toythatkills
Member
I literally have been aware of Xbox adverts more on NeoGAF than I ever have on my Xbox.
Penny Arcade: the ugly, profitable details about Xbox Live dashboard ads
- Thread starter Sean
- Start date
I literally have been aware of Xbox adverts more on NeoGAF than I ever have on my Xbox.
TriniTrin
war of titties grampa
Seriously, WTF is this shit!
Where are these numbers coming from? Does it take into account this ad revenue, for instance or advertising expenses? Or is this just someone's best guess?
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Nike, Coca Cola, Apple, Google, Johnson & Johnson, BMW, Ben & Jerrys, Toyota, Apple, Starbucks, Amazon, Dell, and Samsung are all corporations off the top of my head who have better public image than Microsoft with their consumers.
A shorter list would probably be those that don't; EA, BP, Exxon, Halliburton, GameStop, AT&T.
Liberty4all
Banned
Yup that's what I do. Still the service I pay for shouldn't be getting worse instead of better so ms can sell more ads. Yet another reason I'm canceling live.
Vol5
Member
Reminds me of Sky TV. A paid for subscription service that rams adverts down your neck. At least Sky TV put you through to customer retention if you cancel whereas MS don't give a shit. Their making waaaaay too much money to give a shit about little old me.....MS, this sort of money grabbing behavior will be your undoing.
Speedymanic
Banned
next gen, it will happen. MS would be mad not to make basic online gaming free, it's too big a bullet point to give away to your competitor.
Not doing it would exceed Sony's level of arrogance at the start of this gen.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
My solution is to just keep my 360s off the internet unless I need to download an XBLA game or something.
Less than ideal, perhaps, but it's as good as it gets now.
Less than ideal, perhaps, but it's as good as it gets now.
I find it pretty easy to press A on the main dashboard to play the disc in my drive, or press down and A to go into my most recently played hard drive games.
toythatkills
Member
Didn't Nike use slave labour? And Apple's Chinese factories have working conditions so bad that people kill themselves? And Toyota sold a car that nearly killed everyone?
If those companies still have a better public image than Microsoft because of a few adverts on Xbox LIVE, then, I don't even know.
Yeah, no kidding. No way using the xbox guide is faster. Or, just using RB to skip ahead isn't all that hard or time consuming. Count me as someone who never notices the ads. I would only be vaguely aware of them if not for the constant moaning on here.
Speedymanic
Banned
Not true. Phone up MS tomorrow and say you want to cancel gold, I guarantee they will offer you a severely reduced price for a years sub. MS care about retention, you just have to know how to play the game.
And it's interesting you bring up Sky, the parallels between the two are too big to ignore. You pay your sub, Sky goes out and acquires exclusive content for their platform, the exact same thing MS does.
Speedymanic
Banned
Or, you could just set your 360 to play games from start up and not even look at the dash. Want to play a LA title or a demo or something, use the mini guide. There you go, you've successfully avoided those cancerous ads.
Shao Kahn Going Shopping
Banned
Really? This is hilarious. The only reason a few of these would be considered to have a better public image (Nike? Wow) would be because the public is uneducated about what they've done.
Of course not, gotta fly that flag. Personally I'm on my way to bitch about stuff I don't use.
Liberty4all
Banned
Fixed
Silly.Mikey
Banned
Id doubt it very much. They might make a better silver, but gold will still be $.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Yes, and they still have better business reputations and public perception.
Unless you're a moron, you should be aware that Microsofts business reputation is not purely founded upon ads on a dashboard, nor is that the product generating most of their income or that they are best known for, or indeed the reason multiple governments across the world have felt it necessary to formally investigate their business practices in courts of law.
EDIT:
Playing the "the only way people don't know how shitty they are is because they don't know any better" card as a defence of Microsoft is pretty damn funny.
Also Dell outsourced their customer service to India and makes you pay a yearly fee just to speak to someone in the US. Additionally Dell has a horrible record of reliability with many, many complaints. Starbucks on the other hand is notorious for trying to kill competition from independent and smaller coffee chains.
Also to your statement that they have a better public perception, that may have something to do with who you are polling. The mass public has no qualms with Microsoft's XBL ads and most people have no idea about any of MS's bad business practices. This goes for pretty much every single corporation, so when you say that they have a worse or better public image what metric are you using? If anything Toyota, one of the companies listed in your list of "good" corporations probably has one of the worst public images right now due to the fact that the brake issues with their cars were made very very public on national news. MS has never had a PR disaster anywhere near as bad as that one.
flyinpiranha
Member
Yep. 5-10 seconds and I'm at my quickplay or play game disk or w/e.
