advertising: a jagex double standard

shade_bandyt · March 3, 2006

as far as i know, other than through miniclip, jagex has no real marketing program to promote runescape. i am sure that the majority of players in the last 2 years have heard about it through word of mouth, either directly from friends who play, or indirectly through online communities like this one, that talks about the game extensively and exclusively.

do a search for runescape on google. you get over 2.8 million search results. jagex's homepage is the first result, and miniclip is 3rd. runescape.net (never heard of it, looks suspect) is 10th. for the next 200,000 pages that follow, EVERY other search result is either a fan site, blog or unofficial online community.

jagex makes its money because players, fans and webmasters advertise the game for them FOR FREE! i havent asked the tip.it admin, nor salemoneus, nor the ranehq crew, or anybody else if jagex pays them for hosting a community in their name, or even gives them free membership, but im positive the answer is no. yet jagex gets the majority of its business, particularly for the last 2-3 years, because people hear about the game for the first time by people telling them about it

now jagex has recently started banning people for "advertising" in the in game chat. if you say "google" ot "tipit" or "runehq" or refer to any other site than runescape, you risk being banned for advertising

not only is this a classic example of biting the hand that feeds you, what makes the rule even more ridiculous and unjust is that its NOT advertising. if i tell someone check google for the solution to the ernest quest, im not advertising because im not profiting from that person clicking on google or the sites that come up in the results. promoting tipit or sal's site or runehq is actually promoting runescape, because thats the sole purpose of those sites

ever since the mass ban of autoers, which most of the players applauded jagex for, there has been a rage of unjust bans, almost as if jagex is under new management and hired a drill seargent to run customer relations. now players are more paranoid than ever, and its difficult to play the game without worrying about getting banned for calling a beggar "noob" or something equally trivial

this new "advertising" rule, rule 11, is totally uncalled for and needs to be removed, and any accounts banned for breaking this rule needs to be unbanned. and theres a way this can be done

just imagine, all these runescape support and community sites, which are actually more useful that runescape's own forum, and which reach a far wider audience, decide they are no longer going to advertise and support runescape. many players depend on these sites to help them play the game better. without sites like these, LOTS of people would be stuck on quests and couldnt achieve their goals and quit the game. could you imagine what would happen if there was no external source for advice on how to play the game? new players would give up nearly immediately. many quests would be impossible to finish. how would you know you get 2 nats per ess at level 91 unless you found out from other players?

i think we need to seriously approach jagex concerning this and get them to take that stupid rule away and stop banning the people that actually get them more players and more revenue

Albosky · March 3, 2006

Just for future reference , runescape.net is also owned by jagex and points you directly to runescape.com :)

Bubsa · March 3, 2006

As does runescape.co.uk, I think.

neogeo0823 · March 3, 2006

i agree with what you say, but i also point out that you fail to see the other side of jagex's arguement.

the reason they ban for advertising is because they are worried that people will spam-post things like "come check out this site for all your hints and tips" or "look here for runescape cheats" or something even worse(adult sites, unrelated forums, etc.). the whole place would become one big mess of aimbot style spam posters. dont try to deny it, you know it would happen.

also, jagex doesnt want people to be able to say "if you let us tell people to google something, why cant we tell them to go to my personal site for help?", when jagex has no clue whether or not the site has viruses or keyloggers and they cant be bothered to check out every site. so, in order to be fair, they ban all website advertising instead of letting some words go through.

its just the kind of rut they are stuck in...:?

Lord_Muijs · March 3, 2006

see what i mean? that's why the advertising rule is there.

though it is a little over the top banning people saying "google" or something among those lines though....

neogeo0823 · March 3, 2006

i hope thats not an actual website... youll get into lots of trouble if it is... i think...

ixfd64 · March 3, 2006

Another strange thing.

Sbot3.com redirects to RuneScape via HTTP 302. Doesn't "sbot3" sound like the name of some autoing program?

shade_bandyt · March 3, 2006

of course people who spam or advertise cheats and scam sites should be banned. but jagex has banned players for referring other players to tipit, runehq and google.

im not talking about advertising for personal gain, like advertising your personal site or something, but how could jagex ban people for promoting these runescape fan sites, the very fan sites that promote runescape itself?

Lode · March 3, 2006

Yes, thats what the rule is for. BUT, Jagex has really, seriously, banned people for saying google or tipit.

Even one of my own characters got a "black mark", because I said someone to look it up in a quest guide at tipit. That really is over the border imo, Jagex's customer support can give me black marks for this, but they have so far ignored two of my posts to them about this.

