Scam Competitions Ruining the Scene

[wraggster]

Im sure that people who visit here visit other PSP sites and one in particular with its "premium" member (basically a scam to get poor people to cough up 3 dollars each per month to pay for news without ads and forum permissions that every other site are on for free), well this same site has teamed up with LIK SANG (who im sure did not authorise them to use the contest to con people into getting "premium" status via what is a giveaway)

heres an excerpt:




For each person you refer to the site, you get 1 point. For each person you refer to the site that becomes a Premium Member, you get 10 points! Your own forum account is also counted in the total, so if you are a Premium Member, you automatically have 10 points! For example: If you are a Premium Member you have 10 points. If you refer 20 people and 5 of them sign up for a Premium Membership, you would have a total of: 10+20+50 = 80 points.



So they are using Lik Sangs give away to make a massive amount of profit and con people into sigining up for premium memberships,

Im extremely unhappy with not only this but also the last competition which was open to "Premium members Only"

Its truely a devious way of making people part with money for a competition thats a GIVEAWAY and should be 100% free. Referring members is one thing but 10 points if you get somone to buy a premium member, well it stinks

Im sure you all have comments on this. yet again the real scene is exploited by these people. :(

[Sauron96]

I was part of a back & forth argument in the original thread. Too bad most of it was deleted. I'n short I agree that's it's a thinly-veiled attempt to produce A LOT of cash. But one of the mods wrote me a PM and we had a good discussion. But it's kind of B$ - in general. And yes I'm a member of SEVERAL PSP sites. Good to see different peoples ideas and how others can help. But anyway that contest is B$ - but then again you just gave a prize to one of their mods..............................

[RedKing14CA]

does this website have every psp app/emu/news available? hmm... i never thought of that...

[chronoswing]

does this website have every psp app/emu/news available? hmm... i never thought of that...

Everything but loaders. They like to hide news though for a short period of time and only post it in their premium members forum.

[consoul]

but then again you just gave a prize to one of their mods..............................
:eek: One of the winners was a mod from the dark side? Cheeky bugger. Which one? (and no, it's not me.)

[Darksaviour69]

FrozenIpaq is a pspupdates mod, but he seems like a good guy....he just got mixed up with the bad crowd ;)

[FrozenIpaq]

This is why I dislike the PSP scene, back-stabbing. This is no scam at all. PSPU already is hosting a background contest with Liksang that is open to everyone. The Premium members are (as I've said before) donating to the site for its excellent news and forums. From donating, they also get to participate in these large competetions, although I dislike the idea of referals, they can't just giveaway the prizes. I agree that this referal contest is a bad idea (shows greedy??), but almost all sites have such contests now and then.

If they didn't include the premium members (if the person joined, you get extra points), then I think it would've been reasonable.

Argh, after reading more...I find that the scene I am involved with isn't the greatest :( If they did not do this contest, then I would be behind them 100%, but this just shows that they are somewhat greedy, or that they need money (which they lack some funds as of now).

EDIT: Yeah, I'm a mod over at PSPU, but no evil one ;) I'm probably the most "liked" one :) The only times I actually try to argue is when someone says something completly false, like calling this contest a scam, when in fact it's just a good idea to make some money to pay for the prizes. I just like the forum scene of the site, as well as some of the news, but if others don't want the ads, they could always use the text-based version of PSPUpdates, I forget what the address is though :(

I'm thinking about telling them to try to lay off the self-advertising...but I don't have much power of infulence as a whole site like this site does ;)


SO BASICALLY: Site needs money for the prizes?? Self-Advertising, that it is. I'm on the fence once again as too what the reason behind this was.. Hard call: Scam, no, self-advertising, yes. The "real" scene of PSP is not affected by PSPUpdates, as all they do is provide news and a large forum, sister sites, and giveaways, not only to premium members (donating members). Feel free to comment to me via PM to keep this forum less messy (I know that messy threads are a bad thing to have ;) )

[Smiths]

FYI: the background contest originally said "For Premium Members Only", but apparently -- little bird says -- the company providing freebies didn't like that all-too-much.
Silently the contest became "for everyone", even though initial logs show it as Premium ONLY.

And I agree honestly; if they left out the "Premium = 10pt" thing, this would just be a stupid little "spam the hell out of our site" contest.
While stupid as hell, there's nothing "wrong" with that... besides.. well, being immature in a "community" setting and self-serving out the ass.
But the "10pt. Premium" just exposes the $$$ aspect of P$PUpdate$ again and again.

It's not enough several devs are including messages aimed at them (they post the contest on the same day as yoyo's team's little outcry... tact).

Le sigh... le boo hoo..

