Huh I haven't noticed them yet. Thats fucking annoying

Yiur heart is still red so that isn't it...hmm

The first place I noticed it was a thread about people flipping Bond games. It was the 15th post in.

It’s a new option available when placing an ad. If you want to discuss with Robin he’s been accommodating when I’ve had questions. PM or tag him in this thread.

9780D937-2186-4863-869A-B13F4D4C0240 (resized).jpeg

Nope. I can't see remaining a Pinside+ contributor if I have to look at inline ads.

Especially Flipper Scum.

Cash grab ...
Guessing it will depend how many pay the $50.00
Hoping not widespread

“Super exclusive” to anyone willing to pay $50

Sure beats the 3 page wiki-e-beg

EF0659B5-62CE-4A3B-AEC2-65895AE96F9F (resized).png

71E3E472-B347-476F-A5EF-8109DCA80E95 (resized).png

CE8F5164-87F3-457F-8B5A-A8DF833C813D (resized).png

I just noticed this as well...I was a bit surprised by it and wondered if my pinside + subscription had lapsed...nope, it wasn't that. So, now I'm wondering if we'll have a new level of subscription that will stop us from seeing those ads. Maybe a pinside super exclusive level? This is a bit disappointing as I choose to donate so I don't have to see any ads and now I'm seeing ads again.

It means our donations to pinside are irrelevant. "Pinside" has decided to push ads for flippers, over the paid subscription/donation that kept the lights on. I welcome this change, and wont need to donate again, since we will see the ads regardless and the flippers will keep the lights on.

Promoting flippers!

How long until Pukstadiums are back in every single thread since they are "Relevant " to all games?

robin

Is that how that works?

Lol. Batman is who we need to fight for the common man.

It’s fine. One ad in a page of posts.

It’s one ad for now… but what happens when 30 other flippers pony up the fifty bucks for the super exclusive scalp of the day? I’m totally seeing it too and thought my subscription lapsed. Should I really have to see this if I pay for pinside plus? An option to disable would be appreciated. Please and thank you

8B8D57DB-1233-4079-93F6-2DC36AA3EA66 (resized).jpeg

Sure it’s possible Robin will increase the number ads per thread page. I’m ok with one. I’ll reserve my outrage for when it’s more than one a page.

Same

When 30 others do so, it affords pinside management [no names] to fly to the US pinball shows in Polaris class on United.

The slowly boiling Frog comes to mind.....

Making $50 extra to keep the lights on doesn't seem criminal or anything. We spend a ton of time here and get plenty of enjoyment - I just treat it like an ignored user post and keep scrolling.

I haven't seen one yet, but this sucks.

A necessary evil in today's society. I tune them all out.

Actually, I have some free space in this post...

((Advertise here in this post for only $99.99!))

Hi all!

Yes, I'm testing out this new promotion feature that provides an extra avenue for Pinsiders to promote their featured Marketplace ads. The cool thing is that these only show up in forum topics linked to the game for sale. The feature is limited to max two ads per page of 50 posts. Less posts means only one ad. And of course we only display marketplace ads if there are any matching the forum subject. They're kind of "superexclusive", so that seemed like a cool name to me.

The feature is still in beta and a setting to hide these ads will likely be added for Pinside+ members.

I understand that not all of you may like seeing any kind of advertising or monetization in any shape or form, but am surprised by some of the outrage here. In my opinion, these aren't even close to your average website advertising banners/adwords, this is content from Pinside itself, being pushed to other site sections. They're relevant to the topic and pretty easy to scroll by. They don't animate or go full screen. They don't enlarge when you mouse over them. Plus, they're less annoying than posts by <enter obnoxious Pinsider name here>

Pinside has remained 100% ad free from non-pinball ads for almost twenty years! Our Pinside+ price has remained unchanged since it got introduced. Our marketplace fees: unchanged since the day we announced them (except for some added tiers for games over $7500 and later $10k (ugh), but hey, we didn't invent pinflation).

But Pinside does need money to operate.

So, yes, in order to keep Pinside free from 3rd party ads and to run as a successful business, I will try out new ways to monetize our own site contents - completely independent from 3rd party ad networks. This will hopefully ensure Pinside's existence for many years to come. Keeping alive all that (tech) information on the forums. All those terabytes of images. Heck, I am working on keeping Pinside going until after I'm gone: a self-sustaining website, funded by its own members!

Sorry for the long post. Of course you are welcome to continue complaining (really, I'm fine with it), but at least now you have some context.

Thanks,
Robin

Thanks for the explanation Robin. I assumed the answer to why the ads were in threads was exactly as you stated. If someone wants to spend $50 to have a ad in the thread related to their machine so be it. Hopefully some of the ads will also be from non scalpers but at least they are related to the thread topic.

Ones at the bottom I actually pay attention to as they are linked to my interests and fairly unobtrusive, the ones in the middle I ignore without reading. I have actually made purchases based on the lower ads.