Do I like the ads? Of course not. But it's funny that people look at the them like it's truly impeding the way they play games. It's like old people complaining about how technology works.
I'm more pissed at the bloatware my smartphone is bundled with than an easily skippable ad.
But defending Live on GAF is pointless.
Yeah same here. Some of the hyperbole here makes it seem that the system is useless now that the system has "millions" of ads. No I don't dig the ads, but I spend at most less than five minutes on the dashboard, compared to the hours I spend on gameplay.
Shao Kahn Going Shopping
Banned
Some of the more vocal people must have trouble navigating, and read every single box. That's the only way I can see it.
Imbarkus
As Sartre noted in his contemplation on Hell in No Exit, the true horror is other members.
I want to read the news story that explains how Penny Arcade ended up doing the kind of hard-hitting investigative journalism that most "game journalists" wouldn't touch for being too scared it might cost them a freebie.
Speedymanic
Banned
I don't follow.
Gold will still exist, but online gaming will be free. Gold will just become something allows you access to certain other features, maybe cloud gaming, dedicated servers, cross party chat, etc, but online p2p gaming will be free.
There's nothing left to gain from keeping it behind a pay-wall, especially now that there's more than one competitor on the market, both of which offer free online gaming.
Liberty4all
Banned
The thing is I want to feel like I'm paying for something that benefits me and continues to improve. Lately though the dash has felt like one big ad fest ... One I PAY FOR!
It makes me feel very unappreciated as a customer and is why I won't be renewing
It makes me feel very unappreciated as a customer and is why I won't be renewing
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
To be clear;
I am not saying "here are some great corporations that do no evil".
I am saying "here are some corporations that do not have the reputation for sheer ruthlessness that Microsoft do in the public eye".
Silly.Mikey
Banned
Maybe, but what im thinking is that they will focus on making a better Silver instead. Maybe include online, but without much of the features of gold. Gold i dont think will change much and will still be $. People are willing to pay for gold, they wont stop that.
Grampa Simpson
Banned
If I'm paying for live, should I have to be subjected to ads too? I'm pretty ok if it's advertising the XBLA game of the week or whatever, but to see ads for mcdonalds or ford is just asinine. The ads need to be there, it's part of what makes the direct download model work, but it really needs to be in proper context.
NullPointer
Member
That's what I'd like to see, along with the ability for subscribers to opt out of non-gaming ads. I also think its in the best interests of the Xbox to remove barriers of entry to multiplayer. They'd still do very well with Gold if they transition it right.
It all probably depends on the health of their next platform and what MS thinks is their core platform and what things have real value that they can sell. If they saw their primary source of revenue being royalties on game transactions, you would bet they would charge absolutely nothing for online gaming because it is a barrier of entry for the consumers. But if their Xbox platform is going to be as strong as ever, then they're probably going to keep charging everyone for everything.
And that's why Sony restricts their full game trials to PS+ members since some of them are more than 10 GB.
Liberty4all
Banned
Do the ads really need to be there? PSN is working just fine without them and it's free.
I love going through the PSN store ... All ad free. Live I don't use the dash anymore because I HATE the ads. It's costing MS money in other ways and will cost even more as people start to cancel.
What's hilarious are the people who actually pay $60 a year.
That also has to do with the fact that MS has, for a very long time, been the company at the forefront of the public eye. Until Apple's re-emergence, anyone you asked would list MS as the biggest company and Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, whether or not that was factually correct. Apple was an underdog for a very long time, but if current trends continue, I'm certain Apple will take MS's spot as having the "reputation for sheer ruthlessness" as you put it because to put it simply, people love to find reasons to hate the leader.
Do they need to be there? From who's point of view? Sure we are getting great free service from Sony, but Sony definitely needs it to be there. Not just ads, but some way to monetize their service. There's many reasons Sony is hurting bad (yes most of it is from their other divisions, but compared to MS and Nintendo, their gaming division is doing dismally as well), but not making the kind of money MS is making from their service is a huge one.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
And Sony installing rootkits on peoples computers and making up fake reviewers to give thier movies better ratings. Wow, Nintendo save us... we are doomed. Oh wait, lets look at Nintendo's history screwing over third parties with the NES years and suing companies trying to make rental games illegal. What gaming company has a clean slate?
Agreed on all points.
Your avatar is appropriate. Ads are everywhere. Do you rage when you see billboards? Watch tv or a movie (also product placement? Read a magazine? Almost everything we do and everywhere we go there are ads.
