Advertisements - Need Your Feedback

[larissar]

Today we have switched to a new advertising partner, on a trial basis. Previously we were using Google Adsense however we have limited control over how ads are automatically placed on the site when using Google Adsense. Our new partner should give us much more control, but it may take some time and tweaking to get the ads setup correctly.

Your feedback is super important! We absolutely do not want ads to be intrusive and give you a poor experience playing the game, so please let us know how you feel about the ad placement.

Currently we have setup one header ad, and one "sticky footer" ad which, at least on my end, does appear to hold two ads. The footer ad can be closed but most likely will re-open on a new page view.

Our goal with advertising is to have as minimal interruption to your gameplay as possible, while still generating revenue to keep the game running. We are also considering adding an ad-free experience to Premium Plus accounts.

[BlackOak2]

I think ad-free to the premium plus might be a great move, it will encourage those that are on the line - essentially has the extra income but haven't come up with a solid reason (yet) to upgrade - to move over to the plus option. That said, I don't know the impact versus player income; but I can see it being beneficial in that way.

I didn't like the ads all over the place before (just a necessary evil). The worst ads were the ones that showed up in our forum signatures and it's not immediately obvious whether the player put it in or not. One had to actually look and read the ad and then, even then, sometimes guess.

I hope the new ad carrier is more acceptable. For me it is. Having to close the footer may or may not become a hassle in certain pages (horse profiles). Certainly in the forum, it's not a problem. Far less problematic already. I've had the footer ads before and in that experience, they were good.

[BrokenOak]

For my play style, I would definitely invest in an ad-free premium account. I love to open numerous tabs to compare horses or shop for horses. Unfortunately with the new ads popping up with every new tab, I will have to stop playing that way because it keeps crashing my browser. This could totally be just a me problem because I like to have so many tabs open. I totally do not mind having to close the footer ad, the problems seem to arise with the video ad that pops up in the right bottom corner.

But I know they are a necessary evil and adjusting to the new play style will not deter me from still playing.

[Tea's Freezer]

Myself and a couple of others have noticed much worse lag on occasion with these ads- they're also very difficult to work around on mobile, and while I don't play on mobile often I'll log on fairly frequently to check on things and being unable to do anything with the bottom third/quarter of my screen is a bit annoying.

[Tea's Freezer]

Though to be fair the lag could be caused by other changes or issues unrelated to said ads.

[horsegirlthat2023]

I think adds are fair through some of the placements are annoying. I am much more worried about the content of the ads. I have gotten numerous adds with suggestive or flat out obvious content. (adult content)

[larissar]

I think adds are fair through some of the placements are annoying. I am much more worried about the content of the ads. I have gotten numerous adds with suggestive or flat out obvious content. (adult content)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention so I can have the content adjusted.

[CoffeeCake&Ponies]

I have definitely noticed the change in ads. As a strong adversary of anything Google, I'd vote for almost anything over them, even the incredibly annoying pop up footer ads. I find them to be quite disruptive and I'm constantly closing them. However, I love the game that much I would tolerate them, though the average player, maybe not so much and I would think it would be particularly unattractive to new players. I would definitely expect any premium account to be ad-free.

I think the game could be kept running easier, with less ads if it could generate more players and more people wanting to pay for premium features. I am considering becoming a paying member in the future. I really think this game has a decent amount of untapped potential, but I also realize that the market is against you and most of what I would believe to be a target audience just don't play games like this much anymore. It requires "too much work and thinking" lol. However to counter that, better user guides or an easier way to find answers to questions would be helpful. I know I've had a lot of difficulty trying to navigate through the forums and have spent a lot of time reading, studying and hunting for what should be somewhat basic answers, like how to post an image of your horse in a post. Very few people are going to want to put in that much effort. Also the problem with difficulty in finding available shows to put my horses in can be quite frustrating. And although I think this game does a good job in giving the new player ample opportunities to make money, once that's over it's a dramatic shift of being pretty slow going and expensive to unlock competition management skills which it's things like these that probably drive people away if you're trying to save money and build up your farm.

[Tom]

I have definitely noticed the change in ads. As a strong adversary of anything Google, I'd vote for almost anything over them, even the incredibly annoying pop up footer ads. I find them to be quite disruptive and I'm constantly closing them. However, I love the game that much I would tolerate them, though the average player, maybe not so much and I would think it would be particularly unattractive to new players. I would definitely expect any premium account to be ad-free.

I think the game could be kept running easier, with less ads if it could generate more players and more people wanting to pay for premium features. I am considering becoming a paying member in the future. I really think this game has a decent amount of untapped potential, but I also realize that the market is against you and most of what I would believe to be a target audience just don't play games like this much anymore. It requires "too much work and thinking" lol. However to counter that, better user guides or an easier way to find answers to questions would be helpful. I know I've had a lot of difficulty trying to navigate through the forums and have spent a lot of time reading, studying and hunting for what should be somewhat basic answers, like how to post an image of your horse in a post. Very few people are going to want to put in that much effort. Also the problem with difficulty in finding available shows to put my horses in can be quite frustrating. And although I think this game does a good job in giving the new player ample opportunities to make money, once that's over it's a dramatic shift of being pretty slow going and expensive to unlock competition management skills which it's things like these that probably drive people away if you're trying to save money and build up your farm.

You are absolutely right and all of what you have pointed out is on our internal roadmap.
Currently the main focus is to get the new art completed and in the game. Once that is done we have plans to focus on making really good tutorials using the new art.
Also in the works are plans to rebalance how money is made in the game and the relationship between local shows, training and competitions. I think everyone will enjoy being able to gain as much feedback as they want with respect to how well they can expect a horse to do in competitions while not having to grind for days, money or pony tokens.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. We really do appreciate the feedback!

[Shadow Scar]

I'd have to agree with the others about the lag. New windows/actions load at a snail pace when on my phone and affects me on my pc/laptop while training even with only 3 windows open at once.

Having an ad free version with Premium would mean I'd definitely be keeping my account premium!