Just some feedback.

Where is the old man shouts at cloud image when you need it

The Athletic is now doing the same thing since the New York Times bought them (The Athletic has always been ad free).

They are telling all subscribers that ads from strong brands enhance our experience. What kind of explanation is that?

I have been a pinside plus member for all but my first year - I spend more time on this website than any other and more than TV too. I find it to be the best entertainment value out there. If everyone that was on this site was a plus member (or even just a member), then Robin wouldn't have to find other revenue sources (but more power to him for doing so). Robin's changes to the site have always been cautious and well reasoned, and unlike so many other sites he is open to comments/suggestions.

This would help. but I would suggest doing away with them completely ASAP. These ads appear to be a double whammy of sorts. Not only are they intrusive, unlike the ads at the bottom of the screen, they seem to be 100% opportunist NIB flippers. These are the most hated people on pinside and we get an unwanted dose of them inserted right in the middle of these super popular threads. So the optics at this point are that we have a new feature on pinside made as a service to the most detested members here. In the grand scheme of things these ads might cause more harm than the revenue they produce.

This is exactly how I feel. People can easily choose to ignore the ones at the bottom. How about putting the super ads at the bottom just above the normal ads?

The independence from 3rd party ad networks is a huge plus in my opinion. Pinside has to be in a pretty exclusive club with the amount of traffic/users here and not using 3rd party ad networks. One hidden benefit to that- less tracking! If you search for something on Pinside you won't see that searched item following you around to show you ads on different sites/devices you own.

Also, thanks for the donation ReadyPO !

Just another way to make money off everyone. Maybe we should start charging Pinside for our posts.

Now that is hilarious

Disagree. It’s an extra opportunity for revenue for Robin, and you have complete control over whether it’s seen on your feed or not. Win win.

Speaking of images hosted by Pinside it amazes me that there is no requirement that the image be pinball related to be hosted on Pinside. On another forum I spend a fair amount of time on (thesamba.com Old VW’s) it’s required that the images uploaded have some direct connection to old VW’s. If you want to post something non VW related you need to have external hosting for the image, taking some storage load off of the main site. I wonder if a similar policy for images here would save some storage costs. I know storage is generally cheap but a change in image hosting policy may help insure the continued success of Pinside.

Most relevant ad placement ever…

6A6904F9-BEE2-46D8-8F6C-56D831350736 (resized).png

Something I just thought of.

You could limit the resolution of upload quality in the OT but still allow for higher res in the restoration subforum etc

The funny caption thread is one of my favorite threads on this site but I can still get a cartoon at standard resolution and laugh just as much.

Too bad you can't up or down vote an ad to give the advertiser feedback.

As you probably know, some you can. If they elect it to go to the forums. I’m guessing this kind you can’t

If the first ad that appeared wasn't from a flipper, the reaction wouldn't have been as bad. I personally don't care for the ads, but understand that Robin has a business to run. I think the ability for plus members to turn off that adds is fair, since they are supporting Pinside.

Big Media and small, telling us what we should be paying attention too, "for our own good".

Keep the preferred ads at the bottom.

Please do that, otherwise I agree with the others it’s annoying. Going ad-free is one of the benefits of Pinside+ I enjoy.

I understand the need to figure out a way to afford to run pinside and still make a living, but this seems like a situation where you're pitting the paying members here (those who contribute to the site yearly) and those that are looking to force their ads into every thread. It feels like a situation where you tell the folks that want to have a super-exclusive ad that you can force your ad into a thread for $50 and then you tell those that are on the site, if you pay this much, we'll allow you to skip the ads. Where does it end? If paying members have the ability to skip the ads, then that's great, but if it ends up costing paying members more than what they're currently paying to skip these extra ads then you have to wonder where it ends. I love this site but don't want to get into any kind of "escalation" between paying members and people who want to push their ads on on me.

Did the clouds change how flipper ads, pimped on pinside and making a pinside donation, irrelevant?

Dont think so, meme irrelevant.

I would not mind paying more $ to avoid ads. I pay extra to Pandora to avoid ads.

Thanks for the thorough response, Robin. You and your team have built and continue to evolve an exceptional resource.

Whenever possible, I’m willing to pay for mostly ad-free experience and pay for the privilege with Netflix, Hulu, The Wall Street Journal, etc. When I’m paying and advertising detracts from my enjoyment it feels like a (albeit small) violation of the agreement with the publisher. Sirius XM satellite radio pulled this trick and I stopped paying. It started off with very limited advertising and that slippery slope turned into an avalanche.

I will happily pay for plus and possibly more if ads are not interspersed with content and/or don’t interrupt my experience.

If you really want to generate more revenue, you should take a look at all the people who use Pinside to list games for sale, but then close the ad and choose "Sold elsewhere" as the reason why. There are sooooo many pinsiders that use the classifieds but then do not pay the fee when it sells as a result of that listing. It is way too easy to skirt the system.