Wasn't there a study that ads don't even register with most people? Something about our minds have adapted and that ads no longer register. GAF must be the exception to that study.
It costs millions per day to run Xbox live.
Electricity, bandwidth, customer service, monitoring, engineers, maintenance. That's also outside managing content, and other functions which blend with other portions of the operation.
Just keeping it up and running it costs millions.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Most companies aren't taken to court by governments across the world for anti-trust and monopolisitic behaviour, so no, "haters gonna hate" is not a sufficient explanation for their reputation. Most people do not begrudge success.
Apple might well pick up a negative reputation for their continued abuse of the patent system, and again, its not just because they're big, it's because they're using unfair methods of competition.
You asked me what corporations are not perceived to be as ruthless as MS are.
I didn't even mention Sony or Nintendo, but you're right; they are also not as held in contempt for their business practices.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Valve is the leader in DD on PC. Where are all the haters?
You give people no credit in determining whether a company is providing a proper service or whether it is hanging them out to dry. They actually can do those things, but within a certain framework of chance.
It costs millions per day to run Playstation Network.
Electricity, bandwidth, customer service, monitoring, engineers, maintenance. That's also outside managing content, and other functions which blend with other portions of the operation.
Just keeping it up and running it costs millions.
And yet it costs the consumers nothing, and has zero ads.
flyinpiranha
Member
I thought all of them were related to where you were except for the lower right corner? Most of the time I just see movies from Zune or games on XBLA.
And don't get me wrong ... I hate them just as much as the next person, but it really sounds like some of these people can't ever watch or play a game because they are there.
I mean, when I'm flipping through Sports Illustrated and a Nike ad appears that's two pages I don't think "OH JESUS CHRIST!! HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THIS NOW!?? I PAID FOR THIS!! OMGOMGOMG" .
I don't like ads, but XBLive isn't obtrusive enough yet to make me feel that my $35 isn't being well spent for what I use it for. Is PSN free? Sure. Is Steam free? Sure, I have/had both of them. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy XBL Gold though.
ust because one is free doesn't mean the other should be too. I'd like it that way, but the inconvenience is negligible and so is the price.
Plus there are FREE demo downloads for EVERY XBLA game. That doesn't happen on any other service.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Sony charges publishers for bandwidth and there is an advertising ticker that cannot be removed on the XMB so while there are limited ads, saying there are "zero" is factually incorrect.
To be fair, unless I was a moron I wouldn't confuse my own perception with the overall public perception either.
Eh, that ticker can easily be turned off. I haven't seen it since the day I bought the console.
Yeah... Valve is also not a public company, which is why their business practices are very different from those of other corporations. You know, the incredibly long development times for games, resulting in great games that the majority of gamers love, the huge sales, etc., you know all of the things that stockholders absolute HATE, but us gamers LOVE.
When you aren't getting pressure from a bunch of suits who know nothing about your business and only care about their stock values, it's much easier to run your business in a way to appease your customers, which generally leads to more customer satisfaction, which leads to fewer haters.
Speedymanic
Banned
You're right, p2p will be silver but cross party chat and other features that are currently gold will probably stay gold as MS knows the value of those features. I also expect them to bring in a dedicated servers option for gold users. People have experienced dedicated server gaming this gen through Gears, BF and others, so to offer it for all MP games for a fee makes sense.
I think ads are here to stay for everyone and they'll become increasingly more intrusive across all consoles, well, maybe not Wii U as Ninty make more than enough off their core games to fund their service for decades.
Yup, p2p behind a pay wall feels like something that was leftover from the start of the gen, just as the 100 limit friends list is the legacy of the OG Xbox. Them not dropping the fee now shouldn't be seen as their strategy for next gen, they entered this gen with zero competition in the online gaming arena, people like to forget that, so charging to help build the service made sense, now there's no reason left.
Dropping the fee now with nothing to replace it would see a massive decline in subscribers, that's the reality, so by waiting until next gen they can come up with new features that will entice people to stay gold. dedicated servers is sure to be one of those new features and it will again be a major pont of contention with people comparing it to PC gaming and some PS4 games that will offer DSG for free.
I think charging for p2p is a relic of a bygone era for MS. They can't just drop it this late in the generation, so have instead decided to move into monetizing the service in other ways so they can offer p2p for free next gen.
And it shows, in so many ways.
The operation of Xbox Live and PSN are quite different, security is one portion where Xbox live trounces PSN.
The content of Xbox Live is leagues better.
The customer service is also better.
Feature set is far better. Feature evolution is at a faster pace, too.
I get what I pay for. My 17 cents a day goes to good use.