I've been a long time fan of AG for at least 5 years. I enjoyed this website over any other sites across the world. It doesn't matter if I just got the biggest titles on my console, busy with MMO, piled with work, I would always reserve a portion of my time to AG. I don't usually go to the forum, I just play the games. Recently, I've noticed several intriguing changes. I am not pleased personally, but that is ok. I just want to know am I the only one taking this seriously?
You are certainly not the first to complain about these things, nor will you be the last. The staff (especially
Ferret, our community manager) listens to a lot of the complaints that come through. They do try to fix things, but there are a lot of things they don't control. I'm going to let you know what they do and don't control later in my post.
1. Increased amount of MMO.
Or rather, the very presence of MMO games.
To be honest, this is a good change.
If this is a good change, then why would it contribute to making a website go 'downhill'? I understand that you lay down some thoughts later, but I probably wouldn't post a stream of consciousness and call it an argument.
It is always good to have more options. However, one should realize that MMO should not taking away spaces for regular games.
Not exactly true. When AG accepts games from developers, they don't limit themselves to
quantity. They limit themselves to
quantity. If there are two games of equal value coming in, one being an MMO and the other being a single player game, AG is not going to automatically accept the MMO. They're going to accept both games.
On the other hand (you weren't very clear on this), if you're talking about
website layout, then, yes, MMO games do take up more space. But I personally don't see it being excessively cluttered. Is it really
that much more cluttered?
I can't stand the fact a random MMO pop out of no where taking the space reserved for flash games in front page.
It's understandable that you like Flash games and want the site to take in only those types of games, but you have to understand that AG needs money. MMO games give AG more money (not to mention attention). Plus, people are actually
playing those and are
enjoying them. It seems a little selfish to ask AG to remove things that people love, justified only by your personal desires, doesn't it?
Heck, MMO is taking over the "new game" section, displayed as default in categories.
Like I said, not a big deal. And one square being filled by a game doesn't really change anything. I'm positive you'd hate it if there were an ad there instead.
MMO is not a game that you play as much as you want, most people only have time for one.
You can play MMO games as much as you want. Unless, of course, a specific MMO has a time limit, but that's for the developer to decide; not AG. And some people do nothing but play MMO games. How can have more time than that? And every game appeals to a different person.
It is the flash games that deserve to be displayed as priority.
Your whole paragraph failed to convince me whatsoever.
2. Increased amount of advertising.
Which we all see everywhere anyway.
Ads are not evil.
Then what are they? Annoying? Good? A mixture?
They are there to award devs with money
No, the ads on AG are for AG. Without ads, AG would not be able to function economically as a business, and thus there would be no AG. They don't award third-party developers with ad money, I don't think.
who made such amount of quality games
AG awards developers for their games. That much is true, but not directly from ads. I suppose you could say that AG uses some of the money it gets from ads to award third-party developers, and
indirectly ad money would go to developers, but certainly not directly.
However, they now display in every games.
Oh,
those ads! I think the preloaded ads are for AG and the in-game ads are for the developers. But they are all necessary, because game devs gotta eat too!
How about only display them while loading?
Many games already have this feature, and if not then that is the developer's choice.
skip button?
I thought most of them had this.
How about limiting them under 10 seconds?
Most of them are pretty short, and if they go over 10 seconds then I think a skip button should appear.
I know Youtube have done a good job with ads, so can AG.
By putting 30 second ads on every game? No thank you.
3. Decreased game quality.
I already know this is going to be rough.
One year ago, I can find a great game every week. Gemcraft, Kingdom rush, Sonny, those are classic games I never forgets.
A lot of people would consider the games on the homepage right now to be great games. Tastes change, trends change. Just because you dislike the games there doesn't mean others dislike them too.
I am seeing less and less of them, in fact, I can barely see a game rated above 90 these days.
Harder critics? More realistically, maybe it seemed like 'good' games were being released within shorter time periods then, when in reality they weren't. It takes a lot of them to build great games. If you want something good, i recommend you check your Quests, because a lot of very good games receive Quests.
I know rating isn't everything, but it does speak something when every games are like that.
There are a lot of old games that have some pretty terrible ratings too.
4. Decreased game quantity
This is not as significant as the others, but it is noticeable. I wonder what happened. Shouldn't AG update more often with increased publicity and funds from ads? I do not understand this.
Watch as I knock this one out with one punch.
Games seem like they were being released faster in 'the good ole days' when in reality they were being released at the same speed as now.
And most of what Nerdsoft said looks good to me. I'd check out his post too.