Ads up, games down: The ugly, profitable details about Xbox Live advertising

[Twigg4075]

The ads don't bother me either but what does bother me is the fact that they are still charging us for the service. Xbox live is probably making so much money off ads and such that why do WE still have to pay. I guess the simple theory is...because they can. I don't think memberships are not going down so I guess we are fuct.

I mean I usually pay for $40 for the year but that could be a game.

That is exactly my point, yet somehow I get lambasted for it. Handle said the same thing. If they want to recoup their money from the Silver member and possibly entice them to Gold by littering their dash with ads, that seems fair to me.

The other problem I have, which again no one else seems to have, is how cluttered it is and how much more difficult it is to find content. I don't care what you mfers say it absolutely is tougher to find stuff. EVERY article I read involving a game developer that has partnered with MS to release an arcade game on Live says the same fucking thing. I just read an article in an old Game Informer the other day with the lead guy from Robot Entertainment. He and some of his team were part of Ensemble, the company that made Halo Wars before MS disbanded the studio. They also made several arcade games but separated themselves from MS and now make games for Steam, iOS and PSN because they got tired of their games getting lost in the clutter of Xbox Live. The guy won't flat out say it because he obviously doesn't want to burn all of his bridges with such a large company as MS but he says something to the fact that 'Microsoft's focus on the dashboard isn't really games anymore.' I'm sorry, but as a GAMER that is a problem for me. I buy consoles to play games.

[Twigg4075]

I may have clicked on two ads by accident, and all this does is frustrate me when trying to navigate the menus.

That can't be possible. The dash is very intuitive and easy to navigate...and BETTER WITH KINECT!

But yeah, I've done that too. Very frustrating. Not quite as frustrating as accidentally clicking on PS Home instead of the PS Store, but frustrating nonetheless.

[jms493]

its probably harder to find games on the xbox bc most people are using their xbox for things other than games. They are promoting movies, tv shows, and music. All things that are more popular than games...we are out numbered.

[killgod]

That is exactly my point, yet somehow I get lambasted for it. Handle said the same thing. If they want to recoup their money from the Silver member and possibly entice them to Gold by littering their dash with ads, that seems fair to me.

The other problem I have, which again no one else seems to have, is how cluttered it is and how much more difficult it is to find content. I don't care what you mfers say it absolutely is tougher to find stuff. EVERY article I read involving a game developer that has partnered with MS to release an arcade game on Live says the same fucking thing. I just read an article in an old Game Informer the other day with the lead guy from Robot Entertainment. He and some of his team were part of Ensemble, the company that made Halo Wars before MS disbanded the studio. They also made several arcade games but separated themselves from MS and now make games for Steam, iOS and PSN because they got tired of their games getting lost in the clutter of Xbox Live. The guy won't flat out say it because he obviously doesn't want to burn all of his bridges with such a large company as MS but he says something to the fact that 'Microsoft's focus on the dashboard isn't really games anymore.' I'm sorry, but as a GAMER that is a problem for me. I buy consoles to play games.

Sorry if you don't want to believe this truth, but if after an hour, at most, of navigating the XB Dashboard, which just about everyone in this thread has done 100 times over, you should be able to navigate without any issue. If you can't, you are a god damn neanderthal. I don't care if you're insulted, but as a grown educated adult and having used a plethora of using GUI's, you are fucking moronic to the Nth degree if you still struggle to get around the Dashboard.

How did you ever learn to use a computer? Surely Windows has a deeper degree of complexity than the bloody XB's Dashboard. I mean it's nothing more than "CLICK ON THE GIANT WORD" then "CLICK ON THE GIANT BOX"...."oh wait, a McDonalds ad, I"m LOST, WHERE AM I, HOW DO I PLAY GAMES ON THIS THING"


You don't get lambasted for taking issue with it's design, you get it for sounding like a partially retarded child who grew up in the wild without any clue of technology. Hell, using vBulletin is far more complicated than the XB Dashboard and you survive here just fine.


