Premium Menbers WTF

[wraggster]

Ok first off, for some strange reason the server has been mega slow the past few days with loads of over 100 which for me doesnt mean much but when the load is supposed to be 2 or 4 its a bloody lot, now i dont know what the cause was but as soon as i know youll find out, but its great to be back, i really missed being one of the PSP Emulation and Homebrew Scenes fastest and best sites/newsposters.

Onto something that pisses me off.

<B>Premium Members</B>

I got an email from PSPhacker/updates saying for the total of 2.99 dollars a month i can become a premium member and get no popups (theres lots) and no ads and special (bullshit) stuff too.

Lets remember than IGN etc post news about gaming only but this site is posting news about Homebrew and Emulation and to charge people to be premium members just to get rid of popups takes the buiscuit, now we all know sites cost money to run and pay for bandwidth etc but no site in the Emulation and Homebrew scene should be paid to get rid of ads. Its funny that the popups only started 2 weeks before this premium member rubbish.

I hope that by posting this the webmaster over at PSPUpdates (who i do like but not for this action) will rethink this action took for the good of the scene.

Comments here

[parabolee]

Yeah! and when anyone tries to discuss it on the board they shut the topic down and say that anyone who doesn't want to pay still gets the same service!

Yeah with loads of pop ups! It sucks! I try to avoid the site since the pop ups started. This site is way better anyway, I just like to know whats happening in the hacking scene every now and then.

[wraggster]

pspnewz.net and psphacks.net are the best for pure hacks newz

[parabolee]

Cool, I'll stick with them then.

Newz looks like a great site, thanks.

[pakkman781]

Another little bit of information: Their Downloads section doesn't really have any files. Every time you try to download, you get some mysterious error(at least in my experience...

This site rocks, PSPHacker/PSPUpdate is horrible.

One comment I have about this site though, that is easily fixable, is that some of the download links point to the wrong files, but I've only seen this on 2 files so far(Solitaire and some other that I don't recall)...

Otherwise, thanks for keeping it a great PSP site!!!

[parabolee]

oh and one quick note: Members is spelt wrong in this news post -

"Premium Menbers WTF"

[wraggster]

ill fix the download links :P

[accord 4 me]

its crazy the amount of pop up's you get at their site now. its not even surfable anymore. i refuse to ever go back.

[Cap'n 1time]

ive hated that place forever. they were in it for money from the start.

[®eddragon]

*gay voice* "Did somebody SaY GaY?" lol

[RedKing14CA]

umm, how do you guys pay for this site? just wondering, i'd be glad to donate afew paypal bucks!

[wraggster]

dont worry we are free and proud of it :)

[EvilDragon]

Yep, they deleted BLOGS (cause I suggested this site, my file archive (www.psparchive.de, no news, just plain files... but better sorted than at the pspupdates) and it was really funny looking at the mysteriously disappearing threads at their site...)

Well, what should I tell? The site is a commercial owned by Jonathan Yantis... if you search google a bit, he made a fortune with MMORPGs. His site is mysupersales.com, and he got hired from ige.com (whooaah! These are the two sites that you get 10% off as a PSPUpdates.com premium member... what a great deal they pulled off!)

Every link to other sites or ad blockers does commercially harm them, that's why they deleted it.

I just hate commercial homebrew sites - commercial and homebrew just doesn't fit together.

EDIT: About money... well, at my GP32x File Archive , I easily get 70 US$ a month (which I donate to the devs ;)), that with just one google ad and 25000 downloads a month (PSPUdates.com has 40x the downloads).
And the GP32 is a minor handheld, so you can have much more with a PSP.
You get good, own dedicated server with 5 TB traffic for 100 US$.
So, if you get 100 US$ a month, you can easily host a site.

Now, a bit speculation:
PSPUpdates: 2,5 TB traffic for the files (you can see it in the statistics), approx. 0,5 TB for the boards. That's 3 TB. A 100 US$ server is enough.

Now: I have 70 US$ a month with 25000 downloads and a single ad.
They have 40x downloads and lots of ads (and popups, etc.).
As they get for EACH popup (not just for clicked ones!), you can speculate they get about 100 - 400 times as much money as I do.
That's about 7000 - 21000 US$. Nice, eh?

[g00dfella]

i got my psp about 2-3 weeks ago and I was looking for a "scene" site similiar to what xbox-scene.com is to the xbox, so I searched on google and i found www.psphacker.com, i remember going there and I was amazed at how far I had to scroll to get to the news and then each news article was sepated by no less than 4 google adds each!!!!!! i was like "wtf???"

the news posts were weak and the download sections were not great either and then some how, luckily I found this site and it was like a breath of fresh air! I could actually read the news and get the files i wanted! this is hands down the best psp site i have found so far!