---
I'll edit and add this: I have reached the point where I consider the "site" of P$PUpdate$ and the forum two separate places. In fact, when the "paid admins" decide to show themselves on the forums, they end up displaying just how "out of tune" they are with the entire concept of the community and how it works. It exposes their ignorance more and more each time they post on the "separate entity" known as the forum.
It is the site that is a cancer on the community and is causing dev after dev to limit releases and/or speak out against them.
The forum is -- after all -- just another forum. Hell, apparently even I -- at some point I guess (???) -- registered there.
I dunno if I did, but Ipaq I think says I did... that's forums for ya!

And btw, the scene is great if you know who and where to get sources from and who is who.. and who is nobody.

[FrozenIpaq]

Well in all fairness, the premium member $$'s do not go into their pocket, it goes into the site, providing giveaways was the first thing the money went into. So try not to call them $$ hungry. The background contest was indeed for Premium members only, but they decided to open it to all since there are not that many premium members willing to participate in it.

Smiths, I wasn't sure if you signed up or not, there are a lot of smiths, and I thought one of them posted your new work on the forums one day, that's what might have gotten/started the confusion.

The reason why the Admins have showed up on the forums is to support it. One of them created the Ultimate Hombrew FAQ/Guide (clay), and I've only seen a few others pop up for site purposes, so they don't show up often, they are too busy working I guess.

[Shapyi]

Haha, its like those school fund raisers when you sell a bunch of chocolate for points and the person who sells the most gets a new bike. I think I grew out of this sort of thing. If people want to do PSPUpdates advertising and recruiting for free, let 'em. Maybe people will realize that the only person who benefits from this is the guy who gets the most.

I can understand why DCEmu.co.uk (probably been my favorite console scene site along with DCEmulation for about 3-4 years) frowns on this sort of thing. They are delieving free PSP news with minimal ads. While PSPUpdates is charging people to see the latest PSP news without ads. Well I don't really need a premium membership when I have Firefox + Adblock haha.

Console scenes always seem to have a lot of drama.

[FrozenIpaq]

Haha, its like those school fund raisers when you sell a bunch of chocolate for points and the person who sells the most gets a new bike. I think I grew out of this sort of thing. If people want to do PSPUpdates advertising and recruiting for free, let 'em. Maybe people will realize that the only person who benefits from this is the guy who gets the most.

I can understand why DCEmu.co.uk (probably been my favorite console scene site along with DCEmulation for about 3-4 years) frowns on this sort of thing. They are delieving free PSP news with minimal ads. While PSPUpdates is charging people to see the latest PSP news without ads. Well I don't really need a premium membership when I have Firefox + Adblock haha.

Console scenes always seem to have a lot of drama.

See this is where people go wrong about PSPUpdates. The premium membership is like a donation, with your donation, you get no ads, forum privledges, entered into free competitions, and more. You don't have to sign up for premium membership just to see the news, you still see the 24/7 news with a few ads that can be blocked anyways. So Premium Membership is more than just ad blocking and most of the people who have signed up think of it as a donation.

[vidgrip]

Generally a donation is something you do by choice, maybe because you appreciate a coders work on a piece of freeware, or because you like Public Television's fine programming.

It's not to get better or preferential service. They're dangling a carrot, if you give us cash we'll give you this. By calling it a membership and offering the "member" more, there's no way anyone can confuse this with a donation.

[nexis2600]

Really I think PSP updates should use the extra $$$ to help out the scene where it's needed and not waste on contest. From my recent donation bin to help for a 2nd psp (errr stupid usps, where me psp. should already be here :(), DCEmu was the only site to actualy donate twards helping raise a psp. The rest of the donations came from every day users.

To me, PSP updates should insted be getting money to buy 1.5 units for coders that could use one to further the scene. When people actualy put money into the scene it self and not just regular users, it goes along way.

Also I can truely speek from experience that a site can push their own money into suporting them self. As many do not know. I ran and paid for all hosting of agbdev.net when it was operational. That site hosted about 80% of the most important websites related to gba development ADD FREE which included the likes of gbadev.org, joat's mappy emulator, the GBA crib sheets, and many others. I gladly did it and every single month paid the hosting fees (and I did not have a whole lot of cash specialy being a high school student with a small weekend job).

[FrozenIpaq]

Really I think PSP updates should use the extra $$$ to help out the scene where it's needed and not waste on contest. From my recent donation bin to help for a 2nd psp (errr stupid usps, where me psp. should already be here :(), DCEmu was the only site to actualy donate twards helping raise a psp. The rest of the donations came from every day users.

To me, PSP updates should insted be getting money to buy 1.5 units for coders that could use one to further the scene. When people actualy put money into the scene it self and not just regular users, it goes along way.

Also I can truely speek from experience that a site can push their own money into suporting them self. As many do not know. I ran and paid for all hosting of agbdev.net when it was operational. That site hosted about 80% of the most important websites related to gba development ADD FREE which included the likes of gbadev.org, joat's mappy emulator, the GBA crib sheets, and many others. I gladly did it and every single month paid the hosting fees (and I did not have a whole lot of cash specialy being a high school student with a small weekend job).

