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KensterFox

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#1  Edited By KensterFox

They shouldn't do it. It would be a bad idea. The Bombcast is one of their "core competencies" as Ryan said very early in the site's life, and to lock that away would harm the site's image and userbase.
 
That said, if I had to, I'd pay for it.

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#2  Edited By KensterFox
@Gredlen: It probably was an off-hand remark, apropos of nothing, until someone realized that Wonderful Universe of This Ain't No Game abbreviated to WU-TANG, and then there was just no question that the name could be anything else.
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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#3  Edited By KensterFox

Fine with it, aside from the one that required you to click on a Best Buy ad to finish the quest.
 
I wrote a blog about it, but I don't know why I'm bothering to respond since it's pretty clear practically no one agrees with me.

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#4  Edited By KensterFox
@Suicrat: 
They didn't exactly consolidate their office space, all but one of the WM sites was being run out of the Sausalito office anyway. They just moved somewhere bigger because they were now running five sites instead of just one or two. But, if you're Whiskey Media, why would you start up Tested and Screened if Comic Vine and Giant Bomb aren't at least on track to be profitable? Expanding one's businesses IS a sign of excess profit, or at least financial health.
 
And, AGAIN, sponsorships are not my big beef here. TNT brought to you by Sumo gaming furniture? Fine. Microsoft is going to give Giant Bomb points for editing/looking at Giant Bomb's Halo pages? Sure. Getting Giant Bomb points for viewing a Best Buy advertisement? Over the line - am I the only one who sees the difference?
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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#5  Edited By KensterFox
@natetodamax: 
I don't have a problem at all with banner ads, or even the occasional site skin, on Giant Bomb. I mean, sure, they've got to make money somehow. And if I have a problem with ads, then why would I say that "I don't have much of a problem with this quest set, or future sponsored quests like it"? It's right there in the second paragraph. My objection was with that one quest that traded an in-site reward (experience points) for viewing an ad. That's intrusive. The site should not be designed in such a way that I, the user, am penalized for choosing to ignore the site's advertising.
 
@SumDeus:
Nobody complaining about it now is how it becomes a regular thing later.
 
@wrecks:
Again, I'm not in the least against ads. But not all ads, or forms of ads, are created equal.
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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#6  Edited By KensterFox
EDIT: Since this seems to be lost in the message, let me be clear that I'm all for Giant Bomb being an ad-supported site. Without a subscription system, there's really no other way for them to make money. And relying purely on a subscription system would mean locking out a lot of content to a lot of people, which isn't ideal and would hurt the site. So, yes, please, let there be ads on Giant Bomb. But there are different kinds of ads, and not all of them are OK. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.
 
Let me throw this out here first: Giant Bomb is not hurting for money. Or, at the very least, parent company Whiskey Media is not hurting for money. I don't know this for certain, but I'll surmise that it's the case based on the fact that they just moved into a new office because of constant expansion, and they just launched their fifth site (sixth, actually, but does PoliticalBase really even count?) in May. Since they are continuing to expand, one has to assume that their initial sites, at the very least Comic Vine and probably Giant Bomb, are profitable. Otherwise, they'd be taking a dramatic risk that could turn a bad situation into a catastrophic one. So, until I'm given any reason to think differently, I'm going to continue to assume that Giant Bomb is doing all right (as Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and Vinny have always insisted they are) and this was more of an experiment than necessary deal for desperately needed cash.
 
With that understood, I don't have much of a problem with this quest set, or future sponsored quests like it. It was a little jarring to see the Best Buy color scheme used for the quest graphics, and it's not ideal to be seeing their logosplashed up everywhere, but I want Giant Bomb to have money, whether they need it or not, and this isn't a horribly intrusive way to get that added income.
 
Except for the quest where they wanted me to view an advertisement to get experience points.
 
Now, you can look at my quest list and see that, when presented with the option to view an advertisement to complete the quest set, I did it. I confess. I did it mostly out of reflex, without really thinking about what I was doing. Now that I've had some time to think about it, though, it rather seems like something of a betrayal of the principles that the site was founded on two and a half years ago. Now, I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite - people make mistakes, and I think quests of this type are indeed a mistake. And we don't know exactly how, and by whom, this decision was made.
 
But Jeff and Ryan especially have always been stalwart opponents of Marketing interfering with Editorial. Now, strictly speaking, that's not what's going on here - Giant Bomb isn't rendering an opinion on the products Best Buy is advertising. But this is a clear example of Marketing interfering with, or at least influencing, Content. Giant Bomb is more than just an Editorial site, a portal for Jeff and Ryan and Vinny and Brad to spit game about games. There's the Wiki. There are the Forums. And there are the Quests. All of which should be driven by the creative minds at Whiskey Media, and not anyone who has a fat enough stack of cash.
 
On the April 15, 2008 Giant Bombcast, Jeff blew up at the idea of an achievement in a Call of Duty game for watching a trailer for the next Call of Duty game. He said that it was bad enough that sponsored achievements existed, but this was an example of marketing teams co-opting everything that's good about games and ruining it. This feels like the same thing to me, and I would hope that Jeff would feel an even greater sense of outrage that this is happening on the site he helped found.
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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#7  Edited By KensterFox

I'll just leave this here to say that sponsored quests are a questionable idea, and a quest to click on an advertisement is definitely over the line.

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#8  Edited By KensterFox

Sponsored quests... a little ugly, a little jarring, but ultimately no big deal, I think.
 
Except for the one where the quest was "click on an ad". That one creeped me out. I don't like the idea of Giant Bomb going into adverquesting.

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#9  Edited By KensterFox

Also, there was a video that had wafflestomp playing it on guitar at the end. Anyone remember what video that was?

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KensterFox

306

Forum Posts

23725

Wiki Points

49

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 10

#10  Edited By KensterFox

I saw this thread title before listening to the Bombcast - I was really expecting a lot more. He talked about a negative experience, I expected a rant. The Bombcast guys have shit all over a number of things over the course of the site's existence, this barely moved the needle.