Comment by bentley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bentley | Hacker News Reader

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> Without external ads and with only promotion for their own properties, how were they supposed to make any money?

Among other things, they advertised direct moneymakers like paid subscriptions.

> Is making money ‘blatant’?

There’s making money and then there’s making money. As a somewhat regular browser of Escapist content for over a decade, my characterization of Nick’s tenure would be that its non‐ZP output stood out for being rather thoughtful games industry commentary, as opposed to chasing clickbait and other industry trends. By Nick’s account, this was enough for them to see successful, healthy growth—it just wasn’t enough growth to please the higher‐ups.

Now consider the “blatant” sponsored advertisements, which I neglected to mention were for such products as gacha games and crypto miners. Tonally inconsistent with the surrounding aesthetic; unpopular with the talent, as visible in Yahtzee’s obvious disdain. Worrying indicators of executive meddling that seem to have been confirmed by this week’s events.

So yes, decisions in the name of “making money” can be blatant, if by chasing it you lose all that distinguishes you from the bland, reader‐hostile content mill that is the rest of the gaming news industry.

Right. So clearly subscriptions don’t pay the bills so we get the alternative, ads, and non-intrusive ads don’t pay the bills either so we get intrusive ads.

You would like to decide that a few non-intrusive ads and subscriptions earn enough money for them but hey, it’s not your decision to make. It’s their decision to make and it’s yours to take it or leave it.

If you don’t like it, start your own publication, pour in the money and build the talent. And then we’ll talk about how far you come without these ads.

Simply complaining about how everything should be free, ad free, tracking free and up to your quality standards is pointless. Some great things in life are free but a lot of them simply are not. Chances are you don’t work for free either.

You’re responding to a caricature you’ve constructed, not to the post I made.

In this case, it’s not freeloading (l)users who left The Escapist in response to its new direction, but its own employees. And their immediate next action was to start their own publication with their own talent, but without the higher‐ups. That suggests that they believe their approach of producing quality content was financially sustainable. Time will tell if that’s true.

Nice of them to put their money where their mouth is. We’ll see if it pays off.

>So clearly subscriptions don’t pay the bills

Wrong, you've failed to read the post you replied to. They paid the bills and even had steady growth. Corporate got greedy and wanted MORE growth which was unrealistic.

The post I replied to claimed subscriptions were ‘moneymakers’. That’s obvious, it’s literally people paying money to be a subscriber.

What’s not obvious is if they pay the bills. Chances are that like in most forms of media they don’t. Just like newspapers still have ads because subscriptions don’t pay the bills.

But hey, you’re free to try to set up your own channel completely funded by subscriptions! Good luck! Perhaps the talent that left this channel will even join your channel. If those subscriptions bring in enough money to pay them of course.

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