"2001 will be the year that website operators come to their collective senses and start charging customers for service."

Uh, we really don't think this will fly. Most people, when given the option between paying for something or getting it free go for...free! There will always be free sites that are either run as hobbies or as part-time ventures that eke out some ad money, and those will get traffic when others start charging.

What do you think? Would you ever pay for gaming news and reviews on the web? Tell us.

I'd pay for admission to shoot club.

I would be willing to pay a few bucks a month for access to a network of gaming sites, Stratics for instance. Reference material has more value than news and editorial content. Since MMOGs are patched every week and the developers have proven themselves to be horrible encyclopedias for their own games, players NEED a reliable source for updates.

Sorry, but no extra money from me for gaming websites. I think there will be plenty of 'basement' sites that will fill the void. In fact, there are already are, look at GoneGold. I think there will always be guys like Rich LaPorte who have plenty of free time, and a love for the hobby.

"I would be willing to pay a few bucks a month for access to a network of gaming sites, Stratics for instance. Reference material has more value than news and editorial content. Since MMOGs are patched every week and the developers have proven themselves to be horrible encyclopedias for their own games, players NEED a reliable source for updates."

You know, there's probably a market for this. Even Stratics and the other MMORPG sites don't really do a comprehensive strat guide job of covering these games.

"I think there will always be guys like Rich LaPorte who have plenty of free time, and a love for the hobby."

Rich is a bit of an exception, but I agree that there will be plenty of people who will do it for free.

Micropayments would help, though. If you had a safe, fast, and secure way of tossing a quarter at a site to read their content for a week, you might be inclined to do it now and then.

I might pay a very, very small fee for sites like this one, but I wouldn't be very happy about it!!

It would have to be cheap, though. Really cheap.

I wouldn't pay, I'd just get a Magazine or something. Like you said, there will always be free gaming sites.

But I don't know what's the perfect solution, then...

Here's the thing, I get the newspaper every day and in there I get World, Regional and Local news. Human interest stories, Entertainment, Business and Sports news in addition to comics, etc. I pay a subscription of something like $15 every quarter for that. Every day I could pay 50 cents for just one paper if I wanted to. The key is I get the best of each type of reporting in one newspaper.

For a gaming subscription to work, I'd have to get the news of FGNOnline and somewhere like Computer Games Online, the comics of PvP, the great writing of a Quarter to Three and the smart community of forum posters, the reviews and previews of a CGO, and the community and site news of a Blue's/Voodoo Extreme/Evil Avatar. If someone put all that together in one pay for view site, I'd pay for it without question.

Right now, I'd probably pay to read Computer Games Online each day and this site too. I'd throw FGNOnline a bone at least 3 times a week. But the key would be the cost. Either a charge that was spread over a quarter or a daily newspaper-like cost that I could charge easily.

The problem is no one is going to be able to put all of these things together without bringing the egos down a peg on the web. Just look at a site like Gone Gold or Penny Arcade. Can you imagine these sites existing inside of a package like that? Never happen...

The problem I see is that no one has turned the corner yet on content combined with community. Some sites have the content but not the community, others have interesting community but without proper financing can't get the content. Rumor has it that Computer Games Online is due for a web site update this year, maybe that will be the right combination of both?

--Dave

There are enough ads to support the really popular sites. It's just that the majority of sites are smaller, and can't be sustained. Maybe this is inevitable; there are too many people duplicating effort for all to get paid.

On the other hand, some of the specialty sites are really valuable to their small audiences, and some of these can't or won't be maintained to the same extent on a purely volunteer basis. I agree that micropayments would help-- but how far is the infrastructure for that from being available? It would be great if I could set up an account that I periodically add $10 or $20 too, and the sites I read had a button I could press when I read something I thought was valuable that would transfer $.25 or something. This might let the non-mass market but interesting site survive. I could spread the wealth around much more than with a subscription model-- and sites that were in a revenue crunch could do a PBS-style pledge drive (and find out how valuable they really were...)

I still don't understand this concept of "ads don't work on the web." How do they work any differently than TV or magazine ads? I think the problem is with companies trying to measure the effectness of ads by using click-thru numbers.
Just because I didn't click on the an ad doesn't mean I didn't see it, and it didn't register somewhere in my brain. It'd be like measuring the sale of Tide at local grocery stores 10 minutes after a Tide commercial was aired. "Hmmm... there was no increase of detergent sales immiedately after we aired that spot; it must not be working." It's ridiculous.
Advertising on the web should be viewed similar to advertising on specialty cable channels, like Cooking Channel. Inexpensive and highly targeted. If you get a few click-thrus every once in awhile, great, but don't use click-thrus as the sole measurement of effectivness.

