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The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Xbox Live! PSA regarding adverts.
Posts
Seriously, this is the dumbest thing I've ever witnessed throughout my tenure here.
Flagrant exageration my ass. It doesn't bother you that someone is making money on your head and bombarding you with unwanted content....
Well then I guess you're just special.
I don't think I have ever even noticed the ads on NXE after the first 2 or 3 times I used it, and I don't really care how many more are added as long as it doesn't really slow anything down. I just reflexively scroll up and over to my XBLA games (all I ever play anymore) the moment the dashboard loads. It'd be nice if I could boot straight to a game (can I?) and just cut out the rest, ads and otherwise, but eh. No big loss.
Your ranting over something so completely inconsequential reminds me of this comic. There's "principle" and then there's nerdrage.
Apparently not, otherwise I'd be posting my outrage on the internet.
I guess my angle is that adverts are everywhere, in both free and paid-for media. I was watching my girlfriend play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory last night, and we both laughed at the shameless Airwaves product placement. This is not a new situation, and it's not nearly as offensive or inconvenient as people make out.
Or maybe I am just special, with my ability to ignore adverts that I don't care about.
More time is needed to phone them and remove the ads than it is to view the ads which are sometimes relevant and useful. It's not about an emotional and irrational fear of people making money from me viewing their adspace, it's about my personal convenience. The cost of removal far outweighs the rewards of removal.
That said, I think you want some thanks for bringing the option to remove ads to our attention so thank you.
If ads make Live a more profitable service, they will either increase the value to the consumer, decrease the cost, or they will lose business to Sony. I don't think they're just dying to hand off business to their primary competitor, so ultimately Microsoft getting money from Frito-Lay through the 360 product line is going to add value to my experience in some way or another. Or else I'll choose to take my dollars elsewhere.
I just don't understand the reactionary, "OMG, this is a VIOLATION OF MY HUMAN RIGHTS" response so prevalent on these forums (and online in general).
What service do you provide us that we'd be interested in supporting you?
What service is microsoft providing you other then an ethernet port? Achievement points? woooo
Man, that's just stupid. Microsoft provides me with a matchmaking service, a centralized messaging/gaming hub, microtransaction purchases of things I want, access to netflix and a bunch of other stuff. You don't have to value it yourself, but I think it's worth the cost. You saying, "Well how about I just foist ads on you for no reason, lolololol" is completely removed from the concept of someone who is already buying into the service being interested/pleased to see a company explore new revenue models that don't take money out of the user's pocket.
I would expect more service if they are going to advertise to us. I could care less about the principal and more about what I'm going to be getting in exchange for being advertised to.
Lets suppose all that nonsense wasn't already built on existing architecture, which it is, it doesn't excuse the fact that in order to access their premium add free services, you have to pay. It especially does not excuse the fact that their business is already supposed to be lucrative.The nail in the coffin defeating your argument is the fact that their immediate competition is not resorting to such bullshit in order to provide its clientele with similar services.
Look. If I buy something that happens to have an Internet connection, I don't want to plug it in and have it decide that I might want a fucking big mac. I don't do it with my PC at home, with my PSP, with my DS, my VCR, my toaster....
Some of you have the uncanny ability to simply take having some corporate entity make money off you and ignore banners depicting marketing initiatives. I can't.
I know it doesn't do anything to diffuse people's arguments over principle, but I find it hard to get nerdraged when three years of XBL have cost me about $75 total.
Or you could go with a PS3 and not have to pay for it at all nor get annoying adverts.
'Cause they do look pretty stupid. All muckin' up the dashboard themes and everything.
But the PSN sucks.
So I should sell all of my gear and lose hundreds of dollars in the process to buy a PS3, different games and free online? Talk about sticking it to the man!
PSN online play also inherently has much less value in my eyes because most of my friends have 360s. You're trying to equate online play as equal to online play, but since we don't have cross-platform play, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. I might balk at the bar that has a cover charge, but if it's the place where my favorite band is playing, why wouldn't I pay it?
I too like to imagine the other person's position as a goofy strawman.