[quzar]

umm, how do you guys pay for this site? just wondering, i'd be glad to donate afew paypal bucks!

i'm fairly sure that the ring of sites actually generates more money than they cost because of all the ads.

[wraggster]

up to 21000 $

surely no site can earn that much?

those bloody popups get past google also :(

[Smiths]

you all fail to realize it was a plan from the start.

You establish a blogspot guide and begin adding all forms of whatever free ads you can (there's everything fro spanish gambling to standard google ads)
you increase it day to day as you also build up a "following", and magically you're offering the ability to remove these ads for $2.99!

From the beginning this was all in the plans, it's just a damn shame any time someone mentioned it (me?), they (me?) were simply seen as a loser who had no grounds for hating a site. (oh and my IP was banned from the site PS2nfo style, technically it's well within my right as a programmer to request they remove all programs featuring any code by me, including RIN and NesterJ)

It's ignorance at its best there... any site that withint 10 weeks of homebrew development has the balls to ask for money from people (and has people stupid enough to think it's okay visiting it) is just a cancer on the scene.

My advice to anyone who thinks $2.99 is FINE to donate to these people who peddle FREE INFO (we refresh IGN.COM and the authors' homepages and then post about it! #1 source!), NO EXCLUSIVES (hell, half the releases are taken from this forum, and the others are ps2dev and pspwiki, just bookmark those 3 places), and IGNORANT STAFF (they had no ****ing clue what a MSX was for Christ's sake!):

donate your $2.99 a month to Mirakichi, ruka, y, ps2dev guys, sougen, etc... and show TRUE support of the PSP scene.
Support PSPHacker shows no support whatsoever of anyone.
Hell, even "y" of SNES9x has declared no support of them, and they sent this "liason" to his forums posting in Japanese sucking up to him. Add him to a list including ruka and Mirakichi and WAB's team, etc.

Yet people still think paying them is a good idea? Jeez.

[EvilDragon]

I, too, was one of the guys who thought they were commercial from the start...

I'm glad you coder also dislike the site... oh, and about the offer from PSPUpdates.com:
Any PSP Coder can get a subdomain with HTML, PHP, CGI, POP3, etc., without ANY ads for free at my site (www.psparchive.de)
I just don't speak any japanese so I don't know where to tell it... but, Smiths, if anyone ever needs some space, you can give him my eMail ([email protected])

Man, looking at other, great sites, such as this one, emuholic or pdroms, which support devs where they can as a hobby, for free, it really makes me sick seeing how the PSPUpdates have all the users... well, the only thing that brightens me up a bit:
They also have a lot of geeks there...

EDIT: Hmm... supporting the devs...
Some may know my "Clicks for Devs" from the GP32x community...
Each month, a dev is voted by the users (it has to be one who hasn't been voted before), and he gets ALL the money I make from the single google banner on my page... I'm wondering if I should start the same for the PSP community... what do you think?

[EvilDragon]

Oh, btw, check out my thread at the PSPUpdates.com boards.
I wonder when it will be closed down...

http://www.pspupdates.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5993

[wraggster]

i would gladly have a seperate donation button/link on every coders release page so that if people wanted to donate they could

[cklee]

pspupdates is one of the popular psp sites for updates
others are
http://emuholic.emuboards.com/
http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/
www.pspnewz.net
www.psphacks.net
www.psparchive.de

actually i liked http://psp-news.dcemu.co.uk/ best
because you have better forums and more detailed postings
with screenshots
- pspupdates just have a black box 99% of the time
and since they started this premium thingy, it is so slow
at times their d/l is faulty so i just come over here to correct it

this reminds me of brighthand when it was at its peak
then it starts charging
people of course ,react
then steve bush decided return the money
but brighthand lost a lot of loyal fans
and i havent been there for ages

i suspect this will be the trend with pspupdates
such a pity

[lantus]

as a dev, id say its crap that they are doing this

sure sites cost money to run - my own site puts me out of pocket a few hundred a year but in reality if they cant cover the costs of running their site they really shouldnt be in the game at all

[Smiths]

I'm sorry I couldn't resist posting this here first, but I'm putting it in another thread of its own so **** YOU WRAGGSTER! I love you.

http://diypsphacker.blogspot.com/

Not mine, wish it was.. but it was PM'd to me by one of my "sources" (I guess that's what to call the guy).