"Advertising on the web should be viewed similar to advertising on specialty cable channels, like Cooking Channel. Inexpensive and highly targeted. If you get a few click-thrus every once in awhile, great, but don't use click-thrus as the sole measurement of effectivness."

Yeah, I agree that click-thrus are a bad metric. I think that banner ads have been too expensive and too easy to ignore, though. I know many look away when a TV show switches to a commercial, but they still often hear it. I just think it registers much more than a banner ad does.

I wonder how people would feel about being required to watch a 30 second commercial every time they accessed a site? If a site could display a superstitial ad to 50,000 people, that might be attractive to advertisers, especially if it was highly targetted. Being able to show 30 seconds of gameplay might even get game companies to advertise more on websites.

"The problem is no one is going to be able to put all of these things together without bringing the egos down a peg on the web. Just look at a site like Gone Gold or Penny Arcade. Can you imagine these sites existing inside of a package like that? Never happen..."

Yeah, it would almost have to be like cable TV where for one price you get a bunch of channels/sites. The sites would still probably run ads, but they'd get a little money from the access fees too.

Anyway, I don't see it happening anytime soon. Between Usenet, AOL message boards, fansites, and the official game sites, there are too many places to get content for free.

"There are enough ads to support the really popular sites. It's just that the majority of sites are smaller, and can't be sustained. Maybe this is inevitable; there are too many people duplicating effort for all to get paid."

Are there? Voodoo Extreme has a bunch of people working for it, though many may be unpaid.

Remember, we're moving from a model where sites were guaranteed a rate for 100% of their page views, usually a $3/CPM.

So let's say you have a budget of $200,000 for salaries and benefits and another $40,000 for expenses. This could cover 4 or 5 people and your hosting costs, plus some travel for shows like E3, computer upgrades, etc.

You need to pull in $20,000 each month to cover costs. You'd have to sell out nearly 7 million page views at $3/CPM to meet that. Right now UGO has dropped their CPM to $1, so you'd have to triple your volume of page views to 21 million and still sell 100% of them if you're not working under a guarantee.

And that's just UGO. Most networks won't guarantee a CPM anymore and just want to split ad revenue with sites. The problem is they can't sell out the ad space, or if they do, it's at a ridiculously low CPM, like $0.36 or something. And as the coup de grace, most likely you'll be running a shock the monkey ad. Yuck.

The math is getting pretty ugly for a lot of sites.

"Yeah, it would almost have to be like cable TV where for one price you get a bunch of channels/sites. The sites would still probably run ads, but they'd get a little money from the access fees too."

Gosh, sounds kinda like AOL :-). Maybe the future is in having ISPs require you to link through a portal where you can experience the stuff you want. Then the ISPs can pay the web designers.

If this works, you could have a game-oriented ISP who's portal is all about game reviews, etc. Maybe they'd help develop better networking code so that people's connections would be more favorable to internet gaming.

On the other hand, maybe not.

Why pay?, if you want to see info on games go to usenet.

"Yeah, it would almost have to be like cable TV where for one price you get a bunch of channels/sites. The sites would still probably run ads, but they'd get a little money from the access fees too."

I already pay $40/month for my DSL connection and the nice thing about that (rather than using some free ISP thing or AOL) is that I don't have to look at ads AND I have access to all of the net (well, most of it :).

Granted, I still get the odd pop-up window, etc. but, like cable tv, I can either 'flip the channel' or ignore the ad if I want to. I don't like the idea of having to pay per visit or per month for the privilege of viewing any given game site (though Q23 would be one of the few I'd grudgingly pay to keep reading).

Personally, the only game site I'd likely pay to 'subscribe' to would be Gamerankings.com and that is because I can find ALL the reviews for whatever game I'm playing or want to play in one place. Granted, I still have to visit the respective sites, but it keeps me from having to troll through half the internet.

I do like the 'toss in a quarter every now & then' idea though.

The numbers don't add up as Mark keeps saying. While Bob is right that most advertising should NOT be viewed as "clicks" = "views", the advertisers don't see it that way because of the nature of the web. They see this big world where every one sees "CLICK HERE" on a picture and just does it out of their own stupidity. While we all know that isn't how it is, someone told these people that's how it works so now that it isn't working anymore, they're quitting the game.

