come up with a 100% effective method of blocking the drive-by malware bullshit installers (this will never happen)
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Oct 11, 2018 03:10
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Why don’t more gaming sites go the giant bomb route? Free but if you subscribe you get hours of extra content a week.
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Oct 11, 2018 03:38
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Huh, when I made the op, I didn't actually think anyone would even post, and suddenly there's three pages! I actually visit RPS on daily basis, although only for a minute or two at most. The biggest draw is that they still (mostly) focus on PC, and since I'm a console generation behind, up-to-date news isn't relevant to me. That being said, the spark RPS had faded a few years ago, and I visit these days because it's just part of my routine. I actually made the post about RPS because I feel like this has happened with other sites: writers leave, content creators leave, indie sites get bought out, and they slowly wither. Why does this happen? This adBlock thing is just a sign of the bigger problem that RPS is probably losing money, and regardless of moral or practical concerns this action is prompting more traffic to leave the site. I guess I feel enforcing ad-viewing doesn't matter if there aren't any people to actually view ads.
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Oct 11, 2018 04:35
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Yeah, I keep visiting RPS mostly out of sheer inertia and because sometimes they'll have slightly different news stories than other places, but I hardly ever read their articles anymore.
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Oct 11, 2018 04:45
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imho RPS has been on a slow and steady decline ever since Kieron Gillen left and then when they started raising banners, it really started coming off in the wrong tone for me at least, or like another goon said beforehand, sounding really self-aggrandizing. Wow, you are against misogyny, mr educated journalist from the developed world, that is actually really impressive I can't recall recent great pieces they have made, and there is the particularly downright anti-ethical interview that John (I think) did with Peter Molyneux as if he was a PM involved in a corruption scandal and he "had to ask the hard questions". That was just pure bullshit.
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Oct 11, 2018 05:19
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Yeah, Kieron and Jim left for greener pastures and since then the site's pretty much lost its authorial voice. Alec seems like a sadsap nowadays and John is John, and the rotating slew of writers have all been largely forgettable or annoying. I did enjoy their "Ridealong" series but there hasn't been a new one in almost a year.
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Oct 11, 2018 05:33
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DrManiac posted:Why don’t more gaming sites go the giant bomb route? Free but if you subscribe you get hours of extra content a week. Because Giant Bomb is a site that was built off the personalities of the people who work there. People already liked these guys from before the site launched, and they were one of the first sites to introduce their own subscription system (before Patreon). Any other site that does this now needs to have these people with good personalities and a pre-existing fanbase of people that want to watch them.
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Oct 11, 2018 05:50
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Mandoric posted:At this point, several sites into "trust us we're cool" places accidentally dropping zero-days and several dozen into them dropping phone redirects, it just isn't worth the risk of basically anything but SA banners. I'll go all the way up to and including manually unblocking rotating PNGs or text divs, but running unvetted (and it's all unvetted, even Google) code from a third-party provider with no responsibility but to get the highest bid per view is absolute lunacy on the modern internet; your poo poo may be worth my eyeballs but it isn't worth a surprise Cryptolocker. Yeah, it's this, not cookies or whatever. Even good sites don't examine every ad and have a chance to serve you actual malware. It's a safety issue.
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Oct 11, 2018 05:56
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If malware ads weren't a thing I'd have never bothered to install adblocking extensions. Even if this changes in the future I'll still run them because I feel websites have lost the privilege of running ads on my computer. No other form of advertising intentionally attacks the viewer like this.
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Oct 11, 2018 06:47
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Are badly coded Flash banners with sounds and memory leaks still a thing?
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Oct 11, 2018 06:58
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SelenicMartian posted:Are badly coded Flash banners with sounds and memory leaks still a thing? you've just a free iPod! Click here!
