New ad network 2025 - provide feedback here

[shaunj66]

We have switched to a new ad network. Please use this thread to report any browsing issues specifically caused by ads on GBAtemp.

Most ads include a "Report Ad" button so please use it to report any issues with ad content. There's no need to post about it on the forums, as we'll just direct you to that button.

Also, please keep in mind that these ads arent there just for the fun of it. We need revenue to keep servers going, to allow some staff to get (small) payments to keep the site alive, and giveaways, contests etc.

 

[izy]

Patron of GBAtemp I have become. I've never had ad on gbatemp, I just whitelisted it on adblockers but still no ads. I use firefox on strict privacy settings, maybe thats why I dont see ads?

patrons dont get ads

 

[Payne]

patrons dont get ads

My membership does not provide ad free, but before paying I whitelisted gbatemp, was curious if it would show ads, and it still didnt

 

[Deleted member 535703]

The happiest medium I can see from the discussion here would be to go with a visual "£X until we're funded for the next three months, £X more on top of that for a sitewide raffle". That way everybody could enter as thanks for the larger community's contributions as a bit of a stretch goal.

It would be fun, but it also puts the site's survival entirely on people contributing. I guess it's just a bit of a leap and a risk.

Wikipedia has been doing donation drives for years now. And while this site isn't Wikipedia, you still host a fair amount of people who, thanks to the hobby they portray having, likely have some disposable income to throw your way. GBATemp becoming nonprofit could help, give the site tax breaks and whatnot, but now that predatory ad revenue is coming in, I don't venture that happening. This new ad system has broken the website for me on loads of occasions and makes it pointless for me to return.

Here's a thought: more paid features. Go Reddit on this thing. Profile customization, awards, whatever you can that's relevant to the site. Start finding markets to corner wherein GBATemp could earn a commission for reviewing and advertising these products. Turtle beach, ANBERNIC, Analogue, whatever.

The hardest thing about GBATemo on the journalistic side is that I see nothing super special about GBATemp's name at this point. It's a fairly niche hacking website. The name and brand identity of GBATemp needs to be pushed out there as a reputable space for something. IGN gives fairly accurate game reviews, PCGamer is great at hardware reviews. What is special about this website and this forum that can generate traffic? Frankly, I don't see much of that anywhere.

Comments sections on reviews are just places for people to whinge about Nintendo making another game and it gets boring and repetitive to look at. No reason for me to engage if everyone has a stick up their ass about everything happening ever. Where's the enjoyment? What appeals to the market GBATemp currently has and what can we do as a site to expand that.

If GBATemp wants traction, it needs to have a higher appeal. And currently, that appeal is lacking.

 

[Hells Malice]

Sell staff bathwater

 

[Sir Tortoise]

this thread exists so that we can get feedback and make adjustments to find the right balance.

Some people say they are leaving the site over… something that has not yet happened and will not happen (i.e. blocking users that have adblockers). I don’t understand this and won’t come crying after them to come back.

If you make a post to gather feedback, I suggest trying to understand the feedback rather than just dismissing it. Increasing ad revenue won't help if it also decreases user retention.

 

[PrincessLillie]

Some transparency would be appreciated regarding this ad network. You've been referring to them as just "the ad network". I've been able to trace "html-load.com" back to ad-shield.io who appears to be known for the deceptive practices others have mentioned in this thread, but I have not been able to tie "fuseplatform.net" to any particular company.
I also do not appreciate the use of generative AI in the news article that linked to this thread, I feel that it significantly devalues GBAtemp.

It feels more like the website used to be a source of income and now it's becoming less of a source of income. Could we have a bit more of transparency around the operational costs of the site? Could also add some labor costs, it's fine, monitoring, fine tuning, moderating, these all take time and shouldn't be taken for granted.

With a rough estimate we could discuss whether raffles, donation seasons, sponsored content, merchandise or a web shop would cover them.