What's silly is that a banner ad costs almost nothing to design and very little to display. Why it isn't seen as a good means of getting an eyeball on your product is beyond me. Maybe part of the problem is that many sites try to hide the things in their design so they get ignored?

It seems to me the Internet itself is going through a phase where we're headed toward paying for a lot more than just the cost of an ISP. IRC, USENET, these things will remain largely untouched because corporations could care less about them. The web on the other hand costs a lot more money on a large scale and where money is spent, a return (usually in figures way too large to be reasonable these days) is expected. Who knows what Dubya has up his sleeve for the next four years. Taxes are bound to be levied against all this free Internet traffic sooner or later. There's too much money, information and good will changing hands on the net for the Government to sit back and not take its share for too long...

...and I really hate the idea of that.

--Dave

I don't have the answer to this. But I can give some ideas for how it will probably be figured out.

The idea behind banner ads was duplicate the way newspaper and magazine ads worked. Advertisers would place codes in the ads, so that when people used their coupons, or called the toll-free number, they could tell how much money each ad was generating. With web technology, they didn't need coupons or offer codes; they could see right away where you clicked-through from. It seemed like it would work well, but it doesn't.

People who use coupons and offer codes usually are purposefully looking through publications for exactly that type of ad. "Coupon clippers," and the like. On the web, who is scouring gaming sites looking for great values on used cars of books? Irrelevant product placement doesn't work here. That's example one.

Example two is the subcription content method. Again, it's like a magazine subscription. The only problem is that on the internet, everyone can have a voice. It's as if you were having 50 home improvement magazines dropped free on your doorstep every day. Would you then subscribe to another?

The adult industry is the leader of the pack here, because they have helped create a restricted market for adult materials on the web. As a result, if you want good access to adult material, you gotta give a credit card number. It's just a fact of the world that people will pony up cash for adult material, and will continue to do so, I expect, until there are no more people. Hmm. maybe you guys should do a "booth babe spectacular."
Tom could debut his new "Strip Club" column. Mark could adapt and offer the daily "BrassPoleSpin." Then there could be the sixty-second...uh, nevermind.

Sorry, got carried away. The simple fact here is that in order for people to pay, you have to be offering either a) A hard product, like a book or a car or a bunch of bananas, or b) A vice product. Vice is always controlled, so the audience is more restricted, and more easily captured. Just make it a vice that doesn't economically cripple. Alcoholics, for example, often don't have much money or the dexterity to use the web. Smokers, gamblers, voyeurs, and chocoholics all do.

That's two. There's more, but I'm probably boring everyone.

First, I just wanted to make it clear that we're not contemplating any kind of a subscription scheme here. I just brought that up as an interesting discussion topic.

Second, about the banner ads, there are two problems with them. They're too small and don't convey enough information, and they're in the same spot all the time, which allows readers to tune them out with great efficiency.

The popups are annoying because they make you notice them and because you have to click to get them to go away. Maybe a nice solution is to have them display for 10 seconds and then just automatically disappear? I dunno. Advertisers need to feel like they're getting more bang for their advertising dollars.

Instead of ads that pop up after X time, it would be better to have them pop up after you receive X bytes of information. Everyone sees TV at the same speed. So, commercials at set time intervals affect everyone equally. The internet works off of information, which is accessed at wildly different speeds by different people. Having an interruption (not just a clickable pop-up) at set data-gathering points would give a fair dose of commercialism to each user, and provide a better guarantee to the advertiser that their ad has, in fact, been seen. They could even be customized, so slower users would receive a low-bandwidth version of the ad, for instance.

As a webmaster whose site falls into the category of "part-time ventures that eke out some ad money," I would never pay for my gaming information, and my site will always be free. My website falls even more into a pay category considering the mature nature of the site, but as I would never pay for a site like this, I wouldn't want to force my visitors to pay. So I use advertising which pays the bandwidth/hosting and provides a nice extra income.

As far as banner ads go, they have worked fairly well for me, even without changing them for months at a time. If fixed banners don't work for you, then simply use a script or service that allows the banners to change with each pageview.

And I will never use those terrible popup ads.

http://www.adultgamereviews.com

I think if major gaming sites are hard-pressed for a solution, then why not try to accept donations? It could work, and just might boost the cash flow just enough. It seems to be working for public TV and public radio, both of which I would gladly support if I could afford it.