Honestly should serve as a "link guide"

oh and lantus, it takes a shot at you too :) (don't worry, whoever it is takes shots at us all apparently)

[leggy]

This is the best site with the best people and the best threads!

[EvilDragon]

Ha! Lets all combine and shoot the PSPUpdates.com to the moon :)

[FrozenIpaq]

You guys are not looking at the whole picture....

1.) PSPU has many sister sites that are hosted by the same owners
2.) They have been quoted to losing 1000$ a month and having to pay out of their "pockets"
3.) Ads= more money to keep the site up
4.) Downloads are the best around and are always up-to-date
5.) Premium Members does not slow the site down at all, it's just any option for people who want to donate to the site
6.) It is the fastest news around, sure IGN has news, but not Hombrew

And check your e-mail again, there should be another one explaining the situation...

It boggles me how people are upset about a donation option that was added to the site, why hate a site for that?

[Zeno]

I'm quite annoyed with this. I mean here we are playing emulation on PSP. What makes them think we have money if we are playing emulated games? =P

[FrozenIpaq]

I'm quite annoyed with this. I mean here we are playing emulation on PSP. What makes them think we have money if we are playing emulated games? =P


No one is making you pay for it, it's like donating, you can do it or you don't have to. It's your option

[Zeno]

No one is making you pay for it, it's like donating, you can do it or you don't have to. It's your option

I didn't say anyone was making us pay for it. It's not like donating, it's a monthly fee. The site is just basically all ads. You click a link? An ad. Enter the site? An ad scrolls across the screen. And now they want money. Look I'm running two servers and there are no ads or anything.

[FrozenIpaq]

I didn't say anyone was making us pay for it. It's not like donating, it's a monthly fee. The site is just basically all ads. You click a link? An ad. Enter the site? An ad scrolls across the screen. And now they want money. Look I'm running two servers and there are no ads or anything.

You may be running two servers, but did those two servers have a total of 2 terabytes+ of total downloads, support their users with one of the biggest PSP communitys (14,000+ members and no ads on the forums), and offer 24/7 news coverage? As many people have posted in the PSPU forums, just get an ad-blocker, but I don't because I support the site and what they are doing. the monthly fee is for however long you want (2 months, 3 months, you choose if you want to donate).

[Zeno]

You may be running two servers, but did those two servers have a total of 2 terabytes+ of total downloads, support their users with one of the biggest PSP communitys (14,000+ members and no ads on the forums), and offer 24/7 news coverage? As many people have posted in the PSPU forums, just get an ad-blocker, but I don't because I support the site and what they are doing. the monthly fee is for however long you want (2 months, 3 months, you choose if you want to donate).

I could tell you so many more sites that don't do this. GaiaOnline (which I'm sure has more bandwidth usage) only has 1 ad a page, and its not every page. They accept donations but thats it. They have no popups, no "between pages" ads, no ads with sounds.

[FrozenIpaq]

I could tell you so many more sites that don't do this. GaiaOnline (which I'm sure has more bandwidth usage) only has 1 ad a page, and its not every page. They accept donations but thats it. They have no popups, no "between pages" ads, no ads with sounds.

GaiaOnline is just a forum community, while PSPU has more (less users, but still a lot of traffic and downloads). GaiaOnline does not seem to have any downloads, justa forum community of 32,000 users.

[wraggster]

OK heres the thing , we know ads are needed on sites to care for costs, all websites know this but the bloody popups arent needed and also the premium member thing is rubbish.

Me and other sites have brought up this issue so that PSPupdates cares for its visitors, i see over at their forum you say you dont like this site :P

Do the right thing by your visitors and ditch the popups and the premium thing.

[Zeno]

GaiaOnline is just a forum community, while PSPU has more (less users, but still a lot of traffic and downloads). GaiaOnline does not seem to have any downloads, justa forum community of 32,000 users.

32k? Yes, that's about the avg online, but the total is 2mil users. And yes GaiaOnline has downloads, flash games and more. "just a forum community" is not GaiaOnline.

[EvilDragon]

Well, as said, I also run a server.
A complete dedicated server including 5 TB Traffic nowadays costs 100 US$.
2 TB traffic isn't even half of that.

How come they make -1000 US$?

[accord 4 me]

prem membership is fine with me. but basically requiring it to even surf the site is stupid. there's no reason to have all those popup's. you can make plenty off ad's without pissing off the user. and if they're losing 1k a month..then they're doing something wrong and need to rethink things

[FrozenIpaq]

OK NEW NEWS FOR ALL YOU "AD HATERS"

Goodbye Popups!