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Oct 11, 2018 07:41
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The tug-of-war over content profitability on the internet is an old fight and it seems to be reaching an inflection point. IMO moralizing poisons this issue. This isn't a fight over whether or not certain people deserve to be paid for their work; internet advertising has been toxic as hell for about as long as it's existed to the point where nobody wants to deal with that poo poo anymore, even just innocuous static frames in the margins. It's a dying model largely due to the fact that it incentivizes the kind of lazy, scummy clickbaiting that powers garbage content mills like Buzzfeed, on top of advertisers commonly acting in bad faith whenever it suits them. It's been the #1 enemy of user experience for as long as many of us have been on the internet, why wouldn't it be treated with disdain? Furthermore, being forced to either deal with advertising or pay a ransom to get rid of it is pretty much a Sophie's choice unless you feel fairly passionate about that site's content which, of course, isn't true of most users on most sites. IMO a far superior model, when there's enough interest for it to be sustainable, is the one where people who care buy in enough to subsidize the content for everyone else. Two good examples of this are NPR and Path of Exile. Both of those things draw a very specific audience and enough people care to throw money into the pot to keep them alive so they can be enjoyed by all. But the key to that is value in its identity and spirit. RPS has traditionally had that initially by being a quirky blog, and later by being an outlier when pretty much all the other game journo trashpiles were bought and sold by the industry and degenerating into soulless content mines. However, RPS is on that track now themselves I feel as they've recently (this year) been making big steps towards being generic. So, at this point, I seriously doubt RPS could be saved by such a model, but also their contentious and condescending attitude about the advertising issue is going to keep driving more users away which will end up driving them further in the direction of mass appeal most likely, especially now that they're owned by a loving content network. tl;dr RPS is swirling the drain and there's not likely much of anything that can be done to stop it. Also, Kieron Gillen is a dipshit and I'm glad he's gone.
Salacious Spy fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 07:45
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Jim Long-un posted:The tug-of-war over content profitability on the internet is an old fight and it seems to be reaching an inflection point. IMO moralizing poisons this issue. This isn't a fight over whether or not certain people deserve to be paid for their work; internet advertising has been toxic as hell for about as long as it's existed to the point where nobody wants to deal with that poo poo anymore, even just innocuous static frames in the margins. It's a dying model largely due to the fact that it incentivizes the kind of lazy, scummy clickbaiting that powers garbage content mills like Buzzfeed, on top of advertisers commonly acting in bad faith whenever it suits them. It's been the #1 enemy of user experience for as long as many of us have been on the internet, why wouldn't it be treated with disdain? Furthermore, being forced to either deal with advertising or pay a ransom to get rid of it is pretty much a Sophie's choice unless you feel fairly passionate about that site's content which, of course, isn't true of most users on most sites. IMO a far superior model, when there's enough interest for it to be sustainable, is the one where people who care buy in enough to subsidize the content for everyone else. Two good examples of this are NPR and Path of Exile. Both of those things draw a very specific audience and enough people care to throw money into the pot to keep them alive so they can be enjoyed by all. But the key to that is value in its identity and spirit. RPS has traditionally had that initially by being a quirky blog, and later by being an outlier when pretty much all the other game journo trashpiles were bought and sold by the industry and degenerating into soulless content mines. However, RPS is on that track now themselves I feel as they've recently (this year) been making big steps towards being generic. So, at this point, I seriously doubt RPS could be saved by such a model, but also their contentious and condescending attitude about the advertising issue is going to keep driving more users away which will end up driving them further in the direction of mass appeal most likely, especially now that they're owned by a loving content network. tl;dr RPS is swirling the drain and there's not likely much of anything that can be done to stop it. Also, Kieron Gillen is a dipshit and I'm glad he's gone. you should write for a game website; RPS might be hiring! Seriously though, good effortpost, very insightful.
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Oct 11, 2018 08:27
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The first link in any RPS article is usually the name of the product, generally a game or a developer. If your first impulse is to click that link, and you expect to be taken to that product or developer's page, well: you're taken to a metadata category page within RPS, along with a list of headlines, and a whole new set of ads. Groan and hit the back button, and you've just generated a third set of ad impressions for a single article, or a fourth if you loaded the main page first. It's a minor sin, assuming it's as intentional as I say it is. If it is, it's a cheap trick to drive "engagement" (keeping the reader within your domain as long as you can) and run up impressions at the expense of user experience. The other possibility is that I'm an idiot and everyone else expects this from most web sites these days. But to me it just looks like integrating a little piece of ad-like trickery (and ads are basically designed to maneuver you into behavior that you don't intend to do) directly into the site design. e: haven't seen any ad blocking warning yet. What's it look like? A big lightbox?
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Oct 11, 2018 09:01
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I think another issue for RPS in particular is the state of PC gaming today. It has come a long way since the heyday when RPS became popular. Back then, PC gaming was treated like a red-headed stepchild by other sites. That is no longer the case so RPS is not as necessary.
