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Forums → Support Forum → Here's why you shouldn't block ads and how to deal with ads

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dorukayhan
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dorukayhan
1,318 posts
Bard

nowadays many people (where many of them use adblockers) complain about "the site sucking at stuff because of ads". now, guys, the thing is...

the thing is IT DOESN'T.

so i decided to throroughly explain why u shouldn't use an adblocker, and how to deal with ads if u can't stand them nor u want to buy afg+ - in a question-answer format.

q: care about capitalization rules, u make ur guide harder to read by breaking them
A: Fine. I'll comply with them.

Q: What could possibly go wrong if I block ads?
A: By showing those ads to you and me and every person who visits AG (except for users with AFG+ subscription), the staff (they're the admins that you occasionally see around the site) makes the money which they need for:

  • Financing the bandwidth (I hope you don't think network subscriptions are free in a place like the US)
  • Profit (they'll simply shut the website down if they operate on loss)
  • Awarded contests (sometimes they make contests where you win money if you beat X competitors in a specific game)
  • Advertising this site
  • Many other stuff which I'll never know as an ordinary user

Here comes the tricky part. The ads on the site yield the staff only $88480 per year (scroll down on that page to see the ad revenue), which is definitely insufficent to run a gaming site that has awesome features and such a large user base (almost 2.5 million accounts). This forced them to add every MMO in sight to the site in a hope to compensate the low ad revenue, whether they're good or bad - and unfortunately a majority of them are considered bad. By blocking ads, you make the situation even worse.

Q: Why the site gets so glitchy with an adblocker?
A: Simple. The site is screaming that the adblocker messes up with everything.

Q: This is MY computer. I choose if I'll see ads or not.
A: It can be your computer, but this site is NOT your site. Go ahead and make your own site if you want to choose whether you'll see ads or not.

Q: You're not an admin, therefore you're not in the staff, why do you care about this?
A: Because I want to. I'm sick as hell of the complaints about ads.

Now, assuming you turned off your adblocker-

Q: I didn't.

A:

The brutal truth is: no ads = no more free games.

I removed my adblocker (late confession: I was blocking ads before seeing that) when I saw this after getting banned for talking about adblockers. Listen, I got banned for talking about adblockers. THE ADMINS EVENTUALLY GOT [profanity]ING DESPERATE ABOUT ADBLOCKERS, JUST TURN IT OFF!

Now, assuming you turned off your adblocker, here's how to deal with ads if you can't stand them:

Q: The ads are REALLY annoying.
A: It's the fault of Google and CPMStar. They have total control on the ad frames, and they don't care about what comes up in them.

Q: Can't admins just communicate these two companies and talk about this?
A: Unfortunately they (not the admins) seem to be unresponsive

Q: What's the background audio that says things like "We dropped the prices by X%"?
A: There's an ad frame that sometimes brings up looping ads with audio, controlled by Google. It looks like this (note that it didn't load on me this time, I don't know why):

http://i.imgur.com/3F9qKa6.png?2

It'll pause and shut up if you simply click on it.

Q: Animated ads came up on the sides, and they're causing horrible lag. What should I do?
A: Just press F5. Starting from the left-hand side, it's the 6th button on the topmost row on your keyboard.

Q: My computer is lagging because of ads, regardless of if there are animated ads or not.
A: There are multiple solutions of this:

  • Modern browsers create a different system process for each tab AND window. Close the tabs that you don't use.
  • WebKit (it's the HTML rendering engine of Chrome) uses quite a lot of resources. If the computer goes low on CPU/RAM when you use it, try a different browser (or you can change the rendering engine on Lunascape and Avant).
  • Close background apps, especially those that run on Java.

Q: Is there a way to make ads invisible without blocking them so that I can focus on the game?
A: Zoom in.

Q: What if I buy AFG+?
A: You get rid of ALL ads for a limited time and get some extra perks (e.g full screen mode for all games).

Q: I closed background tabs/apps and used AG on a different browser, yet the games are still laggy. Is there another solution?
A: You can buy AFG+. One ad-free year for $20 seems bargain.

Q: It looks like a ripoff!
A: Well then, there's only one risky solution which I don't really want to say:

  • 1) Before opening a game, turn the adblocker on.
  • 2) Turn it back off when the page loads.
  • 3) Click each ad several times. When you click ads, AG receives some extra money which might (never be sure about this) compensate the loss that comes from the adblocker.