I'm really not trying to be an asshole to you, but that's all I've ever read in all of your whiny ass posts about getting lost using this bloody console. I just can't wrap my head around how stupid you sound sometimes.

We as human beings living in this technological driven world encounter a huge variety of GUI's. Bank machines, smartphones, PC's, consoles, handhelds, etc, etc, etc. We push some buttons, learn how it works and off we go. Yet for years, XBL has you stumped, yet it's nothing more than a screen of giant words and images to click on.


Sorry but I just had to let that one out.

[Twigg4075]

Sorry if you don't want to believe this truth, but if after an hour, at most, of navigating the XB Dashboard, which just about everyone in this thread has done 100 times over, you should be able to navigate without any issue. If you can't, you are a god damn neanderthal. I don't care if you're insulted, but as a grown educated adult and having used a plethora of using GUI's, you are fucking moronic to the Nth degree if you still struggle to get around the Dashboard.

How did you ever learn to use a computer? Surely Windows has a deeper degree of complexity than the bloody XB's Dashboard. I mean it's nothing more than "CLICK ON THE GIANT WORD" then "CLICK ON THE GIANT BOX"...."oh wait, a McDonalds ad, I"m LOST, WHERE AM I, HOW DO I PLAY GAMES ON THIS THING"


You don't get lambasted for taking issue with it's design, you get it for sounding like a partially retarded child who grew up in the wild without any clue of technology. Hell, using vBulletin is far more complicated than the XB Dashboard and you survive here just fine.


I'm really not trying to be an asshole to you, but that's all I've ever read in all of your whiny ass posts about getting lost using this bloody console. I just can't wrap my head around how stupid you sound sometimes.

We as human beings living in this technological driven world encounter a huge variety of GUI's. Bank machines, smartphones, PC's, consoles, handhelds, etc, etc, etc. We push some buttons, learn how it works and off we go. Yet for years, XBL has you stumped, yet it's nothing more than a screen of giant words and images to click on.


Sorry but I just had to let that one out.

It looks like you completely misunderstood what I said, and have been saying for who knows how long?

I'm not an idiot, I know how to naviagte the fucking dashboard. The fact of the matter is that finding content that you want isn't as simple as it was on previous versions of the dash. There were dedicated pages and bladed for XBLA, indie games, etc. Now, unless there is an actual ad for it on the games tab you have to manually search for it. Is that a problem for people like you and I? Not really. But what about the average gamer that doesn't spend time reading Joystiq or Kotaku or sposting on message boards? They have no idea that Orcs Must Die 2 (coincidentally one of the games that Robot Ent made and was complaining about it's release on Live) released so they will never play it. That's a fucking problem.

Especially since the latest update, I can go into the PSN Store and all of the new release are prominently feature. Or I could filter by tons of different categories and the games are right there for the choosing.

[jms493]

It looks like you completely misunderstood what I said, and have been saying for who knows how long?

I'm not an idiot, I know how to naviagte the fucking dashboard. The fact of the matter is that finding content that you want isn't as simple as it was on previous versions of the dash. There were dedicated pages and bladed for XBLA, indie games, etc. Now, unless there is an actual ad for it on the games tab you have to manually search for it. Is that a problem for people like you and I? Not really. But what about the average gamer that doesn't spend time reading Joystiq or Kotaku or sposting on message boards? They have no idea that Orcs Must Die 2 (coincidentally one of the games that Robot Ent made and was complaining about it's release on Live) released so they will never play it. That's a fucking problem.

Especially since the latest update, I can go into the PSN Store and all of the new release are prominently feature. Or I could filter by tons of different categories and the games are right there for the choosing.

when i search for new arcade games...

games>arcade>new releases...is that what you mean by "manually" searching?

[Twigg4075]

when i search for new arcade games...

games>arcade>new releases...is that what you mean by "manually" searching?