Thanks to all you guys who have signed up for a Premium Membership on the site, we are proud to announce that we will no longer have popups on the blog or forums! (note that non-premium members will still see normal ads, just no annoying popups).

We want to give a special thanks to everyone who has signed up for a Premium Membership – know that your money is being put to good use keeping this site up and adding more features all the time.

Just think, a few months ago we were just a simple blog, but we have added so many new features to the site:

– An extremely active community forum
– A PSP files section with every legal file you could possibly want for PSP for free
– An image gallery with 100’s of backgrounds and icons for free
– The introduction of many new “updates” console clone sites in our network
– Site and forum redesigns
– 24/7 news coverage

By signing up for a Premium Membership you guys have helped contribute to our growth and development of future features for the site. Thank You!

We are aware that there has been some negative reaction to the Premium Members feature –– and we knew there would be, because hey — you can’t keep everyone happy. But we would like to reiterate that we aren’t charging for any content. All content on the site is available to everyone. Premium or not. We are offering some perks that some users might find attractive enough to warrant spending a few bucks to help support future site growth.

If don’t want to be a Premium Member – that’s ok! We will still work just as hard to bring you the best news first. If you do want to help contribute to the growth of this site and enjoy the perks of a Premium Membership, then great! You can read about the perks and sign up by clicking [here].

Also, expect more and more perks to be added to the Premium benefits. incidentally, we are going to be announcing the first contest/raffle/giveaway for a 1GB Memory Stick for our Premium Members in the next couple of days, so stay tuned. We are still working

[wraggster]

Getting rid of the popups is a good thing but why not have a paypal thing instead of the premiuim charge thing.

Just remember i dont hate PSPUpdates infact Clay comes acrosshas being quite decent but the whole premium member thing is a slap in the face to the scene and your valued members.

[Zeno]

I've been across the web and I have to say this, PSPUpdates is the most ad ridden and congested of popups/script ads/etc I have ever seen in my life. And I'm not about to pay to get rid of them.

[FrozenIpaq]

I've been across the web and I have to say this, PSPUpdates is the most ad ridden and congested of popups/script ads/etc I have ever seen in my life. And I'm not about to pay to get rid of them.

Did you even read/go to the front page of PSPU, no more pop-up ads from what I hear...

Wraggster, I remember hearing a reason why not to implent pay-pal for the donation instead of Premium Members. Anyways with this "Premium donating" the users get something back in return: giveaways, raffles, special forum privledges that were not available before, and more stuff. I have not tried out the new no-ad front page yet. And yeah, Clay does seem like a nice guy from what I have come across with him.

[Zeno]

Did you even read/go to the front page of PSPU, no more pop-up ads from what I hear...

Wraggster, I remember hearing a reason why not to implent pay-pal for the donation instead of Premium Members. Anyways with this "Premium donating" the users get something back in return: giveaways, raffles, special forum privledges that were not available before, and more stuff. I have not tried out the new no-ad front page yet. And yeah, Clay does seem like a nice guy from what I have come across with him.

I read:

Thanks to all you guys who have signed up for a Premium Membership on the site, we are proud to announce that we will no longer have popups on the blog or forums!
And thought it meant those who signed up for a Prem. Membership will no longer have popups. A comma makes a big difference.

[EDIT] ...I just went there and got a script popup.

[Smiths]

i just want to add:
lantus... i love you

[Viperguy212]

for no pop ups or w/e, use firefox w/ adblocker, i have none wat so ever, on any site i go to

[Zeno]

Firefox doesn't prevent _these_ kind of popups. And they are the worst kind.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v123/rebirthseph/popup.jpg

[woo]

THERE IS NO RACE!

Being the first to get "news" out is not the mark of a good journalist. It's the mark of someone who is desperate. A real journalist would first verify the information they obtained and give credit to their news source. Something pspupdates seems unwilling to do on many occasions.

Also pspupdates should be more mindful of the community in which they work. This is homebrew, not a commercial enterprise and trying to turn it into something diffferent is disrespectful against those that create the "news" for them in the first place.

[Velo]

I have been noticing the lag in the forum, a few days ago I couldn't even get in, now it seems fine. The popups are very easy to block (even AOL can block em') so I'm not worrying about that. The ads pretty much only affect the looks of forums and sites, so I wouldn't pay anything (no offence) to get rid of them.

Sorry peeps you aren't getting my mula.
-James