John, you say you make a nice extra income? I'll presume that you're getting money from click-thru ads on your site. Is that correct?

Thing is, you've got ads for porn, which is the one proven web commodity that people will pay for. It doesn't surprise me if you have a much higher than average click-thru on your ads. We couldn't run ads like that. We'd alienate too many of our readers.

I can't envision being willing to pay for website access, except perhaps Consumer Reports - partly, I'm afraid, because of a reluctance to let my VISA number out to any but the most reputable and stable business firms. We're managing fine with our system at Gone Gold (admitedly, Rich, Andy and myself are unusual with the time we can freely give), feel we have a great community, and have recently been trying to be as comprehensive as possible - with reviews, some new ideas in the works, etc. I visit 25 to 30 sites daily (this one included), and hope we don't see "pay for view" with very many at all. Dave Fisher ([email protected]),

It definatelly works for porno, they are among the few that actually makes money on the net. Alot can be said about the sex-industry but they understood the Net better than most of the so called "experts" put together.

Nielsen has a point though. If the information is of value to someone then it should be sold. I don't think most gaming sites could get away with this but a few might (if they are very niche and specific like Combatsim for instancce).

It's all based on ancient formulas, if there's a demand then people will pay unless they get the same stuff for free (assuming your stuff hasn't substantial value of the free competition) :).

Marcus

For donations to really work, there would probably have to be some kind of hook to entice folks to take the time and energy to mail in money. A friend of mine runs a text-based MUD (and has for about five or six years now). Every year or so he asks the players for donations, and gets enough in a month to upgrade the server and pay for the hosting for the next year. I believe he also has a bit left over, but not a lot. Thing is, if it weren't for the fact that we were talking about players, with lots of time and emotion built into their characters, would they care?

Also, I have to argue with Mark's assertion that porn is the only proven moneymaker on the web. It seems to me that MMRPGs aren't exactly suffering either, and that lots more companies are going to give it a shot in one way or another. Books have also done well (and I don't mean Amazon). So have niche interest sites that don't try and get too big. Porn is the "big reliable," but it isn't unique. The ones that bother me are sites like joecartoon.com, that require you to install spyware that will run in perpetuity on your machines if you want to see his cartoons. THAT, IMO, is the kind of thing that gives web companies a bad name.

Can anyone think of ways to make a site like Q23 unique? A place that would become a mandatory stop while browsing? There probably is a way, but it is eluding me. I'd love to know the answer, tho.

Yes maybe I was generalizing a bit too much. My point however was that the sex industry did it right from square one and started charging right away for their services, as did the MMRPGS:s. The problem other content sites have is that they start out free and then suddenly raises the fee. It's old school economics really, it's easy to lower your price but extremelly hard to raise it :).

Marcus

Marcus, plenty of sites started out charging a fee, but only the smut sites seem able to get people to pay. If the New York Times is unable to make a fee-based model work, I don't see how any information-centric site can make a fee model work.

Anyway, we're going to see the fee model trotted out again, apparently. Yahoo is moving some of their content into a fee-based scheme. I doubt they'll be successful, but who knows?

Unfortunately, I think the AOL model is the only workable one outside of the porn sites. Make someone pay for access to the web and then piggyback access to AOL-only content into the arrangement. It might start working like cable, where you get your basic AOL service and then you can pick premium channels and pay extra for access.

Kazz wrote:

"Also, I have to argue with Mark's assertion that porn is the only proven moneymaker on the web. It seems to me that MMRPGs aren't exactly suffering either...."

Agreed. I should have clarified it. As far as sites where you go to read or view things go, porn sites seem to be the only ones who can successfully charge for thier content. MMORPGs are successful, but that's a different beast.

We'll probably see streaming video on a pay-per-view scheme at some point that will work as well. Why drive to Blockbuster when you can just have it delivered.

Dear John from AGR,

You, sir, are a jackass.

This isn't a porn site. It's legitimate gaming site. I'm sure if we were willing to put up images of naked women on our websites we'd all have a lot more income.

Too bad that isn't an option. OBVIOUSLY.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

You know, I was checking a site one time, thinking about linking, and the fella what ran it had a set of rules for links. One of them was that he wouldn't link to a "pop-up trap," a site (generally adult, but not always) that is just a long series of pop-up ads.