Ha, no. What if a game came out last week and it's not new anymore? And what if you're not a game nerd and you're just looking for a new game to check out that didn't happen to come out this week? You would never know most of these games existed.

[jms493]

Ha, no. What if a game came out last week and it's not new anymore? And what if you're not a game nerd and you're just looking for a new game to check out that didn't happen to come out this week? You would never know most of these games existed.

scroll right...its sorted by date released. Shows games from months ago.

Similar to this...http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Ga...Size=90&Page=1

[jms493]

Not knowing that a game released and where to look for new release are 2 totally different issues.

Issue 2 is a user error. Issue 1 is M$'s marketing fault.

[killgod]

Not really MS's marketing fault. XBLA games shouldn't be reliant on the Dashboard to market their stuff IMO. The last place I go to learn about games is the Dashboard.

Gametrailers, Giant Bomb, Kotaku, here...this is where you find game info, cause that's their purpose.


The Dashboard is MS's platform and I'd expect them to push the items that are to their benefit, that's common sense.

[MrBill]

I'm not a big fan on ads dominating the XBL dashboard, especially since I pay for the service. Of course, I remember when satellite radio started, they didn't have ads and used it as a selling point. Eventually the costs of the operation start to exceed the budget and you have to accept advertising to offset the delta. I don't like the ads but I see the reasoning behind why they are there...and I will still never click on one.

[jms493]

I have clicked on ads before...whats the big deal? When I see a new Forza car pack for sale on the front page, I click on it to see the cars are in it. It is not like clicking on an ad on your laptop, where you can get a pop up or malware.

[Garrett67]

How did you ever learn to use a computer? Surely Windows has a deeper degree of complexity than the bloody XB's Dashboard. I mean it's nothing more than "CLICK ON THE GIANT WORD" then "CLICK ON THE GIANT BOX"...."oh wait, a McDonalds ad, I"m LOST, WHERE AM I, HOW DO I PLAY GAMES ON THIS THING"

.

Can you tell me how to get snot off a keyboard?

[Twigg4075]

Not really MS's marketing fault. XBLA games shouldn't be reliant on the Dashboard to market their stuff IMO. The last place I go to learn about games is the Dashboard.

Gametrailers, Giant Bomb, Kotaku, here...this is where you find game info, cause that's their purpose.


The Dashboard is MS's platform and I'd expect them to push the items that are to their benefit, that's common sense.

What? MS gets a cut from every developer for every game that is on their platform. They don't have a responsibility to advertise the games? They also apparently take the most money from every platform in gaming.

Also, where did you get your stats about how much MS and Sony are losing? I know Sony is losing tons of money but the last I heard MS's Xbox division has been turning profits since three years ago and their Xbox Live division has been making money hand over first for quite some time.

Here's an excerpt from that interview in GI I was referring to. I see these interviews and articles constantly. It isn't just me that's complaining about this monkey fuck of a dashboard, it's developers and publishers. I think what they have to say about the service is pretty telling.

"You've released games for a variety of platforms. What are the strengths and weaknesses of those platforms?
XBLA, a few years ago, was an amazingly strong market. As a player, I loved games on XBLA. I downloaded verything that came acrossXBLA and played it. Some games like Castle Crashers did amazingly well. But that market is a lot different today. They are completely different these days with where XBLA has gone versus where Steam has gone. If you go to Steam's home page and Orcs Must Die happens to be on special, we can be standing tall next to Skyrim...That doesn't exist on Xbox Live at all-there's no way for our game to even show up anywhere within the same level of blades as Skyrim. If you power up your Xbox, games aren't going to be the thing you see there. If you want to discover a new XBLA game, you'd have to be pretty committed to that as a process because you're going to have to dig to find it. The sense of discovery is entorely different than it used to be on XBLA.

Is there anything Microsoft could do to make XBLA more palatable to you guys?
There are a lot of things I hope they address. The one way you can really stand out is you have to be featured in one of theor programs like Summer of Arcade. They do a great job of promoting that. If you fall out of that it's significantly harder. But I think the games have to come to the forefront and stand up with the rest of the content that's on the platform. Movies, Netflix, and everything else that's on the platform, games have been pushed to the side.

