Penny Arcade - Comic - Seemium

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Penny Arcade - Comic - Seemium

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

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Solvent

There's that quote about "software eating the world" right? Well, I think software and advertising. I guess it varies by locality but I'm on the train and it's just... ads being jammed into your eyeballs (and ears) from every direction. In a big city, it seems nowhere is safe.

Overkillengine

Fuckin' love the middle panel.

Solvent wrote: »

There's that quote about "software eating the world" right? Well, I think software and advertising. I guess it varies by locality but I'm on the train and it's just... ads being jammed into your eyeballs (and ears) from every direction. In a big city, it seems nowhere is safe.

Now imagine some cyberpunk dystopia where you can lease a brand new shiny set of high performance cyber-eyes for cheap; but they come with ads. Just slap the right branding on them and the masses will eat that slop right up. The Apple iCyber II series X™!

palidine40

Overkillengine wrote: »

The Apple iCyber II series X™!

So... like AR goggles, bleh. It's here, its just not wetware yet.

Ads are the pimples of humanity, ick

ArmsForPeace84

"It's just like a videogame!"

"Hand me your phone. I'm uninstalling all the mobile games and buying you a Steam Deck."

dennis

Let's just hope this kind of thing only gets bigger:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/aug/11/can-cities-kick-ads-ban-urban-billboards

I get that it's a tough choice for developers and content producers, though. Advertising currently pays for a lot of "free" content, and always has.

yurnamehere

It isn't just the free stuff being paid for. How much more expensive would a train ticket be if the cars weren't blanketed in ads?

v2micca

So....did we lose? That has basically been my experience with pop culture for that past 15 years now.

Pyrian

Hard to believe that the tyke hasn't seen mid-show ads on YouTube. Maybe he's not allowed on YouTube.

dennis

yurnamehere wrote: »

It isn't just the free stuff being paid for. How much more expensive would a train ticket be if the cars weren't blanketed in ads?

That's one of those areas where the answer is "it depends". Could they have increased the ticket price and actually have kept the same amount of customers, or would they have lost them? Are the ad sales just additional profit that would otherwise have to be smaller, or is the service only breaking even and losing money. (If it's a passenger train in the US, it's probably losing money, but I don't want to make assumptions.)

V1m

yurnamehere wrote: »

It isn't just the free stuff being paid for. How much more expensive would a train ticket be if the cars weren't blanketed in ads?

That money didn't appear out of nowhere

Ringo

Pyrian wrote: »

Hard to believe that the tyke hasn't seen mid-show ads on YouTube. Maybe he's not allowed on YouTube.

Both Gabe and Tycho probably have premium ad-free accounts on all the streaming services that offer them. If you have the money it's not a problem going ad-free

dennis

Ringo wrote: »

Pyrian wrote: »

Hard to believe that the tyke hasn't seen mid-show ads on YouTube. Maybe he's not allowed on YouTube.

Both Gabe and Tycho probably have premium ad-free accounts on all the streaming services that offer them. If you have the money it's not a problem going ad-free

Believe it or not, you can have the money but still be reticent to fork it out. Usually comes about from growing up without the money. I speak from personal experience.

niallo

Or just not want to give it to shitty companies that take the piss. Even if, like me, you don't believe voting with your wallet actually works, you might still just dislike Google enough to stay on a free plan.

YoungFrey

dennis wrote: »

Ringo wrote: »

Pyrian wrote: »

Hard to believe that the tyke hasn't seen mid-show ads on YouTube. Maybe he's not allowed on YouTube.

Both Gabe and Tycho probably have premium ad-free accounts on all the streaming services that offer them. If you have the money it's not a problem going ad-free

Believe it or not, you can have the money but still be reticent to fork it out. Usually comes about from growing up without the money. I speak from personal experience.

Also, some services don't even have a completely ad-free version. Admittedly it's usually for other shows on the service, but Paramount+ only has "fewer ads". Prime too.

furlion

I pay for ad free everything. It is worth the cost to me. Of course i don't have every service so i don't actually pay that much a month.

Bursar

I think I need someone to explain the premise of this strip.

The fullscreen ads while watching a show are "just like a videogame" because it's like the experience of watching someone play a game on Twitch, right? Not the same as playing a game? I can't recall a non-mobile game that takes ad breaks. No, wait, MGS4 had parody ads between chapters.

I get that I'm officially An Old^TM. "I used to be with it," etc.

Hahnsoo1

Bursar wrote: »

I think I need someone to explain the premise of this strip.

The fullscreen ads while watching a show are "just like a videogame" because it's like the experience of watching someone play a game on Twitch, right? Not the same as playing a game? I can't recall a non-mobile game that takes ad breaks. No, wait, MGS4 had parody ads between chapters.

I get that I'm officially An Old^TM. "I used to be with it," etc.

Most of the popular games played by young people (or at least, played by Gabe's kids) are freemium games with ads.

YoungFrey

Bursar wrote: »

I think I need someone to explain the premise of this strip.

The fullscreen ads while watching a show are "just like a videogame" because it's like the experience of watching someone play a game on Twitch, right? Not the same as playing a game? I can't recall a non-mobile game that takes ad breaks. No, wait, MGS4 had parody ads between chapters.

I get that I'm officially An Old^TM. "I used to be with it," etc.

Maybe he meant just freemium mobile games? A kids is less likely to differentiate between those and "real games".

Vitari

My favorite is Peacock. I pay for Premium and still get ads. Even their “ad-free” Premium+ tier has some ads, because shut up and take it, filthy consumer.

Hahnsoo1

Mercade wrote: »

My favorite is Peacock. I pay for Premium and still get ads. Even their “ad-free” Premium+ tier has some ads, because shut up and take it, filthy consumer.

The worst is the pause ads. When you pause a show, it serves up an ad! What the fuck?p

YoungFrey

Hahnsoo1 wrote: »

Mercade wrote: »

My favorite is Peacock. I pay for Premium and still get ads. Even their “ad-free” Premium+ tier has some ads, because shut up and take it, filthy consumer.

The worst is the pause ads. When you pause a show, it serves up an ad! What the fuck?p

I was raised in house with minimal TV. One thing that makes me unreasonably angry is a TV I can't turn off or mute. If I ever encounter ads that can unmute my TV it will be a very dark day.

I think about the following Futurama joke a lot:

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

ArmsForPeace84

The one service I keep finding myself using with my TV is Pluto. Which is free with ad breaks, but these are kept short, they don't play games with the volume, and they feature local businesses.

This old-school version of the ad-supported model feels oddly like detente. Instead of the double-dip many services are going for. And while I could switch over to playing stuff off the media center, I'll often just put on the ST:TNG or MST3K channel instead, and see if they're showing a block of good episodes to half-watch, half-listen to while I'm doing something else.

hibryd7

When old man Time comes to finally kick the last of our generation into that deep, hard earth, "We didn't lose, but we didn't win" get's my vote as our collective epitaph.