I guess what I am wondering would be this: Adult sites use pop-up ads, that has been established. But do the SUBSCRIPTION sites use pop-up ads for their subscribers? That doesn't sound right to me. Do they make you pay for the content and then still make you go through pop-up ads? Probably not, I'm thinking.

"I guess what I am wondering would be this: Adult sites use pop-up ads, that has been established. But do the SUBSCRIPTION sites use pop-up ads for their subscribers? That doesn't sound right to me. Do they make you pay for the content and then still make you go through pop-up ads?"

I don't know. I've never had a subscription to a site. I don't mind a popup, but the popup traps are ridiculous.

What we need are popups that appear once and close automatically after 5 seconds or so, like a commercial running.

"This isn't a porn site. It's legitimate gaming site. I'm sure if we were willing to put up images of naked
women on our websites we'd all have a lot more income.

Too bad that isn't an option. OBVIOUSLY. "

Dear Wumpus,

You sir, have no right calling me a jackass.

Too bad I NEVER ONCE SAID THAT THIS IS A PORN SITE. Sorry I don't run a CLEAN gaming site, so I didn't realize it was that difficult to raise money with ads this way.

Besides my site is NOT a typical porn site. I will fight you til the end on that one.

And try to tell me that my web site is not a legitimate gaming site.

You are jealous of my extra income. OBVIOUSLY.

John from AGR

---

Quote:

Besides my site is NOT a typical porn site. I will fight you til the end on that one.

---

---

Quote:

Sorry I don't run a CLEAN gaming site, so I didn't realize it was that difficult to raise money with ads this way.

---

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Quote:

You are jealous of my extra income. OBVIOUSLY.

---

God, I hate it when people start playing word games. I don't care if you run your site. In fact, I hope it is a big success and you make tons of money. But don't assume I'm an idiot by trying to pass it off as a legitimate gaming site.

"You sir, have no right calling me a jackass."

I'll agree the name-calling was inappropriate, but sometimes people get a little riled up.

"Too bad I NEVER ONCE SAID THAT THIS IS A PORN SITE. Sorry I don't run a CLEAN gaming site, so I didn't realize it was that difficult to raise money with ads this way."

You didn't have to say it was a porn site, because any reasonable person who looks at it can tell it is a porn site. Let's define porn site: I believe it is any site that primarily appeals to the prurient interest in sex. That can take many, many forms, including a site that solely reviews "adult interactive entertainment" (as stated in your FAQ).

Clearly your site is intended to focus on the prurient interest in sex, as shown by these statements in your review of "Anal Fantascenes":

'Speaking of hardcore action, if that's what you're looking for in a pc game, then look no further than Anal Fantascenes, which consists of scene upon scene of explicit sex, blowjobs, and anal sex. So why the average rating, you ask? Because Anal Fantascenes consists of scene upon scene of explicit sex, blowjobs, and anal sex. Don't get me wrong, I like explicit sex, blowjobs, and anal sex, and I even like to watch these things happen in a porno. But I would also like to see some build-up to the explicit events. Like, oh I don't know, stripping?'

'Now if you like your pornography to cut to the chase, then this is right up your alley, and the sex is sizzlin'. You can select your favorite parts and create a new video which is then saved on your hard drive.'

'X-rated interactive DVDs filmed in multiangles are common, and serve as the better choice for this type of erotica.'

These quotes also show Anal Fantascenes is not a game, as it is intended to simply deliver pornographic video - you even compare it to porno, and call it erotica. I know of no mainstream game that people purchase with the intent of obtaining hardcore sexual material. Imagine the outcry if Diablo II were simply an hour of cutscenes, and an editor that let you change camera angles and save your own versions of the cutscenes. Reviewers would scream, "Where's the gameplay?!" (Not that some didn't say that about the real thing!) Imagine the lack of outcry for the same if there were a porno version of the same thing called "Dia-blow II." Reviewers would praise the sex scenes, because that is what they expect, not gameplay.

I also like this bit from your review of Space Sirens 2: "After three failed attempts, the game was over and I had to replay through the first two girls to get to the final one, this time with the arcade games turned off of course."

This shows me that the focus of your review is to talk about the sexual aspects of the product, not the gameplay. I assume this is just catering to your readers' interests (not a bad thing). If my intent were to watch porn instead of game, I also would want to know how to turn off the lame game portion to reach the rest of the porn. If my focus were the arcade game portion, I would want to know how to skip over the porn to get to the next gaming sequence. Does SS2 even have that option?

