Publisher?s Club

[Virgil]

You have to understand one of the main gripes coming from the Runners base right now; LRR offered their videos in high resolution video for a long time before the migration over to the Escapist ...

While that's fair, the difference is that LRR was doing all their video creation at their own expense and using free hosting services to put them on the internet. On the other hand, we pay our video creators and writers, including LRR. We have full-time content writers, editors, artists, and programmers working on the site, in addition to all the freelancers we publish. And the high quality videos are 3-5 times larger for us to serve, without the backing of a mega-corporation to paying for our bandwidth.

All of this costs money, but we think it's worth it, and we think it shows in all the original content we produce. For those people that think it's worth it too, this is an option to get all those things that the reality of being an ad-based business hasn't allowed us to do in the past.

I do see where you're coming from, and they have every right to be annoyed about it, but hopefully they can take some solace in the fact that LRR has more resources now.

Or, if someone knows a megacorp that wants to buy us and take care of all our expenses, have them contact Alex.

 

[Graham_LRR]

I'd just like to say to The Escapist staff in this thread that not every member of our fanbase speaks for all members of our fanbase, and that our fanbase is certainly not "raging".

This sounds pretty interesting. HQ video is sweet!

 

[Virgil]

Suggestion: It would be nice to access the videos from the iPhone's Opera Mini browser. It kicks safari's ass in terms of speed, so it's all I'm going to be using anyway...

I'll see if I can convince one of our iPhone-using staff to get the Opera browser so we can see if we can make it work.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

OMFG! You've given me so much free entertainment I'd be happy to join up (I still want the stuff though).

Oh and can you change your title multiple times or just a couple like your username?

 

[Eudaemonian]

I'd just like to say to The Escapist staff in this thread that not every member of our fanbase speaks for all members of our fanbase, and that our fanbase is certainly not "raging".

This sounds pretty interesting. HQ video is sweet!

Cue conspiracy theorists saying that Graham has been coopted or brainwashed!

Seriously, I'm glad one of you guys came in to say something like this. I never presume that one random member can speak for a group as large and diverse as the LRR fanbase. I'm a member of that group and people whining certainly don't speak for me.

 

[TylerBaumbarger]

Here's another quick thought.

All those who do join will no longer see the ads. Those offering the ads to the Escapist will be less willing to be paying as much if half as many people are seeing them.

This seems to be adverse to the premium plan.

So, the lost revenue will need to be made up somehow.

Which will likely mean either more ads for those of us choosing not to join the premium group. Or more content for the premium members, to try to draw more subscribers. At that point it could begin to look like a pay site.

That's not how ad sale deliveries work unless it's a total site buyout. A backend system tracks which ads are delivered for each page viewed and records how many times that ad has been shown. Since the sale was for how many impressions/views/kittens/whatever, it stops showing that ad once it reaches the number that was contracted for.

The loss of potential inventory due to a subscription service is replaced by the revenue from the subscription itself.

Not quite similar to Project Wonderful's setup. Gotcha.

But there is still a greater potential to profit from ads. If you make even 3 cents per view on any of your ads, you are taking a loss through the subscription content. Plus, how many people are going for early adoption? Plus previous content providers. And you have multiple ads per page, plus background shifts.

I'm not so narcissistic that I think my opinion will make a difference, well I am but stick with me here, the potential for making money off of subscriptions based on how many people join has a much lower cap than the potential for making money off of ads. 5000 people joining through the whole $20 subscription will only bring in $100k a year, while those same 5000 viewing pages, watching preroll ads, clicking to find out more about a game would provide more revenue. The base price might be based off of a certain statistic you've figured out. But I've seen each ZP at least twice, I got my ex into Unforgotten Realms when it was on here, so I sometimes watch videos multiple times. Multiplying what would be assumed of a viewer. There are people here who live on the F5 key when new videos are coming out. So, your view count can be rather inflated, and with that view count dropping, ads not rolling, the revenue is lost.

A premium member viewing the same video 4 times will be making you less money than a regular member watching once.

This is largely speculative, because I don't know the exact pricing of ads on the site. How much it costs per view, click, etc. But if any page makes 3 cents, you are at a loss.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I've never been on Amazon.com before, why do I have to join that to subscribe for the premuim membership thing?

I think it's mainly for safety measures and the like.

It doesn't take a long time at all to become a member.

