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Post news Report RSS The challenge of Adblock

A call to arms for our community - whose support we depend on to grow and prosper.

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Since 2002 ModDB and IndieDB have been helping developers promote their craft to our amazing community of gamers. Today we reach 7.7million people who download over a petabyte of content every month. It has been an amazing journey and more than we ever could have imagined, and we aim to stay online forever.

50%
of our visitors use adblock


However a challenge that all web communities face today, for better or worse is a dependence on advertising. Our aim has always been to show as few, as classy and relevant advertising as we can and we continue to fight that battle. But with adblock penetration exceeding 50% this is a challenging task. For large companies like Google this isn't a problem, because they pay adblock to allow their ads by default. But for us we are left in a tricky place.

Adblock or not we still love yoooou and will always welcome all visitors, but if you don't mind seeing ads every now and then, we ask for your support by whitelisting ModDB.com and IndieDB.com.

Support us by subscribing:



If you like the site, we are testing out a subscription system which you can join above. In return you will see no ads for a year, and we offer a warm fuzzy feeling that you are helping us feed the beast (the 15 servers we have pushing out content). We welcome all suggestions so please don't hesitate to share - our aim is to give all game and mod developers a voice free from editors/gatekeepers, as we succeed when we help you succeed.

UPDATE: responding to are our ads safe

So a lot of people in the comments are saying they would like to whitelist us (thanks!) but want to know if our ads are safe, don't play noise or do annoying things. I just want to respond to this by saying we value our community above all else, which is why we work with Gamer Network on all ads. Our policy is to whitelist and only traffic acceptable ads. You should never experience ads which don't comply with these rules, as we want people to love browsing here and for the ads to complement your experience not push you away. We hope more sites follow our lead, so you feel good about whitelisting us and other deserving sites on the internet.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 50 of 885)
INtense! Author
INtense!

Interested to hear everyone's ideas. We've got a ton of things we are going to be doing in 2015 to further our goal of helping indies/mods succeed. Oh I forgot to add subscribers get a neat little badge in the comment section as you can see <-----

Reply Good karma+111 votes
HeadClot
HeadClot

The one of the reasons I use adblock is that for me allot of the ads are very invasive for me.

That said - I will sub up next payday :)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+99 votes
INtense! Author
INtense!

It is an interesting challenge whereby as more people adblock, the anti adblock ads get more and more aggressive. We aim to strike a balance but it's a catch-22 situation. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Reply Good karma+59 votes
I_Love_Cat
I_Love_Cat

The most invasive ads are the ones which start playing a video or making a racket. Just keep those off the sites and i will have no problem with ads.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+142 votes
Cyber.Shadow
Cyber.Shadow

I fully support this comment!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+48 votes
J.
J.

I agree. Static ads are fine, but video is an attention spoiler for me, and some eat data that we cannot always afford to lose.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+36 votes
Guest
Guest

yea, but without adblock it's super aggressive too ... i am not using it; idk, i would say i "watch"(see) at least 300-400 ads each day.. (or+)

it s just crazy,

Reply Good karma Bad karma+8 votes
memo4069
memo4069

dsad

Reply Good karma Bad karma+7 votes
Guest
Guest

its worth getting adblocker, but when you support a site just allow the site by enabling it

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Talic
Talic

The Ads sometimes are invasive, downright annoying and they create unnecessary lag to site.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+44 votes
Wummy77
Wummy77

I SHALL NEVA TURN MAH ADBLOCK OFF MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH :D but seriously the ads are way to annoying sorry.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+21 votes
dayzpnd
dayzpnd

My Moddb seems not to work, I can only see one mod: Double action boogaloo on top 100 mods, I don't know why does anyone have the similar problem?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+9 votes
INtense! Author
INtense!