"Besides my site is NOT a typical porn site. I will fight you til the end on that one."

If a typical porn site is one that simply sells pornographic photos and video for money, yep, you are right. I think what you have is an atypical porn site. Don't get me wrong, I don't find anything wrong with porn sites; just don't call them gaming sites.

"And try to tell me that my web site is not a legitimate gaming site."

This is where I snapped and started writing this response. I don't think your site is a legitimate gaming site. Again, we have to have definitions to decide if you are "legitimate" or not. I will modify my previous definition: a legitimate gaming site is one that primarily focuses on mainstream games that are intended to provide a gaming experience for the player or groups of players, and not on software primarily intended to focus on sex or sexuality in a prurient manner." I think that is a pretty reasonable definition, and your site obviously falls outside it. If you had reviewed NOLF, or Tomb Raider, and focused on their sexual subtexts, you might fall into my definition.

You understand the gulf between mainstream games and porno (a.k.a. "adult interactive games"), because you write in the opening sentences to the review of Anal Fantascenes: "The porn film industry doesn't conform to the standards of mainstream motion pictures for mostly obvious reasons. The two industries operate on completely different planes of existence. There is a similar segregation between adult interactive games and their mainstream counterparts."

Your response to wumpus tries to cross these planes of existence, and it simply doesn't fly. You insult my intelligence when you do it, so please stop. Porn is porn, games are games, and it is unlikely that the twain shall meet.

"'Speaking of hardcore action, if that's what you're looking for in a pc game, then look no further than Anal Fantascenes, which consists of scene upon scene of explicit sex, blowjobs, and anal sex."

Damn, I've been reviewing the wrong games! The games I've been reviewing consist of scene upon scene of orcs and elves getting slaughtered and that's it. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered a blowjob slipped in there. Nope, no blowjobs. Not even a damn french kiss.

If showing breasts means porn then every other Hollywood movie would be classified as porn (I won't even mention Swedish productions ).

It brings up another topic though. There aren't enough adult games around, either it's mario kart or butchering. Where's the genuine adult games (not counting porn)? Why can movies target different audiences so well but not games?

I'm sure one could show a couple of nipples now and then without making it sleazy. Maybe there should be more games based on Hammer books or something?

Marcus

"I'm sure one could show a couple of nipples now and then without making it sleazy. Maybe there should be more games based on Hammer books or something?"

We have fleeting frontal nudity in Noctropolis. That's the only PC game targetted at gamers that I can remember with something like that until Giants had topless chicks.

That awful adventure game Phantasmagoria -- that its name? -- had a FMV rape scene.

For same games adult content, be it sex or something otherwise serious, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I could see it in adventure and RPG games, though.

Phantasmagoria...I'd forgotten all about that. The intro movie sequence was great...and it was all downhill from there. It had a sequel, but I passed on it.

Why all the fuss over porn? I thought we were talking about ways to generate revenue for informational web sites. Whatever your morals, game sites and adult sites are both "intellectual" (vs. physical) property suppliers (the adult site does with downloadable images, video, etc.). If the revenue model from adult sites can be adapted somehow, and be made to work, it wouldn't be productive to scorn the progress those sites have made, simply because you don't like their content.

Basically, help is help, no matter the source, ya?

Well, the porn model is dependant upon them having something that people really want and can't seem to find enough of for free. I doubt news about games can match that. So, I'm not sure if the revenue model can be adapted. We'll see with combat.sim, I suppose.

"What color is the sky in your world? I'm just curious. Guys clicking on boobies more often than Diablo?
Never in a million years would I have guessed! Puh-leez. "

Wumpus I was simply being honest. I will reiterate: I have never run a clean site(with high traffic) before; I didn't think it was as difficult as everyone says it is to generate ad revenue. But apparently that gives you reasons to insult me over and over.

I personally have clicked on more gaming banners than anything else. Maybe it's because I know the porn banners are bullshit. It seems that most intelligent surfers would think this way. Sure lots click on my banners and I make some cash, BUT I HAVE NO OTHER SITES TO COMPARE THAT TO. Until now. By participating in this forum, I see other non-adult webmasters' perspectives.

"Porn is PORN. The minute you have full-frontal female nudity, or even topless females, you're a porn site.
"Typical" or not, it's a porn site. Once you've crossed that line your site is not about games, it's about sex."

You're absolutely right. It's a porn site. But I said that it's not a typical porn site. That's a fact. I never said it wasn't a porn site.