To me, the redesign of the dashboard exacerbated the problem.
Yeah, and everything we kept hearing was the new design would make things better, but I agree with you. In fact, it got worse. It's harder to find games now. "

Hmmm, interesting. But of course I'm sure the developer of Age of Empires, Halo Wars and several arcade games has no clue wtf he's talking about.

[killgod]

What? MS gets a cut from every developer for every game that is on their platform. They don't have a responsibility to advertise the games? They also apparently take the most money from every platform in gaming.

Also, where did you get your stats about how much MS and Sony are losing? I know Sony is losing tons of money but the last I heard MS's Xbox division has been turning profits since three years ago and their Xbox Live division has been making money hand over first for quite some time.

Here's an excerpt from that interview in GI I was referring to. I see these interviews and articles constantly. It isn't just me that's complaining about this monkey fuck of a dashboard, it's developers and publishers. I think what they have to say about the service is pretty telling.

"You've released games for a variety of platforms. What are the strengths and weaknesses of those platforms?
XBLA, a few years ago, was an amazingly strong market. As a player, I loved games on XBLA. I downloaded verything that came acrossXBLA and played it. Some games like Castle Crashers did amazingly well. But that market is a lot different today. They are completely different these days with where XBLA has gone versus where Steam has gone. If you go to Steam's home page and Orcs Must Die happens to be on special, we can be standing tall next to Skyrim...That doesn't exist on Xbox Live at all-there's no way for our game to even show up anywhere within the same level of blades as Skyrim. If you power up your Xbox, games aren't going to be the thing you see there. If you want to discover a new XBLA game, you'd have to be pretty committed to that as a process because you're going to have to dig to find it. The sense of discovery is entorely different than it used to be on XBLA.

Is there anything Microsoft could do to make XBLA more palatable to you guys?
There are a lot of things I hope they address. The one way you can really stand out is you have to be featured in one of theor programs like Summer of Arcade. They do a great job of promoting that. If you fall out of that it's significantly harder. But I think the games have to come to the forefront and stand up with the rest of the content that's on the platform. Movies, Netflix, and everything else that's on the platform, games have been pushed to the side.

To me, the redesign of the dashboard exacerbated the problem.
Yeah, and everything we kept hearing was the new design would make things better, but I agree with you. In fact, it got worse. It's harder to find games now. "

Hmmm, interesting. But of course I'm sure the developer of Age of Empires, Halo Wars and several arcade games has no clue wtf he's talking about.

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-in-10-years

TLDR - 3 Billion lost in a decade

That work for you? I could take any of the first 20 links that come up in a simple google search about it. They are turning profits now, but that's not offset the major losses incurred before...and this cycle is near the end.

I was saying it's not MS's responsibility to advertise every tom, dick and harry that's sold on their marketplace. They can choose what's best for them to sell. If they think Game A is going to outsell Game B by 10:1, why the fuck would they push aside Game A to advertise Game B?


Your quotes are coming from a dev, who clearly has bias towards the marketplace not showcasing his game. Oh noes, high value apps have pushed my game to the side?! WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M FUCKING SAYING. It's Microsoft's platform to sell what's going to generate THEM the most money. It's not about giving some pissed off dev spotlight to help him get his shit off the ground. His game isn't going to outsell these apps, yet you expect them to throw aside high value apps to get some crap ass $5 game off the ground?

Stop thinking like a whiny consumer and get some perspective.


For fuck's sake you don't think I'd prefer all those ad spots to be changed into specific game content that interests me? Sure. But does it make any practical business sense when you have valuable options such as Netflix? NO!





And again, why is the fucking developers of these games let off the hook by you? They aren't responsible to sell their own shit? Please. Market your shit through the regular gaming channels and people will get it. Done.