I'd love suggestions for an alternative business model for TouchArcade to exist, as so far outspoken members of our community believe: -Ads are not acceptable. -Patreon is begging. -Affiliate links are not OK because of ethics in games journalism. Which basically leads to us just closing the site and moving on to make way more money working somewhere else, like taking any of the opportunities we've had to join Apple's editorial team.
Of course, we can’t let the fact that I never said any of those things stand in the way of a good persecution complex. Hey man, the only point I’m making in this thread is that your site looks like a fucking mess right now. That you can’t (or won’t) recognize that, is sad. Good luck.
It's not that we don't or won't recognize issues, it's that your feedback is entirely unhelpful. We are aware of the issues that you're pointing out, and they are on a long list of things to tweak and fix. But other things besides visual problems are a priority, and as it is we have to literally beg our web developer to devote any amount of time to doing stuff for TA. You continuing to point out the same issues or take a screenshot any time there's a glitch isn't constructive at all. You're basically just Nelson from The Simpsons pointing and laughing. If you want to offer actual constructive feedback there are already threads for that, this thread has basically been your personal "lol look at this crap" as you punch down to make yourself feel superior. So you can imagine why we aren't eager to jump in with an "atta boy! Keep telling us how shitty we are even though we already know!" Eli's comment above was not directed at you but directed at the person who was mad about the ad. As he said, pretty much any monetization model has been rejected by our community, and the only way we'd make any actual money is to go full Pocketgamer and make multiple nonsensical "guides", force popular console game titles into articles about mobile games just for SEO purposes, have more than half of our articles be sponsored pieces, or present our content in multi-page slideshows to force additional clicks and impressions. The entire point of having our Patreon is so we don't have to do those things and can continue being an independent outlet. The bottom line is that TouchArcade doesn't make any money, and only just barely avoids losing money (at least for now). We both make just enough salary to stay alive and have zero health benefits, zero retirement, zero anything. We only continue doing what we do, at great financial stress to ourselves, our families, and our futures, because we love TA and we feel like people should have a mobile games website that's completely independent and doesn't rely on shady practices or influence from companies or investors. We believe in what we're doing which is why we sacrifice so much despite knowing how dumb it is to do so. Taking a six figure job at any number of companies who have offered us positions over the years would be the sensible thing to do, but TA is our baby and I couldn't stomach putting it to sleep. But our options are running out. So again, if you have actual constructive feedback or are willing to engage in constructive discussion about the new design, then please feel free. We absolutely welcome that feedback, and hope people understand that it might take weeks or even months for certain things to get fixed or changed. If your aim is to continue to just point and laugh, then kindly gfy.
Thank you for the earnest response. I do understand and appreciate the challenges of operating and maintaining a site like this. It’s a good site, arguably the best of its kind. I wanted to give constructive feedback. I initially posted some screen caps that I found confusing and asked if the presentation was a WIP. Things took a wrong turn when Eli acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about and proceeded to defend what you are now admitting are problems on your list. I know I’m a hothead, but if someone had just replied “we’re working on it”, this exchange would have been different. Thanks again for your candor.
I genuinely didn't know, and still don't really know what your point is for posting multiple screenshots of the site. It's a work in progress, I'm sorry that was not painfully obvious from all the posts we've done explaining the fact.