I also said it's a legitimate gaming site. If we weren't all already aware that my site is about adult games, I wouldn't have said that. I wouldn't go into forums and chatrooms claiming that my site is a gaming site, without mentioning first that it's for adults. However an adult gaming site is still a gaming site. A legitimate gaming site.


"I'm sorry, John, I just refuse to believe anyone could be so dense that they can't see why porn banners
are in a different category altogether than traditional advertising banners."

I never put them in the same category. I never thought they were in the same category. I'm willing to believe, however, that someone (like yourself for example) could be so dense as to think that he could actually read my mind.

"...but coming on here and making statements
like that (eg why isn't YOUR advertising working) is either insensitive to the point of rudeness, or just
outright stupidity."

There you go again putting words in my mouth. First, I never made any statements challenging why other sites' ads aren't working. Get a grip, man, you were clearly the rude, insensitive one here ("you, sir, are a jackass.")

I was just saying that banner ads have worked for me. You are reading way too much into this. Someone mentioned something about static banners not working, so I made a suggestion. Big deal. I'm just offering my two cents from MY sphere of knowledge like everyone else.

OK Supertanker, You made some good points, but you TOTALLY MISUNDERSTOOD me. Hear me out.

In response to my:
"Too bad I NEVER ONCE SAID THAT THIS IS A PORN SITE. Sorry I don't run a CLEAN gaming site, so I didn't
realize it was that difficult to raise money with ads this way."

You said:

"You didn't have to say it was a porn site, because any reasonable person who looks at it can tell it is a
porn site. Let's define porn site: ..."

I wasn't talking about MY site!!!! I was talking about THIS site!!!! Quarter to Three!

Because Wumpus was insisting that I was putting Q23 in the same category as AGR (my site) by saying:

"[Q23] isn't a porn site. It's legitimate gaming site. I'm sure if...."

So I responded by telling him that I never once said this site is a porn site. THIS site. The site we're at. Maybe if you had read the posts a little more clearly instead of blindly diving into a thesis paper on what is or isn't pronography, you would have saved yourself some time.

I KNOW my site is a porn site. Jeez.

"Porn is porn, games are games, and it is unlikely that the twain
shall meet. "

I disagree. Sure the main attraction to the titles I review is the sex, but while you may be an advocate on what porn is, never did you attempt to define games. I've included all definitions appropriate to both clean games, and adult games, taken from the Merrian-Webster Dictionary -

Game: 1 a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.

3 a (1) : a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules
with the participants in direct opposition to each other (2) : a division
of a larger contest (3) : the number of points necessary to win

In the games that I do review, there are points to be scored in order to achieve a goal. Space Sirens and Strip Poker games definitely fit into this category.

I never said that every title featured at my web site was game. Some are simulations. Sex sims if you will. From my review of Virtual Sex with Jenna:

"The best selling genre of adult interactive entertainment would have to be virtual
cybersex. Okay, so there really aren't that many other genres to choose from. You
have your erotic games, such as strip poker and sex-adventure games including
Japanese hentai; and cybersex simulations like pixis's Diva X series and Digital
Playground's Virtual Sex series. It all comes down to either games or simulations,
with some combinations of the two such as Space Sirens. But sex sims sell because
they provide directly what we as porn consumers want: the illusion of having sex with
an incredibly gorgeous woman, a manifestion of our fantasies. Better yet, these
ladies are famous porn stars, and these products are now firmly rooted in the
exploding DVD market. "

When defining terms or genres, I have always separated the two (sex games vs. sex sims). Sometimes (when not defining terms or genres), I may use the word "game" loosely to describe something that really isn't by definition a game, because as a writer I need to use different words to make articles less boring, AND because I know my audience isn't getting hung up on these specifics.

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Quote:

I was just saying that banner ads have worked for me.

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because I know my audience isn't getting hung up on these specifics.

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Dude I never said I was selling games.

My audience is not "too busy with their pants around their ankles." I get descent traffic and I don't see how anyone could "get off" reading a review of a sex game.

John

http://www.adultgamereviews.com

John, you are living proof that some people just don't "get it".

--Dave

Okay, I'm certainly not a supporter of porn sites, and I would never suggest that Q23 put porn banners on their site, but I don't think that John is suggesting that, either. He meant well. Come up guys, lighten up -- just a tad. You're being a bit more mean-spirited than is necessary.