I hope all this stuff can make you understand why everyone is telling those with adblockers to stop blocking ads.

  • 9 Replies
TiSe88
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TiSe88
432 posts
King

I like your post very much. It's well written and covers everything on that topic. And it's doing that without insulting anyone or having an aggressive tone.

But there are some things I'd like to mention:

Q: Animated ads came up, and they're causing horrible lag. What should I do?
A: Just press F5. Starting from the left-hand side, it's the 6th button on the topmost row on your keyboard

So I have to watch the same ad before the game starts again and again until I'm lucky... That can't be a long-term solution. For me that's just too much time lost on a senseless thing.

1) Before opening a game, turn the adblocker on.
2) Turn it back off when the page loads.
3) Click each ad several times. When you click ads, AG receives some extra money which might (never be sure about this) compensate the loss that comes from the adblocker.

That's actually a good idea and the solution I use at the moment.

Another negative point about too many ads is the attraction of new users. If it was my first visit to this site and I saw that many ads and experienced massive lag in-game, I'd never come back to this site again. So many potential new users are lost due to too many ads. You have to find a good balance between attracting new customers by not overloading the site with ads and having enough ads to finance it.

dorukayhan
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dorukayhan
1,318 posts
Bard

So I have to watch the same ad before the game starts again and again until I'm lucky... That can't be a long-term solution. For me that's just too much time lost on a senseless thing.

clarifying: i talked about the side ads on that q-a *edits*

TiSe88
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TiSe88
432 posts
King

@doqck I meant the video ad in the game window even before the game starts. Sometimes they aren't even skipable. So it's watching the same 30 second ad everytime you press F5

dorukayhan
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dorukayhan
1,318 posts
Bard

laggy side ads seem to be rare though, i saw them only a couple of times

TiSe88
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TiSe88
432 posts
King

It also depends on the game you play (and the resources said game needs). Strike Force Heroes 3 for example is never lag-free for me if ads are turned on

Doombreed
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Doombreed
7,022 posts
Templar

Well, I was never against ads and so I have to say, nice job for summing it all up. Thanks XD

Unfortunately there have been some unskippable ads that seem to be popping up (and to make matters worse, they last 30 - 45 seconds and start RIGHT AFTER the game has finished loading...it's like, "oh you waited patiently for the game to load so you can play? How about I just throw a massive ad with annoying sounds that lasts a full 45 seconds interval and cannot be skipped?&quot which really makes me want to punch something real fast and real hard

Now I also happen to be terribly uninformed and uneducated when it comes to these matters so I have no idea what to do. I read that some obstructive or annoying ads can be reported to the admins and they can remove them but I have no idea how to get the ad URL or anything. Any idea how is this done and what types of annoying ads can be removed?

FishPreferred
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FishPreferred
3,171 posts
Duke

Many other stuff which I'll never know as an ordinary user
Paying employee wages, paying game devs for the rights to host their games, upgrading the site and its servers, taxes and regular office expenses.

The ads on the site yield the staff only $88480 per year [...]
I'm fairly certain that estimate assumes the advertisers pay AG based on the activity of all users, which obviously is not the case.

I meant the video ad in the game window even before the game starts. Sometimes they aren't even skipable. So it's watching the same 30 second ad everytime you press F5
Why wait for the video to finish if you're going to refresh anyway? The side ads should load long before then.

Now I also happen to be terribly uninformed and uneducated when it comes to these matters so I have no idea what to do. I read that some obstructive or annoying ads can be reported to the admins and they can remove them but I have no idea how to get the ad URL or anything. Any idea how is this done and what types of annoying ads can be removed?
They usually ask for a screenshot of the ad in question.
akshobhya
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akshobhya
5,063 posts
Justiciar

Hey, well written post. You can also include the extra benefits of subscribing to AFG+ right?

Patrick2011
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Patrick2011
12,319 posts
Templar

You can also include the extra benefits of subscribing to AFG+ right?

In case @doqck doesn't know of those benefits, they are:

  • Access to an exclusive forum.
  • Lights out and full screen modes on game pages.
  • Access to AFG+ Betas, though there hasn't been any for a while.
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