Topic: "BECOME A MEMBER" Ads

C'mon. I go to visit the site this morning and there are SEVEN of these "BECOME A MEMBER" banners/ads taking up the home page alone. A bit excessive don't you think? One or two? Okay. But SEVEN of them on a single page? And do you honestly think having a "disable ad-blocker" disclaimer is going to help? I get you want people to pay, but at the same time having so many of them littering up the place is quite excessive, and if anything, is turning people off from giving anyone a penny. I'm sure many others feel similar in that ads make me NOT want to subscribe and just block those ads with an ad-blocker. Instead of saying "Pay us and see no ads!!!" How about "Pay us and see all these extra cool features you'll have access to.... AND no ads!!!".

@Almost_Ghostly we launched our supporter programme last year for people who didn't want to view ads.

We have no intention to paywall our content or have extra features, however, we do feel that it's fair to expect readers to either view adverts OR have an active subscription to view ad-free.

Both of those options help fund our website and ultimately pay our staff and freelance authors. Simply put, anyone viewing the site using an adblocker doesn't help fund the website.

They are (were) a bit OTT

@sanderson72 there was an initial bug that meant a bunch got shown together (which is now fixed). There is another update going live tomorrow that should space them out a little more.

@antdickens The point is that it's too many to the point of being overbearing, or OTT as another user stated. There's the giant one on top, a large one on the top right, and then SIX MORE slightly smaller ones underneath it. We get it. "BECOME A SUPPORTER!!! AD FREE!!!" We see it very loudly and clearly. Imo there's no need for so many of them. You'd probably get more subs if it wasn't being shoved so heavily right in our faces.

@Almost_Ghostly we can certainly reduce them down a little in frequency but ultimately what I said before still stands. I’m loathed for us to start blocking people that are using adblockers but at the moment it’s not a fair trade. We can’t continue to do what we do if we’re not being paid for our work.

@Almost_Ghostly - Browser settings, disable cookies and javascript and enjoy ad free internet without even needing adblock. You'll need to enable them again to be able to post here but for read only it works just fine. If you want more customised control over what you see, install the noscript browser extension.

@antdickens I was unaware that adblockers affect the site's ad revenue. I've turned off my adblocker for the site because I am on the site nearly daily. Thanks for all that you and everyone are putting into the site for our PlayStation and gaming news!

@Herculean thanks for the kind words, it's been a hugely difficult year for games media and we're not alone in that. Hopefully next year things pick up a bit.

@SillyBoyJudas thanks for your support and kind words!

@antdickens Now that I have ads on all the time, my cache is filling up so fast that after a few days, I can't access this site anymore. I have to clear the cache every few days in order for this site to work. Is there another solution for this?

@LtSarge I'm not sure what you mean, a cache being full shouldn't mean you can't visit a site. Cache's are designed to be full and self delete things when more space is required. Do you have any more information as to why you can't visit the site?

@antdickens So let me describe the process. This issue has never happened to me before I started turning on ads, so it has to be because of that reason. This happens haphazardly and has happened three times for the past week or so. I reload the site and it just doesn't load. It sits still at a white page. At first I thought the site was down, but Pure Xbox worked for me. So I decided to clear the cache/cookies for Push Square and then it starts working again. I use a Mac and Firefox if that is any help.

This goes to show why listening is a problem.

@LtSarge very strange, I've never had that kind of problem myself, or even heard of anyone having that as a problem — and that's after 20 years of web development. I would check the cache settings within Firefox itself (there might be an option to automatically clear it on shutdown), otherwise I'm stumped!