That ad that pops up before joining a game is pretty intrusive. Made worse by a bug in the last 6 months where half the time fails to show so it says "You must now wait 30 seconds to join". I think it is the #1 reason preventing new player retention.
Hear me out I'm not saying remove it.
But I see you have no ads on the actual website, or on the pager...
Even the ads while joining a game could be made less outright annoying if you just showed them if
1) the player has to download resources.
2) If the player does NOT have to download resources, let them join the game immediately but put the ad somewhere else, like the bottom right.
And instead of it being 800x600 (which most of your ads aren't even fitting because they're 16:9) the window could be smaller so as to actually fit the ads being shown AND be less annoying.
Like a 534x300 (16:9 because the ads being shown are almost ALL 16:9) window that appears in the bottom right so as not to interfere with the joining or viewing of the game itself.
There's no need to annoy the player like the current system does. They'll see the ad AND the game, nothing lost for either party.
Game annoys players = Players leave. Most of the ads I see appear to be about 360p (640x360) but that's just an estimate.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. I think there's a far better way out there for BYOND to generate revenue WITHOUT annoying the players, especially new players which we need greatly.
Main point: The ads are far more annoying than they have to be to do their job. Annoying new players is like a cardinal sin when trying to retain them.
Jan 17 2017, 8:14 pm
Best response
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FKI
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Also BYOND Members still get ads (or the waiting time at least).
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FKI wrote:
Also BYOND Members still get ads (or the waiting time at least). Not if you disable them in your preferences. | |
Also keep in mind the 30 second timer has always existed since the ads were introduced, the update simply made the timer visible.
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FKI wrote:
Also BYOND Members still get ads (or the waiting time at least). If that's happening, it's likely a bug. The timer appearing could be an indicator that you're actually having some kind of connection issue with the hub. Ads should be disabled for all Members, as long as you're actually logged in on the pager and DS recognizes that. | |
The ads intrusiveness is hindering my efforts to drive more people to my game via advertising. People click JOIN GAME and instead an ad pops up leading them to believe they have been foolishly led to an illegitimate place.
I do 100$ a month pay per click advertising to drive people to BYOND but the retention is not very high despite being highly targeted and I believe the intrusive ad on clicking JOIN GAME is the reason. If only a better solution could be brainstormed... | |
There is a better solution, it's called the standalone, which is available to non-fangame authors by request. Given a sufficient profit-sharing agreement with Lummox to compensate for the loss of ad revenue.
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Weirdly my 'disable ads' option wasn't on; the wait time isn't a huge issue anymore.
I believe someone suggested something similar before but what about hub credits/tokens that game authors can purchase? Ads would check for these credits/tokens on launch and skip the process if applicable. I do agree with the OP's point in regards to new client retention. Edit: Isn't there a hub credits system not being used for anything right now? Could put that to use. | |
Relevant: http://www.byond.com/ forum/?post=1864833&hl=ads#comment18277669
Lummox said, June 3rd 2015: I am definitely planning to do something along the lines of allowing authors to do something about ads for all of their players. This is very high on my priority list. Let's make something happen. | |