 

[MasterGunner]

I'm meh over this. IMO, it's asking too much in return for too little (though if people simply don't purchase it, then that would likely change). I can even get over the fact that it's charging for some things that used to be free (like LRR vids, but I was around for years before those were in HD, so it doesn't really bug me), since it's a site-wide thing, and to pick-and-choose which series get features for free and which you have to pay for would just be shooting yourself in the foot.

What gets me though, is that even if I wanted to purchase this, I am incapable of doing so. I lack a credit card (or the ability to obtain one, at least without paying out a few hundred dollars to get a secured or pre-paid one), which means I'm shit out of luck as far as I'm concerned. Get paypal support in there, then I'll see it as a fully neutral move. When you're making it harder or impossible for people who do want to support you to do so, then I see this as being firmly on the negative side, even if I personally don't care.

 

[Delusibeta]

Question which must be answered: Will the premium features be affected if my account gets suspended/banned/deleted?

 

[sneakypenguin]

Yeah finally android support for video. My HTC has flash but the escapist has some funky video so it never worked.

 

[Ed.]

The LRR videos in HD is the annoying thing why cant they be hosted the same way they always where on someone else's bandwidth with an extra add for the host?
I don't care about that enough to properly rage about it I fully understand that people would and I don't blame them.

wonder if we will see any rage quits would be a shame also for add free stuff don't most people use add-block plus these days anyway?

 

[Virgil]

I've never been on Amazon.com before, why do I have to join that to subscribe for the premuim membership thing?

Because we don't want your credit card info, and Amazon is a trustworthy major retailer who happens to offer a nice third-party payment system. The other option was PayPal, but we don't like using them for various reasons.

 

[Myan]

Snip

Another snip

Similar to Project Wonderful's setup. Gotcha.

But there is still a greater potential to profit from ads. If you make even 3 cents per view on any of your ads, you are taking a loss through the subscription content. Plus, how many people are going for early adoption? Plus previous content providers. And you have multiple ads per page, plus background shifts.

I'm not so narcissistic that I think my opinion will make a difference, well I am but stick with me here, the potential for making money off of subscriptions based on how many people join has a much lower cap than the potential for making money off of ads. 5000 people joining through the whole $20 subscription will only bring in $100k a year, while those same 5000 viewing pages, watching preroll ads, clicking to find out more about a game would provide more revenue. The base price might be based off of a certain statistic you've figured out. But I've seen each ZP at least twice, I got my ex into Unforgotten Realms when it was on here, so I sometimes watch videos multiple times. Multiplying what would be assumed of a viewer. There are people here who live on the F5 key when new videos are coming out. So, your view count can be rather inflated, and with that view count dropping, ads not rolling, the revenue is lost.

A premium member viewing the same video 4 times will be making you less money than a regular member watching once.

This is largely speculative, because I don't know the exact pricing of ads on the site. How much it costs per view, click, etc. But if any page makes 3 cents, you are at a loss.

While your argument is mostly correct in theory, there is no site on the internet today, not even the IGNs of the world, that have a 100% fill rate all of the time. Meaning, 100% of the ad inventory is always sold. Though, I must admit, it'd sure be nice to have that "problem" here at The Escapist. Even if it does make my life rather hellish.

 

[Virgil]

Yeah finally android support for video. My HTC has flash but the escapist has some funky video so it never worked.

It's H.264 video. Unfortunately Adobe has never updated the mobile version of Flash to allow that codec - hopefully coming soon. But even once that gets fixed, the way we have it running now will be much nicer on mobile devices instead of using Flash.

 

[Tharticus]

I'm meh over this idea. Yes, the ads slow my dinosaur PC a lot but I think I'll pass up the offer since it's merely temporary for at least a year till you're done.

Question though if this changes my mind: Do you still retain the benefits IE: Custom Username Title or the badge for that matter?

 

[Lord_Panzer]

Your lack of Interac payment options disturbs me.

 

[Eudaemonian]

I'm meh over this idea. Yes, the ads slow my dinosaur PC a lot but I think I'll pass up the offer since it's merely temporary for at least a year till you're done.

Question though if this changes my mind: Do you still retain the benefits IE: Custom Username Title or the badge for that matter?

Man, this gets asked a lot. People really love badges and usertitles that much? Incomprehensible to me, but good that they were included I guess. If I were making a bundle I never would have thought that such tiny things would attract people. I'm glad I wasn't making the bundle.