Should Jagex allow us to hide advertisements?

[cybergla]

The most annoying thing on F2P are Ads. Its literally an AD AD world. They make me lag so much! (I have a horrible computer) Jagex should allow us to hide these Ads. Yes they do pay for the F2P servers, but then again-

 

What's the point of an Ad?

 

To present some information about the product so that the viewer might get attracted to it and consider buying it. An average person would normally take... say, 15 seconds to read the Ad, understand it and decide weather to buy it or not. After that the Ad is completely useless and rather annoying. Yes Mr Seller, I understand what your trying to sell me, but face it, I don't want to buy the product and no amount of flashy text is going to change my decision :roll: It's like being stuck out of your house while being followed by a persistent door to door salesman :wall:

 

 

 

Of course some people might exploit this feature buy continually hiding Ads and reducing the revenue for Jagex. So just put a limit, you won't be able to hide the Ads before, let's be generous, 2-3 mins? You are still forced to see the Ad, serving its purpose and keeping its value while reducing the lag created buy the Ad :thumbsup:

 

 

 

So what do you think? Should Jagex allow us to hide Ads?

[funnisam]

lol no. jagex have a rule to stop people hiding the ads if you didnt know. my brother got muted for saying the anti virus software he uses to block adverts.

 

 

 

if you dont want ads, get members. simple as.

[Enzock]

I doubt they can detect if you block them or not... so I don't think it matters.

[Omali]

Jagex could care less whether or not you want to buy the product. They're paid for the ads, and the ads keep f2p running. Don't want to view the ads? Fine, you can fund Runescape out of pocket (members)

[cybergla]

lol no. jagex have a rule to stop people hiding the ads if you didnt know. my brother got muted for saying the anti virus software he uses to block adverts.

 

 

 

if you dont want ads, get members. simple as.

 

 

 

I am perfectly aware of it. But do you know why? It's because if people stopped seeing Ads no company would want to advertise on Runescape thus reducing the amount of revenue collected from the Ads

 

 

 

However if Jagex themselves gave an option of hiding the Ad after 2-3 minutes then, like I said before, it would serve the purpose of the Ad and reduce the lag created by it.

 

 

 

Eg. Suppose you want to play Runescape and an Ad form an X company appears on top. Jagex has given the 'Hide Ad' option. But you can only use it after 2 mins. You are still forced to see the Ad, meaning that it is still an Ad and companies will still pay for it.

[funnisam]

if the ad isnt in full view for as long as they would have been paying for, then the companies will pay less, reducing the amount of money they get, meaning f2p will slowly die.

[Grogthurk]

No.

 

 

 

Why?

 

 

 

$$$$$$

[jimmyjames227]

That would mean jagex would be losing about 10k per year.

[Balazeal]

I don't see why ads are such a big deal.

 

They make me lag so much! (I have a horrible computer) Jagex should allow us to hide these Ads. Yes they do pay for the F2P servers, but then again-

 

What's the point of an Ad?

 

To present some information about the product so that the viewer might get attracted to it and consider buying it. An average person would normally take... say, 15 seconds to read the Ad, understand it and decide weather to buy it or not. After that the Ad is completely useless and rather annoying. Yes Mr Seller, I understand what your trying to sell me, but face it, I don't want to buy the product and no amount of flashy text is going to change my decision :roll: It's like being stuck out of your house while being followed by a persistent door to door salesman

 

 

 

Actually Cybergla, if an ad is making you lag, right click the ad and reduce quality to 'low'. If the ad is causing your pc to have severe lag, then Jagex has said in the rules, that you may click the question marks near the ad then report the ad. As for blocking the ad after three minutes, that wouldn't work either. If you hadn't noticed that after a period of times, the ads actually change. So I disagree with you, I don't find it necessary to be able to hide the ads.

[BlueLancer]

That would mean jagex would be losing about 10k per year.

 

 

 

Given the amount of traffic RS.com gets, try more like 10k per week (& more)...

 

 

 

Banner ads not just pay $$ whenever somebody views them, but Jagex also gets about $0.15-$0.40 commission every time someone clicks on them. Essentially f2p is not just a demo, every user makes some $ for Jagex without realizing it.

 

 

 

Let's say a total of 900,000 unique people play F2P weekly (might be much more)... Out of those people, all view the banner ad, 3% click it. At $0.005 per view, Jagex gets $4500 per week from banner views, and even at the minimum click-payout ratio, $27,000 per week from clickthroughs (over $1M per year)

 

 

 

It's a very significant source of income, sure, people will always circumvent the ads somehow, but why would they allow/encourage it given it makes them so much cash?

[obfuscator]

There is no reason we should be able to hide advertisements. Jagex is already being enormously generous by allowing players to play the game free of charge for as long as they like, I see nothing wrong with them attempting to make a little income from it.

[Shazarabbit]

lol no. jagex have a rule to stop people hiding the ads if you didnt know. my brother got muted for saying the anti virus software he uses to block adverts.

 

 

 

if you dont want ads, get members. simple as.

