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 Post subject: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:29 am 
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For those of you who don't know what this is about, see Jagex's Fansite Support Information topic on the RuneScape official forums. We just want you guys to know the direction we are taking with regards to that.

RSBandB is currently listed as a "Silver" level fansite, which is completely fine with us. From what they say on there, the only thing keeping us from being a "Gold" level site is the gaming advertisements we have on our site.

Ever since we started this site, we have always made keeping RWT ads off our site a big priority, and have also tried to block ads for direct competitors to RuneScape (like other MMOs). During the months of April and May we also tested blocking all other ads related to Gaming that we could to see if we could do it without seeing a big drop in advertising revenue.

As you may have noticed, ads related to gaming have been back on the site for this whole month, and the reason for that is that Shane and I have determined we cannot financially sustain this site with the reduced revenue. We have not made a profit on running this site since 2005 when RuneHQ graciously took on hosting us for a short time at a lower price than what was standard for hosting at the time. Even then it was a small profit, and it has long since been used up in paying for our hosting over the years. The main reason we left them was because we wanted to grow as our own fansite/community based on RuneScape and not be a leech off an existing fansite.

With the near 30% reduced revenue we observed without gaming adverts, we do not feel we would be able to keep running this site for much longer if we kept it like that. We also would not like to put the extra financial burden onto the community members by threatening to close down, so we enabled all gaming adverts.

Jagex's desire for keeping gaming adverts off fan sites is very reasonable, they don't want to advertise sites which in turn advertise other games because it may in turn take away from their business. In reality, they really don't have anything to worry about. No other games come close to being as well developed or full featured on their platform of browser based games as RuneScape does. People will continue to come back to RuneScape's vast worlds to explore and ever-expanding gameplay elements because of it's browser based core. It doesn't make much sense for us to reduce our revenue in order to appease them for almost no benefit to us. We do not run our site as a business unlike some of the other fansites, it is merely a hobby for Shane and myself, but there are some decisions that have to be made in the manner of business like this one.

We have received a few links off the Jagex twitter accounts to our site for informer articles or new episodes of the podcast, but according to our server logs, each of their links has only brought in a couple hundred viewers at the most. Even if jagex promoted stuff from our site on twitter more often, the extra viewers are not making up the advertising revenue lost from not having gaming ads. This raises another question, why is jagex only doing this on twitter? Why not take a more official means to supporting fan sites, as in on their own site?

We're still not even completely sure Jagex is committed to this fansite support, they have moved the fansite support thread away from the populated General forum to "Contact Us". It also feels more like they are just doing this because they feel they have to. They want to support clans, but if they are supporting clans, they also must support fansites because they often have larger communities than most clans, right? They previously spent 9 years trying hard to not officially get involved in fansites, why start now?

Even if we are making the wrong decision here, it seems there are no repercussions to it as there are fan sites on the supported list that have previously made no efforts to block RWTing ads. Still, we will continue to try out new advertisers and if we ever find we can support this site exclusively from advertising without gaming ads, we will revisit this issue. It's probable that Jagex would still not even be happy with us blocking gaming advertisements because of the non-rs gaming events we hold to further enhance the community bonds when not playing RuneScape, or the gaming articles on the informer, both of which are small compared to their RS equivalents. We know that most people don't only play one game so these extra events and articles are to cater to some of the other interests of the community.

Our site will remain focused on RuneScape with new and innovative features being developed by Shane and myself with the support of our staff members. You can also look forward to our site's 6th birthday coming this August, so there will be some big RuneScape events announced for that. And as always, if you ever come across a RWTing ad on RSBandB or RuneWire anywhere, please report it to me by private message on the forums or through our site feedback.


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 Post subject: Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:29 am 
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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 3:57 am 
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The big, profitable sites get bigger and more profitable and the smaller sites get..well there name on a list that i for one wont ever look at ever again. What your trying to say is nothings actually changed from 9 years ago and all things are going to carry on as normal.

Fair enoughh i don't come here for runescape anyway.

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 8:03 am 
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l o l I hate companies that are more interested in profits than what they are. I.e. being more interested in profits than the game and gaming community. Of course with a business profits are important but when absolutely no other genuine interest is shown...
Unfortunately, that is most companies which is funny since Jagex prides themselves as being unique.

