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Do you think Firefox is in part to blame for lower MMO populations?
darkheart84
Member UncommonPosts: 84
Looking back on it, what got me initially hooked on any game I played when I was younger was a nice-looking ad I had encountered on some unrelated website. It led me to investigate it, read about it and then join it if it seemed nice. When I joined said game, free or subscribtion-based, it usually had a decent population of other people who had encountered it in such a way as well.
Thing is, ever since I downloaded adblock on firefox (you know, to remove those youtube video ads like everyone else)...well I obviously haven't seen any more ads. That got me thinking, how can any game be successful when they are limited in their advertising? These days advertising only goes as far as some youtube video, and once that video loses its front page it cuts off the population that didn't see it. Considering the amount of people who use firefox these days, and people who have downloaded adblock to get rid of the youtube annoyance, advertising is pretty much invisible for any new person that uses the ff browser. Even if they create some facebook page they can't expect people to find said page unless they hear about it from someone else.
You could say "if it was popular or good enough people would spread it", but I think we all know gamers aren't very social people.
I am sure everyone knows what I am talking about when I say that new games these days just don't garner any new players. Once you get the starting batch from youtube/mmorpg sites and those leave, it pretty much goes downhill. I am not saying it is the major reason for lower population of MMO players, but wouldn't you agree that it has contributed to the decay?
Comments
I don't agree with your opinion at all. I have never chosen to play a game because I saw a random ad off of some "unrelated website." I think that people come to games in various ways and I would refute your claim that most other gamers find games in this convoluted way.
Gaming companies advertise in many different mediums, from online video blips on Youtube or whatever video format, to full page spreads in Technology or gamer magazines, to ads on television. For you to say that if people have adblock up they will never see gaming ads is ridiculous.
Lots of games get spread by word of mouth, I think you are stamping a huge and outdated stereotype on gamers by saying, "I think we all know gamers aren't very social people." Gamers, like any person out there are very different people, we come from different backgrounds, have different jobs, social lives, etc - so to say that we are all "not very social" is insulting.
Finally, you said that games these days don't garner any new players, where are you getting your info? I would like to see some statisical proof of this because in my experience even older games are continually getting new and interested players. Populations of MMO's today are lower than 6 years ago undoubtedly because there are so many options! You have a certain amount of the population that plays MMO's regularly and with all of the new MMO's coming out so often people are bound to move about a bit to try whats out there.
Regarding Firefox, while I use Firefox, Chrome and IE have ad-blockers too.
The same could be said about any browser. I guess you could say the ads have gotten so annoying (I'm looking at you flashing/blinking asian game ad) and that has caused people to block ads, reducing the effectiveness of a messaging channel, but then any marketing dept with half a collective brain that sees a drop in one channel will divert resources to the channels offering better exposure.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Honestly I could not relate to your post. Can't say I've ever played a MMORPG based on advertising, always been through word of mouth or articles I've read about it. Even my first two MMO's, EQ1 and Lineage 1 were because I was at Gamestop and they had a couple of free demo disks at the counter.
I don't use any adblocking software and am don't really have a problem with ads on the internet. (stay away from those pron sites, they're bad) While I'm not terribly social, I do spread the word on MMO's that I'm playing and others do the same. I don't see this anti-social behavior in any big way really.
New MMO titles launch to much greater fanfare than they ever did in the past, and garner big box sales numbers at launch. True, they don't hold high sub numbers over the long haul, but I'm starting to believe the number of long term MMO players is a much smaller subset of the overall market, and it is spread pretty thin between many titles.
So no, I don't really think adblock or Firefox have reduced the number of people playing MMORPG's, quite the opposite I think more people than ever cross over into MMORPG space.
Unfortunately.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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hehe.
i do the same.
I dont think adblock makes much of a difference.
Here is what is an enormous difference maker:
The lack of boxes on shelves.
There are two big factors for this, the first is the console popularity monopolizing shelf space and the other is the swtich to digital downloads.
Boxes definitely sold games, and they are a thing of the past.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
To view a website that you gain something from, be it enjoyment, discussion or whatever and then deny them revenue is just sad.
im OK with advertizers supporting the sites i use frequently but when they piss me off then im sorry for them. I started using AdBlock (on both firefox and chrome) less than a week ago because i got tired of Adds popping up right on top of the articles im reading. It only happens on this website but with any browser. So.... im sorry but articles are there for our reading pleasure and to share opinions with the community, if the ads block the article, i block the ad.
Its frustrating when you cant read a full paragraph because an ad happened to pop out of place and block the article.
EDIT: i uploaded a picture to my mmorpg.com images as proof.
lower mmo population?
are you on drugs???
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I gotta disagree. Every MMO I've played has either been something I knew about via word of mouth (early days, UO, EQ, DAOC) or from MMO community sites like this one (Rift, Neverwinter, DDO). I feel like the MMOs I've never heard of that happen to trick me with a flashy ad on some random site usually gargle balls (Wizardy, Wizard101).
I think the lower population might be more easily attributed to there being a thousand new "MMOs" coming out each month.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
So, to solve your problem, turn your ad blocker off, then you can get all those annoying non-related ads that you love so much...
and if you think those ads are non-related, well, let me introduce you to cookies that track everything you do, so if you look up "how to shave your nuts" on Google, when you bounce over to Facebook, you will see suggested pages on Norelco razors and Planter's peanuts...
Nothing you do on the interent now is unrelated...
If pop-up ads really affected game population , Evony would have been bigger than WoW.
/thread
Ads that force a popup window, and ads that start streaming music/video without permission: F*** those.
No, I don't think online ads have a huge impact on if I will play a game or not. I may try out a game based on any number of various factors, but the game must stand on it's own merit if I'm to keep playing it. No amount of advertising can fix that part.
No I don't. First off as we've become a more connected society, internet, televison, etc, the general populace seems less and and less inclined to be force fed advertising. You can see this in the growing popularity of online add blockers, and subscription radio and televison services where advertisements can be completely removed. I feel this trend has had little imact on MMO populations as the real culprit there is a major oversaturation of the market. MMO, and really online gamers in general, have a huge number of choices these days, most of them free, so are spread much thinner between multiple games, than a few years ago.
If you dont do stupid things while youre young, youll have nothing to smile about when youre old.