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[johnnyrico]

Just check the major's blog, he is constantly trying to justify it in the comments.

People pay 50$ a year for a service.
It's just not decent to shove advertisements down paying people's throats.
This is the asshattery that happened to cable TV all over again.
When cable was new, people got it because there were way fewer to no ads at all, the cable companies paid the tv channels, thus generating the income.

The advertisements are just another display of utter greed.
Steam barely has advertisements, the Xbox live gold members shouldn't have to stomach any advertisements at all!

Like I said, it's just not decent to try and make people who paid for a service buy more products.
Especially when you already charge for extra content which is free on other platforms (frak, just check the DLC's for the PC)

When will Microsoft learn to put the customer first, not Steve Ballmer's wallet??

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE

I need to let you know that you don't need to worry about a huge influx of ads across the dashboard.

 Because it's already there. Case in point...

QUOTE(D3m0n1k @ Jul 2 2009, 05:08 AM)

The most annoying thing I have seen are the ads in EA sports games.
Tiger Woods 09...
I start the game, load up, tee off, and then I get a gamefly ad across my screen.
WHY?

$50 for Live, $60 for the game....so I paid for ads?
Lame.
I am going to move to the PS3 exclusively if this happens.

 Although I believe an EA game would still have the in-game ads on either platform, I know to have all the 'ads' in the form of an RSS feed, so it's not cluttering at all (IMO).

[barman1176]

I don't care what anyone says, if you are paying for a service, you should not have to be subjected to watching intrusive ads while using it. Full stop, end of story, case closed.

It's that simple, really.

Of course, "knowing" their "target demographic", (dumbass kids, right?) they figure if they sneak 'em in a little bit at a time that nobody will care. Most probably don't. This is how service degrades, and is a HUGE reason why Transformers and other garbage movies are merely infomercials and excuses to place products within.

OMG I must have the bumblebee car! It just makes me ill.

To sum it up: If you condone it, you are part of the problem. Strive to be better than corporations want you to be, and expect *gasp* more for your money.

[phunk]

ms are taking the fucking piss now.
im sick of shelling out money to these bastards (had to pay for 3 replacment consoles so far), and now they want us to pay 50 bones a year to watch ads???
i can seriously see the live subscription base shrinking if they start hammering us for wanky ads that no-one is even remotely interested in. twunts.

[D3m0n1k]

QUOTE(phunk @ Jul 2 2009, 05:51 PM)

ms are taking the fucking piss now.
im sick of shelling out money to these bastards (had to pay for 3 replacment consoles so far), and now they want us to pay 50 bones a year to watch ads???
i can seriously see the live subscription base shrinking if they start hammering us for wanky ads that no-one is even remotely interested in. twunts.

No sh*t!!!!
I forgot in my long winded rant about the 4 consoles I had to replace plus the one I just got back Monday!!!!
Looks like I should be sending Microsoft ads from myself about faulty hardware and wasted money!!!!
I got a 5th one here with a e74 error....
sent it in...
right out of the box, e74 is gone and now it is rrod...same day!!!!

WOW!

So let me ask Major nelson...how will silverlight enhance my gaming on those 5 consoles?
yeah, though so.

[funksoulbrother]

The pre-NXE dashboard had banner ads on most of the blades. Were you lot all boycotting Xbox Live back then or something? I don't want to see ads on the dashboard, but people are kicking up a huge fuss about what's a minor issue, unless you spend most of your time staring at the dash instead of playing games that is. I pay for cable TV, but the TV shows still have ad breaks, so the argument that "I pay so I shouldn't get ads" doesn't really hold a lot of weight.

I've got a PS3 as well as a 360 and in no way does PSN come close to Xbox Live. It's missing a lot of features (cross-game chat, voice messaging, proper invites/join system for all games etc.), you rarely get a demo for downloadable games, and it's way behind in terms of content overall. A lot of the recent content, such as Map Pack 2 for COD:WAW and Big Surf Island for Burnout Paradise is more expensive on PSN as well. I pay £28 for 12 months of Live which is about 54 pence a week. Is it that much of a big deal? You can't even get a can of Coke for that these days. I know in the US you can get even cheaper deals than that on pre-paid cards, so there's no reason to pay the full asking price. Also, I would imagine that there is a large percentage of users here that don't even pay for their games, so they really have no room to talk.

[Samael417]

Yeah, The Head & Shoulders Shampoo ad on Inside Xbox about a month ago for 2 weeks was really game related...

just like everyone else has been saying, I'll say it too - like there aren't enough ad's already.

The car ads piss me off the most. I don't give a fuck about a free honda or kia theme. Like it's really going to make my dashboard look any better - like I can SEE it anyway.

[sabbath_dude]

QUOTE(funksoulbrother @ Jul 2 2009, 07:20 PM)

The pre-NXE dashboard had banner ads on most of the blades. Were you lot all boycotting Xbox Live back then or something? I don't want to see ads on the dashboard, but people are kicking up a huge fuss about what's a minor issue, unless you spend most of your time staring at the dash instead of playing games that is. I pay for cable TV, but the TV shows still have ad breaks, so the argument that "I pay so I shouldn't get ads" doesn't really hold a lot of weight.