The whole extending fansite support has been about money, and it has been apparent from every stage. And they have ads on the RuneScape site for other games anyways? lmfao


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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 9:24 am 
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Eh, we are good without them

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 8:22 pm 
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It almost seems like Jagex has added this 'Fansite Support' so that they'd have a way of controlling fansites.

Reason being:
    Jagex has never supported fansites so this new feature makes most fansite owners feel special.
    The requirements set a goal for fansite owners to achieve, kind of like reaching level 99 in a skill.
    These requirements are determined by Jagex, thus Jagex controls what the sites must do to be recognized.
    Most fansites want to be recognized as the highest rank, which means they must conform to all those requirements.
    Jagex can set these requirements to stop fansites from advertising other games in anyway, thus removing potential competition.

I don't mind not being recognized at all, to be honest. Looking at the list most of those sites aren't ranked correctly anyways. Two of the Platinum websites are not worthy of it, IMO. I had not heard of nine of the eleven Gold sites until I looked at that list a few months ago. I hadn't heard of three of the seven Silver sites. Two of the Silver sites give the same if not more information than the sites listed as Platinum.

I highly doubt the traffic to any of the sites listed has changed dramatically. Jagex only posts the URL's for Gold and Platinum. And as you said, Mike, they moved the thread to a less populated forum, purposefully lowering the views per day it gets.

The best advertising has and always will be word of mouth. If Joe uses RSBandB his friend Bob is more likely to. Bob's friend Bill would rather use something Bob suggested over something advertised as being the best because he already know the reputation of Bob's suggestion whereas he knows nothing of this other thing.

If we're making ends meet with honest ads then I see no reason to change it unless Jagex is taking legal action against us because of it.

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 8:25 pm 
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I for one want to thank both Mike and Shane for putting up with a net loss each month in order to keep the community running. I'd love to see you guys at least breaking even, especially considering everything you two have done for the RuneScape community as well as the site in general. Many people don't realize the time you two (let alone a good hunk of staff) put toward the site, so it's just a shame that Jagex isn't nearly as supportive for the sites that have always remained true to the RuneScape rules on their sites. Removing RWT, punishing those who break the rules, and aren't quickly swayed by arbitrary hypocritical regulations put in place.

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 Post subject: Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 8:25 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 23rd, 2010, 8:52 pm 
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In a perfect world, Jagex would reward...say...a small stipend of money to Gold level sites and above, thus making the site owner's efforts worth their trouble. I mean, Jagex is clearly flourishing (as evidenced by their extravagant prize offerings and RuneFest 2010) so why not direct a little of the money they've set aside for RuneFest and the "big ticket surprise" event they have planned for later this year towards the players/fansites themselves?

I don't know...that's just my wish, I guess. Realistically, Jagex doesn't give two **** about their fansites.

Bravo, Mike and Shane, for keeping the site going over the years =D>

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 25th, 2010, 10:36 am 
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This frustrates me immensely. I hate to see money grabbing corporations and I thought Jagex might be moving away from that a little, with fansite support. But now I can see that they are just using the fansites to phase out all competitors and make as much money as possible. Good move Shane and Mike and for the record I seriously wouldn't mind if you made a little profit from the site, you put so much time and effort you deserve more back than just the fuzzy feeling inside.

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 25th, 2010, 4:45 pm 
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I don't quite see why Jagex have had such a sudden change in heart over officially recognising fansites, but whatever their reason, frankly I don't think it has any real impact. When Jagex first started trying to connect with fansites last year, people made a big deal out of it; rightly so because Jagex had never attempted anything like this before. But as the months went, people began to lose interest, and so to did Jagex a little. The result- I'm not sure most people really care whether or not Jagex support fansites.

As for RSBandB, I think it'd be a shame to see the website change for the worse, just so Jagex can "rank" us higher. If Jagex only see RSBandB as a "silver" level site, so be it. Good job Mike and Shane :D

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: June 28th, 2010, 3:17 pm 
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I think the site should stay the same, I dont really care about the ranks, I like the sites for what they are.

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 Post subject: Re: Jagex's Fansite Support
PostPosted: August 19th, 2010, 9:55 pm 
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as along as we are happy as a site i don't think it should change

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