Jagex customer support could be improved. I mean, they can give people black marks for saying "tipit", but whenever I report one of those guys who spam a scam site, I never see any result of my reports.

Why are they giving reports about "tipit" a priority over reports concerning real scamsites?

I really have to say, some of the player moderators are incompetent for actually reporting someone for saying "tipit". That's the same as if police officers would arrest people for accidently walking against a garbage can.

Lord_Muijs · March 3, 2006

i know. thats why i checked it. its NOT a real website yet.

Bubsa · March 3, 2006

Link doesn't work.

Giordano · March 3, 2006

I agree with the rule, but banning people for saying Tip.It, google, Runehq, OMG

hawkmeathead · March 4, 2006

if you want to talk about biting the hand that feeds you, look wat jagex did to rsc and all the players that put them where they are today.

forgotten about.

Karvinen · March 4, 2006

Of course it doesn't work, "/" is not allowed character in that place, I think.

Lode · March 4, 2006

I have an idea:

all big fansites should decide together to go on a strike. All content that has to do with Runescape, is disabled from all big fansites, and players can't discuss the game anymore on their forums.

If they keep doing this for a few months, I'm sure the amount of Jagex members will drop. I wouldn't have been a member in the past myself if I wouldn't have used tip.it.

meol · March 4, 2006

About "bitting the hand that feeds you", I found that what you said is quite true. It seems that except for the infamous "Miniclippers", noone knew this game existed except by other fansites or blogs.

I just checked, and it does redirects you to Rrunescape.com. It sounds quite suspicious for me.

Bubsa · March 4, 2006

Jesus wept...did you think I was serious?

gamerfreak · March 5, 2006

It works for me when I open it in a new tab.

March 5, 2006

Jagex supposedly looks at every report query and if someone is going to get banned it is always first looked at by a Jagex Mod. So in future they should allow people to advertise about tip.it or runehq or even google if neccersary without being banned by a bunch of "money hungry, trigger bann happy company."

Though anyone caught posting suspicious hacking/scamming/duping/autoing websites on rs should have their account's and ip's banned. Its quite simple for Jagex to do this but obviously they have more important things on their mind...How to get Wealthier!

agamemnus · March 5, 2006

If you haven't realized yet, it's all happening because Jagex is focusing on a particular demographic, and shutting out everyone else. Even if Jagex gets .5% of all the 7 year olds in the developed world each year to pay them $5 a month, they are still rich.

mmomeet · March 6, 2006

Fansites don't get paid you tard...

shade_bandyt · March 6, 2006

failed flame attempt. nobody said fansites get paid. try reading

it seems as though jagex does NOT look at every case on an individual basis before they decide to ban someone. most of the blackmark penalties and even bannings seem to be completely automated, with automated responses. they hardly ever ask the person involved to offer an explanation. jagex might recieve an abuse complaint or report, investigate it from their point of view sometimes, and ban the account in question without allowing the person to defend themselvs if they were falsely acused.

of course you can appeal, but thats after the fact that the judgement was already executed. sometimes the ban is unjust, and even after an appeal the ban isnt lifted

in the case of people getting banned by jagex for referring others to tipit, runehq, sal's site, google, etc, it is a gross double standard by jagex. in the last few years the majority of their new subscriptions were because fansites and search sites exist. this is a community based game. even right here on this site, a lot of people admit they would have quit runescape of boredom and frustration if tipit board wasnt here.

runescape depends on community-based boards and fansites as much as the fansites dpend on runescape. and the boards and fansites do it for free. jagex needs to lay off the anal retention and recognize where their bread is coming from

captianant · March 6, 2006

Man, i hear you! I reported for saying "HYT"! Normally, this wouldnt be too agravating, but ive been trying to become a P-mod from good behavior and well, that doesnt look too good anymore lol

bedman · March 6, 2006

EXACTLY what I wanted to say.

Lately its hard to respond on topics since everything I wanted to say is already said by someone else :D

Adam007 · March 6, 2006

You reported someone for saying HYT? Or someone reported you for that? :s

To the topic creator though, I don't get your comparison. From what I can tell, your argument is that since hundreds of sites from google like tip it advertise for runescape, runescape shouldn't ban users for saying it. The flaw in that argument is that if someone is searching for runescape, they already know the game exists. Miniclip is an exception - that site isn't made for runescape, and it solely advertises it basically. But it's not like someone will go to tip it and hear about runescape from it. Unless I misunderstood your point, it doesn't seem to hold any ground to me. Jagex doesn't gain members from sites like tip it existing. It's the other way around. Runescape advertises for fansites.

advertising: a jagex double standard

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