People complained about advertising pre-NXE too (I know I grumbled about it). The reason it wasn't complained about as much was because it was relatively unobtrusive and there were a lot fewer of them. The bottom line is the whole reason for NXE and the dashboard redesign was so Microsoft could gain extra ad space and appeal to a larger non hardcore gaming audience. In your face ads for crap you have no interest in are only going to become more and more common.

But it really doesn't matter if ads are unobtrusive or not. For paying gold subscribers they simply shouldn't be there. If some people don't mind them then that's fine but there should at least be an opt out setting. It's bad enough we don't get to choose our default startup channel and are forced to Spotlight instead of My Xbox.

People keep using cable TV as an example for why ads should be ok for paying subscribers. But then if that's the case then for the £40 a year Live sub shouldn't you be getting to play games for free since the dashboard contains the advertisements?.

[trentdadi]

As long as the ads to not intrude on my gaming habits I am happy, and so far they haven't.  I dont even see them unless I am looking for them.  Most of the ads I do come across actually have some sort of contest dealing with them or a free game pic to dl to enter myself into a contest.  Not sure what the problem is.  

Ads on something that is PPV is different because you are actually forced to sit there and watch them while waiting for your movie or whatever to come on.

I spent more time typing this out then I have spent looking at ads over the past year, not sure what that tells you...  Should spend less time complaining and more time gaming maybe?

[hawkeye06]

Everybody thinks live is $50... I have only paid 29.99 ever since I started for the last 3 years.  You just need to shop around. Amazon almost always has 12 + 1 month for less than $40 as well.

[Charbless]

Theres nothing wrong with ads at all as long as they are used right.

People moaning have you been missing for the past 10 years everything has ads it doesn't matter if it's pay or not and saying cable tv doesn't count is rubbish that is more expensive also  ppv has adds so go moan about that.

I think ads can be used in good ways to advertise new games coming and if you look at some games like sports games they would look stupid without advertisement boards in the game.

[barman1176]

As far as pre-NXE goes, I can't speak on that, as I just got my 360 the other day. That said, it's good to have a reason to come back and hang out. Glad the 360 is reliable and out of beta finally.

Anyhow, my first honest gut reaction to the NXE and LIVE was like this: "WOW, there sure is alot of advertising!". That's just messed up that this was my first reaction, and I don't think that's being overly pedantic either. They practically beat you over the head with ads! So when I saw this topic, of course I felt compelled to speak heh.

O, ok, so since everyone is complacent in allowing the whole culture of intrusive advertisements, then those who...know better...should just stop "moaning" about it. Riiight. I don't like being a human billboard and wearing company names either, guess I'm just too weird for you "cool" people. Not that I blame the clothing companies, I mean people are all about advertising their stuff (for free), and paying MORE for the privilege!

Idiocracy was and is a prophetic movie. If you don't get the frustration behind advertising in this manner, then sadly, you never will.

[xboxstone]

I may be showing my age here but when cable first came out it was advertised as commercial free... Then the commercial breaks in the middle of the movies "for your convenience". Up to what we have to day, pay $$ a month for 15 minutes of a show & 15 minutes of commercials for every half hour. As others have mentioned this is why Tivo and other media centers are becoming more and more popular these days.

This is nothing new and it will continue. You now pay a couple of hundred for a 360 console +add ons. $40 to $60 for a new game $XX a month for LiVe and get to forced watch commercials when playing a game. How is that motivating me to buy more games or time to play on Live?

You think its bad now? Wait till the latest Halo game comes out and while your waiting for a map to load you get to see  commercials about some girl talking about what pills she takes when shes feeling "bloated"

Or you have to explain to your kid who "Trojan Man" is when it pops up on a spongebob game.  

The only advantage Live has is when I play I don't have to worry about some jerk flying in with an aimbot and ruining the match for everyone.

Given a choice between watching more commercials about products I don't need daily or taking my chance with some cheat/hack on a free server, I'll roll the dice. In the end I would rather have more money in my pocket and less commercials in my life.

Xbox-Scene is a great community. It is a wealth of information and it seem like they are tied in pretty well with the gaming section of Microsoft. I ask them if possible to put up a petition ( or something )  to help put a stop to this while they can now.

[funni64]

QUOTE(hawkeye06 @ Jul 2 2009, 08:33 PM)

Everybody thinks live is $50... I have only paid 29.99 ever since I started for the last 3 years.  You just need to shop around. Amazon almost always has 12 + 1 month for less than $40 as well.

Thanks for that bro

[tbb033]

QUOTE(xboxstone @ Jul 2 2009, 10:46 PM)

You think its bad now? Wait till the latest Halo game comes out and while your waiting for a map to load you get to see  commercials about some girl talking about what pills she takes when shes feeling "bloated"

Or you have to explain to your kid who "Trojan Man" is when it pops up on a spongebob game.  

Trojan Man? Didn't he fight Mothra?

Anyway, crap like this makes me glad I don't care about online gaming, because if I had to pay for this kinda treatment, I'd be pissed off.