Maybe it's because I don't play online very much but I honestly can't tell the difference between the two services. The only advantage XBL has for me is that all my friends have Xboxes so I have to use it to play with them, but that's got nothing to do with the quality of either service.
I mean this in the least argumentative way possible, what are the significant differences between the two services?
http://www.audioentropy.com/
There's your D&D like attitute, attacking what you want out of it and strawmaning the rest.
Let me break it down for you in the simplest terms.
Ads suck for those who notice them
Ads suck because someone is making money other then you because you're viewing the ads
Ads suck because they make things estheticaly unpleasing
As a result Xbox Live! addopting ads sucks.
Competitors not addopting ads. Their services are free.
What comes next?
What you should be doing is if you don't like it, tell the company. Let them know. Things like this start small and they can snowball. Next thing you know, it's all over the place. Stick with the key points and argue those instead of trying to tear apart the trivial and you just might cut it when it comes to critical thinking.
This is why I started the thread. To let you know you have a potential out and because it's absurd.
That goes for everyone.
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
Ads are good because they are a way for a company to make money off of me while providing me with whatever service I'm interested in without taking more dollars out of my pocket. Same principle goes/went with published material (when it was a more successful business model): Rather than paying the full cost of the production of a magazine, I pay a very small amount and the companies that pay to advertise pay all the real costs.
The interesting difference here is that the ads are being introduced after (we assume) a successful business model was already adapted. Are the ads combating rising costs to provide the service, thus keeping them from having to raise subscription rates? Will the ads be used to feed back into new content development? Both of those are generally acceptable to me. I'd be less enthused if the ad revenue was being channeled into, let's say the development of the next console, because that's not something I'm invested in yet. However, I'm still happy to see Microsoft exploring new ways to make money, other than making me pay up. No matter what, being forced to have ads on screen is more acceptable to me than shelling out realbux. I'm paying with my time/attention span now. I just have to hope that I'm going to see a return on my time/attention span investment. I think Microsoft is a smart company and knows some potential customers already resent the subscription service, so I don't think they're just going to chuckle evilly and snort every dollar off a stripper's ass.
Yes, the voice chat across multiple games is a plus. Being able to see and respond to messages while in game without jumping out to the dashboard is also a bonus. There also is intergration with MSN messenger.
I suppose I should retract the PSN sucks statement. It does not suck, it is bare bones functional. If that is what you want, more power to you.
now, not owning a ps3 though, i was under the impression that playstation home was essentially a huge ad place? but they must not show (McDonald) ads for example. parathensess just because it was what i saw on the xbox mock up.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
That's actually a concept some companies are exploring hardcore. It's unlikely to happen with the xbox, obviously, but the fact of the matter is that the next xbox could be a whole lot cheaper if it turns out it's a great ad-delivery mechanism.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
All the stuff being shown is stuff revelant to my interests; new arcade games, release dates, upcoming games, special promotions. There's nothing wrong with stuff like this, most people don't trawl forums for game release dates.
The ads on live are immensely helpful. Maybe if PSN had something similar I'd know about and own more PSN games.
PSN = Wicker86 ________ Gamertag = Wicker86
You started off with an interesting OP but you've devolved into internet idiot. If you don't see the value in live or you find the 360 that distasteful, vote with your wallet and/or vote with your feet. You don't need to get lippy with those of us who don't agree with you - especially not in a passive agressive way that clearly ignores the things we do get with Live (even silver) like a friends list, online communication, a great infrastructure for downloadable demos and arcade games and (if you pay for it) multiplayer.
Prior to the NXE I was quite vocal about Dash ads - because they covered up a good chunk of themes I'd spent my left over points on and it pissed me off (a big ad squarely over the action in the Castle Crashers theme made it pointless).
The NXE does a great job of streamlining the ads into the service and they're easy to ignore. If the silverlight ads exist outside of that space (instead of just animating the existing blocks) I will be availing myself of the information you provided to have them removed. If they're as unintruisive as the current ads they'll be allowed to stay.
Why is this a horrible thing?