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Oct 11, 2018 09:08
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grrarg posted:I think another issue for RPS in particular is the state of PC gaming today. It has come a long way since the heyday when RPS became popular. Back then, PC gaming was treated like a red-headed stepchild by other sites. That is no longer the case so RPS is not as necessary. Most sites just post the same shallow garbage about the same high-exposure titles though. Show me another site that periodically posts about new Doom WADs.
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Oct 11, 2018 09:17
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doctorfrog posted:The first link in any RPS article is usually the name of the product, generally a game or a developer. If your first impulse is to click that link, and you expect to be taken to that product or developer's page, well: you're taken to a metadata category page within RPS, along with a list of headlines, and a whole new set of ads. Groan and hit the back button, and you've just generated a third set of ad impressions for a single article, or a fourth if you loaded the main page first. No that's a deliberate ploy that an SEO consultant will have recommended. It's quite common for websites to do that for exactly the reasons you've just said. It's a bit of a dick move, but it's not inherent to RPS only.
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Oct 11, 2018 09:20
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RPS turned to poo poo the moment they decided to write half their articles using the following formula:quote:Funny fake anecdote or non sequitur poo poo > tiny bit of actually useful information > Wilful ignorance for the sake of comedy > pointing to some other article on site that talks about the topic.
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Oct 11, 2018 09:39
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I’m glad Dominic is contributing to RPS now as I always enjoyed his write ups in the numerous Steam threads here over the years. At this stage though, having read the site for the last decade, the articles don’t grab me as much anymore. Maybe I’m older and my tastes and priorities have shifted. It’s part of the morning and evening routine to read the site though. Are there any other sites that people recommend for PC gaming?
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Oct 11, 2018 11:27
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Whatever happens to RPS I hope Flare Path keeps marching on. Easily the most genuine thing still regularly on the site.
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Oct 11, 2018 12:53
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Jim Long-un posted:Most sites just post the same shallow garbage about the same high-exposure titles though. Show me another site that periodically posts about new Doom WADs. They cover a lot of smaller stuff, but it's still seems plenty shallow and uninformed, seemingly just to show up on every single game in your Steam library and hopefully get a few clicks from that.
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Oct 11, 2018 13:06
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I'm not turning adblock off on any site that does the fullpage background ads. I'm gonna click those on accident every single time.
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Oct 11, 2018 13:11
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I used to really enjoy the site around 2008-2011-ish, but a lot of the original talent has since left. The site has since then been trying to mimic the writing style of the originals, without really reinventing itself at any point. Combine that with the growing presence of youtube game coverage, and I haven't had much reason to use their site for a while now.
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Oct 11, 2018 13:27
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I wouldn't have a problem with ads if there were just an image. A banner. But they never are like that. They are an entire javascript library executing in your computer, slowing things down, feeding several dozens of providers with 50 cookies. You may think that at this point computers and Internet connection are fast enough for web browsing, by brute forcing everything in a blink, but even now in 2018 pages are noticeably slower if you don't block anything.
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Oct 11, 2018 13:56
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RPS has been steadily sliding down the toilet for a long time now. I open their page daily out of habit but god knows why because there's gently caress all worth reading there. They pretty much confessed that their "Here's what games are selling on STEAM this week" articles are just so they'll get mentioned in the news section for that game to get pageviews which is why they keep appearing time and time again when you're looking at them. The people saying they're just aping the writing style of previous, more talented staff are pretty much bang on the money: I originally came to the website because it was basically PC Gamer UK unplugged but now everything feels kind of hollow. Dominic's articles are good and there's a few interesting articles here and there but there's often a lot of fluff that isn't worth more than a skim. E: More than happy to support Giantbomb with my money though. If you want genuine that's the place to go and I agree with one of the earlier posters that if they tried to be less twee on RPS it'd do them a world of wonders. Songbearer fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 14:04
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RPS also redesigned its site recently in such a way that, in addition to being less readable (way too much white-on-white, a more vertically-oriented design), allows them to serve up something like double the ads at any one time. Banners, sidebars, giant wraparounds. You name it, they got it.
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Oct 11, 2018 14:06
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That John "Mr Contrary" Walker is really the only one left of the original group doesn't say much since he's such a shithead at most days anyway. Basically the rest of them knew when to give up and go do something meaningful with their lives.