Personally, I don't like giving money for something that I like and want to support, but have grown used to have for free. It's selfish, but it's how my brain works. But flip it around and make it a t-shirt, or a game, anything really with a markup and it becomes way easier to justify it to myself.

I would like this. I personally think some transparency into the operational costs of the site would push a lot of people to donate, and to suggest other ways to cover the costs.

 

[previous_member]

Wikipedia has been doing donation drives for years now. And while this site isn't Wikipedia, you still host a fair amount of people who, thanks to the hobby they portray having, likely have some disposable income to throw your way. GBATemp becoming nonprofit could help, give the site tax breaks and whatnot, but now that predatory ad revenue is coming in, I don't venture that happening. This new ad system has broken the website for me on loads of occasions and makes it pointless for me to return.

Here's a thought: more paid features. Go Reddit on this thing. Profile customization, awards, whatever you can that's relevant to the site. Start finding markets to corner wherein GBATemp could earn a commission for reviewing and advertising these products. Turtle beach, ANBERNIC, Analogue, whatever.

The hardest thing about GBATemo on the journalistic side is that I see nothing super special about GBATemp's name at this point. It's a fairly niche hacking website. The name and brand identity of GBATemp needs to be pushed out there as a reputable space for something. IGN gives fairly accurate game reviews, PCGamer is great at hardware reviews. What is special about this website and this forum that can generate traffic? Frankly, I don't see much of that anywhere.

Comments sections on reviews are just places for people to whinge about Nintendo making another game and it gets boring and repetitive to look at. No reason for me to engage if everyone has a stick up their ass about everything happening ever. Where's the enjoyment? What appeals to the market GBATemp currently has and what can we do as a site to expand that.

If GBATemp wants traction, it needs to have a higher appeal. And currently, that appeal is lacking.

I don't know how appealing profile customization is to generate some income, but then again, I'm old. It doesn't appeal to me at all.

I'm still surprised at how PCGamer hasn't gone belly up yet. Conceited authors, quarter of the articles are pointless woke political opinion pieces (*only* ever read by the very authors who wrote them), and clearly paid to cover the big games in a positive light over several inane articles. I'm amazed they have more than 10 readers on a given day.

One of the sites I like to visit is timeextension.com. Lots of articles about consoles, translations, WIP hacks, and homebrews. Wouldn't mind seeing more of those kinds of articles on GBATemp.

 

[AlexMCS]

And while this site isn't Wikipedia, you still host a fair amount of people who, thanks to the hobby they portray having, likely have some disposable income to throw your way

We're using this very site because we're primarily pirates, that is, people who do not pay for their games. This is not exactly the group known for donating to.. anything really.

For many years, my only expenditure on gaming was hardware and anything else that could enable "backups".

That said,
1 - Be more transparent with your costs (bandwidth, traffic #, domain, SSL certs, hosting, staff). Maybe we can shed some light on cost effective measures to trim down the fat.
2 - Sorry, I'll never be fine with ads on... anything really. I'll even make custom Violentmonkey scripts to block whatever DOM elements standard adblocks can't, and more.
3 - The harsh truth: If you need ads to keep a site up, it's better off gone. Either be cool with donations and paying for the costs yourself, or acknowledge that it's better off not existing as is.
4 - I'll be joining your basic Patreon since I'm no longer a poor sod who can't afford a single game, but I can't afford to donate even more than that, since there are many places I'll start supporting with Patreon now that I can.

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

Turned off my AdBlocker.
First thing I get shown are those deceptive HeroWars ads where you are made to believe to go to some game testing your intelligence while it's nothing more than a chop and slash game where the central theme seems to be poop and vomit.
Turned on my AdBlocker again in order not to get distracted from helping out the community here.
Get on board with a real ad network instead of backfiling everything with ad from Google.

 

[Exnor]

I don't know if this information is available somewhere, but it would be interesting for patrons to have a some estimate of how much is needed to keep the site running (expenses with hosting, domain, maintenance, etc..).