It means you have clicked a "platform" just click "home" to reset or this url: Moddb.com

Reply Good karma+13 votes
Guest
Guest

Thanks now I can get it to work :D

Reply Good karma Bad karma+6 votes
Joshua~Rose
Joshua~Rose

Indeed. Just disabled Adblock and then started it up again... xD Ill sub up also I think.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+18 votes
Walki
Walki

Yah, same here. I'd like to support ModDB, but sometimes there are some kinda weird flashplayer ads that play a video by themselves (with sound!) and then you have to go through the entire website to find them and stop them. Very annoying tbh. (I don't know if this only relates to german ads)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+35 votes
Thib
Thib

We noticed another issue with visitors on iOS devices. Some adds force the tablet/phone to open the App Store.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+31 votes
Dragonlord
Dragonlord

I also AdBlock because these ads cause so many problems all the way to crashing browsers now and then due to invasive tricks they try to play that it's simply not feasible or reasonable to give up this wall of defense.

The subscription system though is something else. It's a support option which sounds rewarding instead of a battle against agressive ads. It's certainly the way to go as long as you are not limited-out of service because of subscription or not.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+25 votes
Olku_
Olku_

Whitelisted your site, i still see this: "Adblock or not we still love you, and if you love our site please consider whitelisting us so we can continue to promote awesome mods forever."

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INtense! Author
INtense!

odd, I shall investigate - thanks very much for letting me know

Reply Good karma+15 votes
Olku_
Olku_

The header ad still shoews up. But the 2 on the side show that message still. Tried reloading pages and saw ads there for a moment and then boom the warning text again.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+12 votes
Olku_
Olku_

Tnx for fixing this.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+10 votes
frenchiveruti
frenchiveruti

Ok, whitelisted indiedb, i hope the ads don't get too annoying.
Also, Adblock has a "friendly ads" program, so at least all the site ads don't get blocked by default, check it out!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+9 votes
Olku_
Olku_

Could you pm the link?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Pvt_Pirate
Pvt_Pirate

those whitelists still contain ads that track the user (google etc). if there were a way to still have some less annoying ads: still pictures, but no animation, no sound, no SWF-movie, no scripts, no tracking - i'd use that system.
also adblock makes almost all websites load faster due to the lack of unnecessary load.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+11 votes
Admiral_Nemo
Admiral_Nemo

While I do use Adblock I do not mind paying the yearly subscription. In fact I would prefer it over the ads.

I was about to sign up for the "big sub" when I found out it wouldn't actually let me pay using Pay Pal. Well it does, but you need to link a credit card which kind of defeats the purpose of using Pay Pal...

You may want to look into that. =)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+13 votes
MurDoc_Inc
MurDoc_Inc

How about some apparel to go along with my sub?

Reply Good karma Bad karma-3 votes
prenz
prenz

I already whytelisted moddb in my adblock; it's disabled for this site and for indiedb. I know that the advertising is important for you.
I'm using noscript to stop invasive Ads that play annoying videos or audio. So, some ads are visible as the regular one in the footer. Invasive ads are stopped. I can just suggest you to use normal Ads.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+9 votes
prenz
prenz

Ask money to fight adblock it's a nonsense strategy.
You must read what the people said.
The people wants that you choose much better the Ads, and remove the irritating ones.
If you don't have ears to listen and eyes to see, it's totally useless, dude.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+8 votes
RogurViper
RogurViper

They are most likely pro ided with a package, were as removing some ads really isn't possible. One of the things they can do is change their package, but may lose alot of the pay

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Guest
Guest

This was a fantastic post, very professional and polite. Giving us the facts on how this hurts your business model. I for one, will be white listing this site, it's a simple request and I can easily comply. Thank you for being professional, it's a rare thing to see in this industry.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+9 votes
FuckoffJohn
FuckoffJohn

I've whitelisted because you asked so politely but it's still asking to white list for advertisement spots?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
Blade_Sword
Blade_Sword

Just like some people ads makes my browser crash and bug for no reason, because I usually let the ads for moddb, just because I love the site and I believe that ads is a good way to maintain the site free for everyone. But I had to turn on the adblock because of the fact that ads tends to make my browser crash ...

Reply Good karma Bad karma+8 votes
XandreUK
XandreUK

I don't mind adverts when they a) don't add much to the loading times of a page, b) make no racket when I click on a page and c)don't destabilise my browser to the point of uselessness.

Last time I had this site white listed, I couldn't click on a link without hearing "Hi, I'm [D-list actor E] and I'm touting [Overpriced Product Y], here's why you should use it!"

