T w e n t y S i d e d
I complained about Google Ads when I put them in. Since then they have begun behaving themselves, and are offering just the right sort of stuff. There are lots of offers for videogames and dice, which is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I added a few dice images here and there on this site with a bunch of geek-culture keywords in the description. I don’t know if that’s what fixed it, but it’s working fine now. (Mouse over the d20 at the top of the sidebar to see what I mean.)
More to the point, the income is almost perfectly offsetting the bandwidth overages. In the beginning I was worried that this would be a bunch of visual clutter and it wouldn’t really help, but after all of this traffic and all of these hits the income is within a dollar or two of my expenses. That is a really great solution that scales with usage. It doesn’t have that unseemly “panhandling” feeling of using a tipjar, and it isn’t too ugly or annoying. Someday DMotR will complete its run (we’re over 1/3 of the way through the story already) and I’ll take the ads down, but in the meantime this is a great way to keep things from going in the red.
Thanks to everyone who clicked. I hope it was because you saw something you liked.
Thanks again.
Programming Vexations
Here is a 13 part series where I talk about programming games, programming languages, and programming problems.
The Death of Half-Life
Valve still hasn't admitted it, but the Half-Life franchise is dead. So what made these games so popular anyway?
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
Revisiting a Dead Engine
I wanted to take the file format of a late 90s shooter and read it in modern-day Unity. This is the result.
Rage 2
The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
Heh. I have AdBlock for Firefox, and some time past must have requested it block Google Ads. I’m glad your situation is shiny. But I have no idea what you’re talking about. ;-)
Just for the record, if you put out a PayPal button (or “tip jar”), I would gladly kick in a few bucks. DMotR is just that funny.
And while I’m not a video gamer, I also enjoyed your story about when you travelled for that Buisiness Person Club as a kid. I’m not sure why, mind you, but I really did.
Anyway, I sense rambling coming on, so thank you very much for making us laugh a few time4s a week.
-Tom
I white listed your site in Adblock, just so that you get those few extra page impressions. :)
I use Adsese on my site, but since my traffic is relatively low I only get few bucks a week. It’s usually not enough to even cover my hosting expenses. I’m glad you are doing well in this respect.