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[ROMhack]

Yeah, this has 0.01% chance to work.
Not to mention, AdBlockers can be programmed to bypass those restrictions.

Also, I want to point out some bullshit:

Because when we didn't have Ad blockers we didn't have intrusive advertising, right?

The insane amount of ads, malware and intrusive shit was so high that we needed a countermeasure. That's why Ad blockers were born.

Indeed. There's a comment I found which sums it up well.

"As for making ads an adversarial relationship, that started when advertisers and content creators together decided to create the horrific, intrusive ads we actually see less of today, the existence of adblock actually improved advertising on the internet, as there are far fewer popup, flash, malware, full page, redirect, fraud, and generally terrible ads on reputable sites than there were before adblock came along... Advertising online is adversarial whether we adblock or not, because given free reign, advertisers think that making our experience technically tolerable, but practically awful, is the ideal balance point, and that is not a good experience for us. Without pressure from adblock, the experience will get worse for us and you won’t get paid any more."

 

[Mr Nash]

So, people will go Incognito mode from now on to bypass this? =p

 

[SirKicksalot]

@Sihoiba Word is: we can remove Skimlinks, and we’re not sure why Doubleclick is in there but we’re looking into it.

@Graham Smith Do you get that this is the actual problem for many of us though? You’re asking us to trust you in the article, then telling us you don’t even know why one tracker ended up in the ad-free site. I don’t get how we are meant to trust that?

 

[hariseldon]

There's one very simple reason to use adblockers. Malware. As an example, one time planetf1 was serving malware to android phones through an ad (fake virus notification leading to dodgy apk download). I emailed them to let them know about it but they didn't take any interest, no reply, it was eventually fixed a month later but it's likely that the ad network fixed it without intervention by the site. Bear in mind planetf1 is a big site, in the same family of sites with football365 for instance.

EDIT: Oh wow those comments are absolute gold, even Grizzly is pissed ffs and he's an absolute arse-licking cunt most of the time! One positive thing is that with fewer readers they'll have less influence.

DOUBLE EDIT: Wow Graham's really avoiding discussing so many issues - he talks like a used-car salesman.

TRIPLE EDIT: Comment by "upupup" is excellent. Many others are too, but that one is excellent.

 

[Kadayi]

Unfortunately whilst they are still tied into Steam syndication they will still be able to write all manner of inflammatory articles and generate clicks. Pissing off the regulars won't drive the hardcore away because they're too locked into sunk cost bias. Never the less them all having a meltdown is pretty amusing.

 

[strange headache]

So I just came across this. They're blocking the site for people who use ad-blockers and their explanation as to why is quite arrogant.

They claim that their ads are some of the best you can find on the net, yet they have a longstanding topic about ad related problems. I understand that ads are always gonna be an inconvenience, but I'd accept hobby-related advertisement as long as it is clearly marked as such. What I evidently don't want is crap like this:

Which was the first ad I encountered when I turned off my adblocker. I'd rather not read RPS at all than being bombarded with braindead advertisement every time I open a page. This has been a problem for years now and I highly doubt it will go away anytime soon.

Insinuating that people who use adblock are either not interested in your content or "outright trolls" will not go down well with your audience.

 

[Dr. Claus]

They were something that I *knew* of, but not something I would really read. It is disappointing to see them follow the same trend of neutered infants trying to play at political activism. This is one of the reasons I stopped reading TheEscapist years back (and it seems they haven't really changed given the moderation stances shown). I do miss Blistered Thumbs though. I enjoyed their reviews and content, but sadly it was shut down a number of years ago.

 

[ROMhack]

FWIW I do suspect Graham isn't being a dick on purpose. He seems like a nice enough guy but I don't think he really knows what he's talking about. I feel like it's probably been fed a lot of spiel from the senior figures at Gamer Network and like any employee, he probably doesn't want to rock the boat. Problem with that being that it's anti-reader, which is the issue so many gaming websites have at this juncture.

Personally I wish John Walker had handled the replies. That would have been spectacularly explosive.

 

[hariseldon]

FWIW I do suspect Graham isn't being a dick on purpose. He seems like a nice enough guy but I don't think he really knows what he's talking about. I feel like it's probably been fed a lot of spiel from the senior figures at Gamer Network and like any employee, he probably doesn't want to rock the boat. Problem with that being that it's anti-reader, which is the issue so many gaming websites have at this juncture.

Personally I wish John Walker had handled the replies. That would have been spectacularly explosive.

Quite probably, and to be fair he's a writer, I wouldn't expect him to know the technical ins and outs, but they don't seem to have any techies who do either. I'll take a guess they told John Walker to keep away to avoid the risk of completely alienating 100% of the readership - they figured 70-80% was a hit they could take