Gaming News: "Moral High Ground"
Posted: Tuesday January 10th, 2006
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In the February issue of PC Gamer magazine, semi-new Editor-in-Chief, Greg Vederman proclaimed that, after months struggling with the folks in charge of securing Ad revenue, PC Gamer Magazine would no longer be accepting ads or ad dollars from "Gold Farming" companies. In his "Letter from the Editor" article, Mr. Vederman goes on to lambast the companies for their EULA breaking activities.
Source: Evil Avatar [ more info ]
Now, you guys know me. I'm not fond of Gold Farming companies. But, after looking through the magazine, it amused me that PC Gamer, or Greg more specifically, would be so eager to take the moral high ground. Flipping through that very same issue, I found that of the 98 interior pages there were 46 full page ads and another 6 pages had ads on them. My point is, when you pay for a magazine you're expecting content. When the magazine is nearly 50% ad space are you really getting what you paid for?
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting PC Gamer at ALL for offering ad space to generate money. But, is Greg really in the position to bash companies he doesn't agree with for their business practices? Can he really hold tight to some sense of accomplishment against evil, when the magazine had entertained (and run) ads for such companies in the first place? Gold Farming companies are, absolutely, violating the various games' EULAs, which is illegal. So, accepting advertisements from these companies should never even come into consideration.
But, to be perfectly honest, is it any more fair for me to poke at either of them? No. Not at all. I do comics to bring up the issues so the gamers that visit my site are aware of what's going on.
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