 

 

 

That is true but when a P2Per goes to a F2P world for anything they have the advertisements as well.

 

 

 

I've never had any problems with the advertisements so i don't really care. They don't make me lag or anything.

[CampbellMC]

JaGEx released an article a while back that stated that the ads on F2P worlds pay for all the server costs for F2P, and also there is money left over for developing updates for F2P players. Because of this, all money paid by members goes directly into P2P server costs and the JaGEx Dev Team that is assigned to do all P2P content.

[Mylez]

I don't think they should be hidden at all.

 

 

 

If you don't like the ad's, become a member. The whole point of the F2P, P2P system is that P2P actually get what they pay for :)

[warren211]

lol no. jagex have a rule to stop people hiding the ads if you didnt know. my brother got muted for saying the anti virus software he uses to block adverts.

 

 

 

if you dont want ads, get members. simple as.

 

1. The reason this thread exists is to debate on the rule

 

2. Your brother should have known that talking about any kind of software that breaks the rules is, redundantly, breaking the rules.

 

 

 

As for the thread, the rules are the rules. The only thing paying for f2p servers are the ads. If the ads could be blocked, less advertisers would bother and those who did would pay less. Free players have ads as their form of payment where the money doesn't come directly from their pockets. It's a great system if you ask me.

[highlanders]

They already indirectly allow us to do it by not punishing those who do hide them. That rule is only there to make the advertizing companies happy, they don't actually enforce it, and since they don't enforce it its the same thing as if it didn't exist.

[funion987]

Is it legal to point out information regarding this topic without "encouraging others to break the rules"?

[Skull]

Firefox was actually blocking them until I stopped it, because I felt bad. Same with Tip.it, except pretty much their only source of revenue is from ads, and if me seeing a lot of ads is what it takes to keep tip.it up then it's worth it.

[BlueLancer]

Is it legal to point out information regarding this topic without "encouraging others to break the rules"?

 

 

 

Technically no, despite how easy it is or even if 'everyone does it', because tip.it must abide by the rules Jagex has set. Nothing can stop you from discussing it in private messages/msn though, just not encouraged.

[depresins]

JaGEx released an article a while back that stated that the ads on F2P worlds pay for all the server costs for F2P, and also there is money left over for developing updates for F2P players. Because of this, all money paid by members goes directly into P2P server costs and the JaGEx Dev Team that is assigned to do all P2P content.

 

 

 

Would you mind linking to that, or confirming the date? Because I really, really doubt ad revenue covers all the expenses for F2P players. I find it impossible to believe that it does.

[Eddo89]

I remember that they said it a while ago as well. For what reasons why you doubt it? For advertising is like the biggest thing in the economy.

 

 

 

Do not underestimate the power of advertising. You go to your average sports team or magazine. You pay for the ticket, you pay for the magazine, but you aren't really making their revenues. Is the adverts that sponsors a team or have full page ads thats making the money. How much of the revenue percent varies depending on the size and stuff. Like for Jagex, they rely next to none for members since there are sizable membership uptake.

 

 

 

A local newspaper can survive and pay for like 30 jobs full time just on the basis it delivers a newspaper every week with adverts to like 2000 people, and lets not forget the cost of actually making it.

 

 

 

Saying Jagex can pay F2P by just adverts is more than reasonable, they USED TO DO IT BEFORE THERE WAS MEMBERS. If they wanted to grow the game, they need more funds. So they charge for it.

[XS3tHzX]

No you shouldn't be able to hide them. It's a source of income for Jagex... for F2P, seeing the advert gives Jagex money (companies pay to have adverts on Jagex sites). For P2P, you pay directly from your pocket.

[depresins]

Because F2P expenses are massive. How many of you can honestly say you click on the ads regularly? In over 6 years, I can tell you I have never once, and none of my friends have either.

 

 

 

Think of the server rental costs, bandwith for the servers, the site & the forums, the personnel expenses, previous developments and current projects. Then also consider, the ads are NOT pure profit. They still have to pay tax on that income.

 

 

 

Lets take BlueLancers figures as fact, for the purposes of this discussion. Lets say Jagex recieves $31500 per week, but we'll just round up to $1.6 million, shall we? Then we will assume that approx. 25% of Jagex labour is allocated towards F2P. So, assuming jagex still employs roughly 400 people, with an average salary package worth $25,000, comes out to $2.5 million. So, in staffing costs alone, forgetting tax, bank fees, sundries, etc, the ad revenue already doesn't measure up. Then we stil have other things I listed in the above paragraphs, and who knows what else? Unless Jagex releases all their information (lol), all we can do is speculate.

 

 

 

I'm honestly interested in hammering this out, and having a reasonable discussion/debate with anybody about this. If you'd prefer to do it via PM, be my guest. Just don't be childish, and say somebody else is wrong without putting any thought or reasoning behind it.

[Owned_Nex]

Would you rather have no f2p or f2p and "watch" ads?

[DAE2008]

With my screen resolution and tool bars, I have to scroll down the page in f2p - and can't see the ads.