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Oct 11, 2018 14:11
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I have a soft spot for anybody still trying to make it in online journalism, there's no money to be made in written expression and most people hate to read as a rule. Back in 2015 some insane women-hating dudes said what they really cared about was ethics in game journalism but, based on which review sites are thriving today, I'd say it turns out what people really care about are memes and watching floppy-headed twentysomethings stream PUBG 20 hours a day. What a world, what a world.
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Oct 11, 2018 14:18
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dead comedy forums posted:imho RPS has been on a slow and steady decline ever since Kieron Gillen left and then when they started raising banners, it really started coming off in the wrong tone for me at least, or like another goon said beforehand, sounding really self-aggrandizing. Wow, you are against misogyny, mr educated journalist from the developed world, that is actually really impressive calling Peter Molyneux out on his bullshit is "anti-ethical" now?
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Oct 11, 2018 14:27
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Mordja posted:RPS also redesigned its site recently in such a way that, in addition to being less readable (way too much white-on-white, a more vertically-oriented design), allows them to serve up something like double the ads at any one time. Banners, sidebars, giant wraparounds. You name it, they got it. This happened to all the Gamer Network sites (Eurogamer etc), if you have adblock on Eurogamer just looks like a massive white void with a tiny column of actual content in. It's really noticable how much space is meant to be taken up by full page border ads. I actually got yelled at by one of Eurogamer's owners on Twitter when I mentioned it (without @ing him) to turn adblock off if I didn't want the site to look completely empty.
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Oct 11, 2018 14:29
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i pay actual money for a National Geographic subscription which also has ads in it, how badly am I getting fleeced e-friends
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Oct 11, 2018 14:32
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Gaz-L posted:Quick question to the anti-ad folks: You're also against paywalls... so... how do you expect these sites, and thus their employees, to generate revenue and thus get paid so they can do the thing you want? I'm not anti-ads, I'm anti-ads as they currently exist on the internet. TV / radio / print ads don't have the potential to act as vectors for viruses and spyware, and they typically undergo far more individual scrutiny both by the advertising companies and by the publication / network that eventually runs them. Sites that base their entire business model on advertising while entrusting the distribution of those ads exclusively to third parties without any additional editorial oversight get what they get. It's not my fault the internet collectively decided the best model for advertising was a stupid and dangerous one. Plenty of YouTube creators are going for sponsored content now, and I have no issue with that: there's no possibility of it being unsafe, and the content was quite obviously vetted.
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Oct 11, 2018 14:36
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CharlestonJew posted:calling Peter Molyneux out on his bullshit is "anti-ethical" now? Come on, that is bad faith. Peter Molyneux might be full of poo poo but doing a bait-and-hit like RPS did on him is Daily Mail garbage-tier level journalism. You don't need to corner a game developer like it is a matter of high-stakes investigative reporting and - if it were the case - an aggressive approach would be necessary due to a very specific set of key circumstances that justifies such a behavior. But, let's be honest, games journalism isn't exactly what it comes to mind when we think of the hard matters that face the men and women of letters of our days, lol.
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Oct 11, 2018 16:13
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I've read RPS for years, and I agree with others saying they've enjoyed it less as the original writers left and new people I have trouble remembering replaced them. I do enjoy John Walker a lot, as I often agree with the substance of his complaints even if I don't feel them quite as viscerally as he does. I also appreciate that RPS is relentless about pointing out and discussing social justice issues in the gaming world. The fact that an article on those lines gets 400 comments in a few hours of bitter gamers wondering "why does it all have to be so political??" just proves how necessary these conversations are, in my opinion. But, yeah, I just don't feel as connected to the site as I used to. I ought to check out Giant Bomb or Waypoint and just see what's out there.
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Oct 11, 2018 16:31
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sethsez posted:I'm not anti-ads, I'm anti-ads as they currently exist on the internet. TV / radio / print ads don't have the potential to act as vectors for viruses and spyware, and they typically undergo far more individual scrutiny both by the advertising companies and by the publication / network that eventually runs them. Sites that base their entire business model on advertising while entrusting the distribution of those ads exclusively to third parties without any additional editorial oversight get what they get. It's not my fault the internet collectively decided the best model for advertising was a stupid and dangerous one. I'm anti ads I hate the fuckers.
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