Having that type of transparency about where the donation money is spent, might encourage more people to become patrons, i think.

 

[FFTW]

Reading the article was worrisome. Really hope sites like here and Gamefaqs find ways to survive for decades to come.

 

[Vixi]

Newgrounds made a video game. Maybe GBATemp should try that.
I'd also be down to buy a GBATemp shirt.

 

[Xdqwerty]

yeah ads arent displaying properly, just white squares

 

[VinsCool]

yeah ads arent displaying properly, just white squares

Is it really a bad thing though? :3

Just kidding, that's clearly not supposed to happen, I've noticed the same thing earlier today while browsing logged off on mobile.

[EDIT] Yeah, I can confirm it happens for me too, that seems to be related to the blocks failing to load quickly enough, because they do seem to shuffle ads but would either display a blank space, or the actual ad, and switch around after a few seconds on screen.



[EDIT2] I've left the page running in the background for a few minutes and the blank spaces did shuffle around as expected, so this seems to be random, maybe related to the contents of each block failing to load properly for some reason.

 

[a_username_that_is_cool]

Good points here. I'm sure there are ways to make raffling legal, if no free way to enter. I can understand that putting the site's survival on contributions is a risk, but still better than ads. As many have mentioned, ads drive people away. Especially when intrusive or sketchy. I'm sure we as a community can come up with a better alternative.

Probably we could do free way to enter using XP or maybe based on your time using GBAtemp? Give everyone at least 1 free entry and then paying gives you more

 

[VinsCool]

Probably we could do free way to enter using XP or maybe based on your time using GBAtemp? Give everyone at least 1 free entry and then paying gives you more

There have been numerous raffles in the past where all members were free to enter anyway.
Some were sponsored events, but still, they were pretty nice since it gave everyone an equal chance to win something.

Patron exclusive raffles did not happen very often since they were pretty expensive to afford, most of the time they would end up costing more money to the admins instead of being funded directly by donations.
At least, this is what I could recall it being at the time I was still part of the staff, I suppose it is still the same reality considering why this thread was created in the first place.

In a perfect world, it would be nice to have regular raffles where all members could enter, without exclusive perks.

 

[Costello]

Testing the waters here but what if...
- visitors/guests were to see regular ads (100%)
- newly registered members would see slightly less ads (75%)
- confirmed members (100+ posts or something - the same who have access to the trading area and more) would get significantly less ads, i.e. the least disruptive experience possible (25%)
- patrons would see no ads at all (0%)

This would reward people for registering while improving user experience for members of the community, and hopefully if there were significantly less ads, maybe people would consider whitelisting the site in their ad blockers, which would even things out on the whole? Could help with user retention and convince lurkers to join too?

If not, what other ideas would you have to maintain sufficient levels of ad revenue (or other sources of revenue) vs. helping to reduce inconvenience to members?

We talk about these things internally with the staff but we don't always have all the answers so it's good to have an open talk like this. I can't reply to every single post here but if there's one thing I can say is I prefer constructive criticism we're trying to find solutions here, not shake fists and curse at each other. The phenomenon I've described in my news post isn't isolated to GBAtemp (read more https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ing-drop-in-online-news-audiences-study-finds )

 

[OilFreak]

I am not sure what is your point here? I used AI to rephrase the points I wanted to get across. And I inserted a placeholder image while Shaun could work on the formating (which he just finished doing). Wow thats terrible I suppose?

Maybe we should just stay on topic

And I shall no longer be taking you seriously

 

[VinsCool]

And I shall no longer be taking you seriously

There was a misunderstanding earlier today but we've resolved that in private, please don't worry about it.

 

[awesomeee]

For 3 days now, this has made the site completely inaccessible on mobile for me.
This is not okay. Please reconsider.

Yeah unfortunately the mobile side of things is kinda janky. It needs some optimizations imo