And I would click on several links because I have decent connection speeds which meant that I had six or so adverts playing over Freddie Mercury, which is a sin regardless of where you are.

If you want a whitelist from me (and indeed many other adblock users) then get rid of the audio ads and maybe place some relevant (or at least amusing) adverts in tactical places.

I'd sub, but a) I don't trust paypal and b) my bank charges me a lot of money to make any non-£ transaction. Which doesn't help the fact that I'll be out of a job soon (damn short contracts...) so money's gonna get tighter for me.

So yeah, you know what to do.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+6 votes
Chadwick24
Chadwick24

I white-listed it for a while. Problem is, I like to search for a game and then open multiple mods in different tabs, today I found myself being interrupted by a loud advertisement video when listening to music and reading. I had to flip through the tabs and scroll up and down each page until I found the ad that was playing audio so I can stop it. Needless to say, I have now removed moddb from my white-list.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+9 votes
Guest
Guest

Whitelisted. Love you guys, will open a few pages per day for you.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Guest
Guest

I come here very rarely these days so a subscription is kind of pointless but I wouldn't mind white-listing if I was sure the ads were safe and non-intrusive.

Are they quiet? Are they low resource? More importantly, are they safe for my computer?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+2 votes
Guest
Guest

my biggest problem with the ads, is that whatever ads are being used on this website, it friggen appears as a bar that won't go away, and pops up as a page overlay, over the navigation bar so I can't get to the download page for a mod.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
Cybermax
Cybermax

1. Translate request to disable adblok the language of the country that is specified in the profile.
2. If possible, add a payment system: En.wikipedia.org En.wikipedia.org En.wikipedia.org En.wikipedia.org etc..
3. Think up mascot site that will ask to disable adblok and donate money.
4. People are vain. It is necessary to make board of honor all people to donate more money to the site.
5. Let's take a virtual prize - something like a medal for people to donate money to the site. Medals should be reflected in the profile.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+6 votes
Guest
Guest

whitelisted you guys after reading the article, and you're right btw decent adds, thumbs up for the good work

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
Teknoskillz
Teknoskillz

Why not offer subscriptions where you pay a membership fee and you get no ads, sort of like a yearly fee. Add some benefits like maybe a files sharing or ftp area or some other benefits that are more specific. I know there is a forum I am in here which would be nice if it had crossposting capability like mail2 forum or forum 2 mail like phpbb has available. Other than that this site has quite alot of features, and I was surprised when I did finally register a short while ago.

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
INtense! Author
INtense!

we'd prefer not to lock features away from the community, it is more just an optional supporter system. Glad you like the features we offer, you are welcome to suggest features like mail2forum on our github page: Github.com

Reply Good karma+8 votes
patentedjak
patentedjak

As stated by HeadClot, I find them invasive as well, but come next payday at the end of this month, I will be subscribing. You guys do excellent work, and I want to show my support as best as I can!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
INtense! Author
INtense!

Thanks, we appreciate that massively

Reply Good karma+6 votes
madowl
madowl

Myśle że tak jednagrze trzeba też wiedzięć jak z nich korzystac:)

Reply Good karma Bad karma+5 votes
Secret_Coming
Secret_Coming

2 years now, how the things going?

Reply Good karma Bad karma+4 votes
INtense! Author
INtense!

The good news is the % of adblock users hasn't climbed as massively and rapidly as it was 2 years ago. It has mostly plateu'd off. Not sure if its because other sites are running more respectful + safe ads, and blocking isn't as critical. Or if it's because a certain % of the internet doesn't want or know how to adblock.

I also believe some users turn off adblock here, and find the ads we run relevant and interesting. A few have also subscribed which is fantastic, but the reality remains the same, if adblock continues to grow we are on a tight line between being profitable and not. Continued increase and we will need to take action, which we are already doing such as running cool sponsored events like:

Serious Sam's Bogus Detour
SUPERHOT
Starpoint Gemini Warlords

We are also working on a new ad-free project, which we hope will be the future of our business and loved by many

Reply Good karma+7 votes
saif31
saif31

ب

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Victor0699
Victor0699

COOl

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
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