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GoNintendo 'End of Day' thought - We go ad-free for 1 year, all thanks to Nicalis!

by rawmeatcowboy
01 July 2015
GN Version 5.0

A lot to read, so I'll let you at it. Short version is...Nicalis loves us and we love you. See you in a few, short hours!

I'm guessing most of you saw the press release earlier today. If not, you can check it out right here. While that's all well and good, I wanted to put up a more personal post on how this all came to be and why it's super important to me.

As you guys well know, we were having some ad issues a few months back. There were pop-ups and click-throughs all over the place. They weren't supposed to be there. Everytime we would squash one issue, two more would pop up. Desktop was pretty damn bad, but mobile was worse. Full-page ads that blocked content and sometimes couldn't be clicked through. Again, we were messaged about this multiple times a day by you guys. We worked hard to fix those issues, but more cropped up than we could handle.

To tell you the truth, it was extremely embarrassing. I worked so hard to make GoNintendo a safe place...that goes for the people here and the content the site provides. I don't want a site that makes your viewing experience worse. I don't want your time here to be frustrating. Seeing all that stuff happening with ads was truly heartbreaking. If you could have seen what I was like behind the scenes, it wouldn't have been pretty. I was extremely enraged about it all, to say the least.

Time came to start working on a new ad deal, and that was an important time for me. Ads are absolutely crucial to running GoNintendo. This is my day-to-day job and how I pay bills, so I need those ads there. A necessary evil, but the issues we were having certainly weren't part of that deal. It lead me to a crossroads about what to do moving forward. I wanted something fresh...something that took care of you guys. I know I needed revenue to move forward, but I was more worried about apologizing to you guys. That's where Nicalis stepped in.

I am, and have been good friends with Nicalis' Tyrone Rodriguez for a long time now. He's one of the first people I met when I started GoNintendo and we became fast friends. He has always been a huge fan of GoNintendo. That remains to this day, and he was well aware of the ad issues the site was having. While we were talking about the issues one day, he came up with the idea of a sponsorship for GoNintendo. It was a truly serendipitous moment. The solution to all my problems and answers to all of yours. I had no idea something like this would ever happen or even be presented, but am truly proud that it did.

So yes, it's 100% true. We will be completely ad-free for an entire year. You won't see a single click-through, pop-up, banner ad, leaderboard or anything like that. It's going to be a nice and clean viewing experience for you. Again, I cannot tell you how happy I am to have this for you. It truly feels like a worthy apology for all of the trouble you guys have went through. You stuck with us and put up with the issues...and I can never thank you enough. I hope you find this year a somewhat decent apology for the issues you faced.

Some people are asking why Nicalis is doing this and what they get. I'm here to answer that. When Nicalis has a game coming out, we might have a skin for it. That's all there is to it. The left/right hand sides of the site will have some sort of exclusive promo art for that game for the launch week. Obviously, this is only related to games Nicalis is putting out. In other words, when The Binding of Isaac lands on Wii U/New 3DS, you can expect to see a skin for that. I swear to you, that's really all there is to it. No loud noise ads...no full-screen anything. I know it's hard to believe, but that's our deal. Finally, it should also be noted that we're going to continue our regular coverage of Nicalis games. No favoritism with their titles. We're also not going to provide reviews/previews of any hands-on time. We would never, EVER give favorable coverage in exchange for anything, but we're taking this step just to prove it.

I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to have this opportunity to share with you all. You have been so patient with GN in the last few months. Things definitely got quite rough with aggressive advertising and that's not how it was supposed to be. This new deal feels like such a clean slate...such a palate cleanser. Again, I hope you enjoy this year of no worries...your ad blocker will have nothing to do here, your virus protection won't alert you when you come to the site. Clean, simple and fast is what we're about.

Of course, there are some other questions to ask. What happens when the year is up? I don't know the answer to that yet. We'll have to see how this year goes and see what opportunities come up. It's very possible we might go back to traditional ads in a year's time, but that's a headache for another day. Can we sign another deal like this? Again, we don't know the answer to that either. This is new territory for us, but it's pretty damn exciting.

Most importantly, I have some thank yous to share. A huge thank you to everyone on the Nicalis team for making this possible and believing in us. Thank you for wanting to make the internet a quieter, less in-your-face place. Also thank you to John Benyamine, who helped us work on this deal and every other deal that GN has ever been a part of. I'd be absolutely lost without him. Finally, thank you to you guys and gals for giving me everything I've ever had in life over the last 10 years. You made all of this possible. Without your kindness, dedication and support, we'd be nothing.

There are many headaches and struggles that have come with GN over 10 years. It is all of you that make working through those issues worthwhile. You are the best community I could ever ask for, and far, FAR above what I deserve.