How would you suggest PSPU use the membership money for? PSPU gives all coders the Premium membership for free, thus they can participate in the free contests. How can PSPU contribute more to developers? What do other sites do to contribute?? Developers are given the premium membership, that's giving back. I know Aerol33t, a developer, and he enjoys what he is doing and likes to help out the community and he does not ask for anything in return, just the respect of being a developer ;)

[wraggster]

At the end of the day developers and fans alike are being took the piss out of by greedy people who are using the homebrew and emulation scene to bring in premium membership and using giveaways to further that.

Topic Closed

I dont want any more mention of that site on these forums.

[nexis2600]

How would you suggest PSPU use the membership money for? PSPU gives all coders the Premium membership for free, thus they can participate in the free contests. How can PSPU contribute more to developers? What do other sites do to contribute?? Developers are given the premium membership, that's giving back. I know Aerol33t, a developer, and he enjoys what he is doing and likes to help out the community and he does not ask for anything in return, just the respect of being a developer ;)

Yes for the most part most developers just want respect but not all of them that wish to contribute to the scene can run out and buy a 1.5 psp and hop in. I am not sure on the current status but I believe right now ldchen is trying to port his fpsxe playstation 1 emulator to psp with no real psp. Given the hardware I have no dout the guy would get a solid build up and running on a psp with amazing speeds quickly with pretty good compatibility. (You should see the work that has been done on this emulator for pocket pcs).

Sure the free subscription is a very nice gesture from pspupdates and I am happy to have it but I feel they should direct what extra money they can directly into the development scene to help coders out insted of giving away a psp who ever can drumm up enough subscriptions for them.

What do other sites do to contribute??

Again referencing my previous post. I recently had a donation drive to help drumm up money so I can get myself a 2nd psp to code wifi. I did not do the drive because I want money. I did it because I really want to get multiplayer via wifi done but I dont have the extra $$$ sitting around to even do it. I even this week finaly finaly got to borrow a coworkers psp for 30 mins durring my lunch break and was able to fix a small bug in my handshake code to connect 2 units over irda for multiplayer.

Wragster donated a nice $20 which was very helpful. Out of the list of people who donate I can't find a single one that came from pspupdates. I mean it really would have gone a long way as they would have been credited in all future builds plus the wifi libs which will probably get used alot. I am still happy PSPUpdates finaly posted about it which helpd (truthfuly about $90 worth of donations came from the link on pspupdates where $80 came from this forum alone, Most of that was due to 3 main contributers who combind made a total of $110).

To me that just feels kind of sad. They are running contest to give away things yet they dont donate to help out a coder to furuther the scene. I don't see them making big post on the new site saying "HEY CODERS, IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN GET YOU GUYS TO HELP FURTHER THE SCENE?"

Thats just my view on it. Me personaly, I am trying to talk to someone who is purchasing a palette of store returned psps to posibly see about getting some units for cheap to donate to scene coders who need them.

--edit note--
Sorry for the poor gramar and spelling. I've not been getting good enough sleep recently.

[Cap'n 1time]

I agree with nexis2600, rather than using money to pay for prizes (and obviously making a profit for yourself) you could contribute by use it for donations for coders that need the help. At the end of the day your site is full of uninformed members and a bunch of selfish greedy mods. It is best just to see things for what they really are.

they have all the ability in the world to make a REAL contribution to the scene, and it dosnt involve dorky prizes in which you are making profits for yourself. the homebrew scene is meant to be free, your site dosnt seem to support that.

[Smiths]

BTW: If you haven't noticed, the mention of "becoming a premium member enters you in contests" is bullshit since it's not allowed.
Contests, by law, have to be free. Don't think they "opened up the background contest to everyone" as a kind gesture.

THEY HAD TO

The sheer ignorance of the $$$-driven philosophy of "believing they are IGN or Gamespot" is bullshit. IGN doesn't post homebrew news as its main source of traffic; they post REAL EXCLUSIVE NEWS. That shite site simply lifts everyone else's news and work, then tries to compare themselves to IGN.

I ****ing worked at IGN, okay? Trust me, they are NOT IGN.

[parabolee]

I thought this topic was closed? Why is it re-open?

[FrozenIpaq]

BTW: If you haven't noticed, the mention of "becoming a premium member enters you in contests" is bullshit since it's not allowed.
Contests, by law, have to be free. Don't think they "opened up the background contest to everyone" as a kind gesture.

THEY HAD TO

The sheer ignorance of the $$$-driven philosophy of "believing they are IGN or Gamespot" is bullshit. IGN doesn't post homebrew news as its main source of traffic; they post REAL EXCLUSIVE NEWS. That shite site simply lifts everyone else's news and work, then tries to compare themselves to IGN.

I ****ing worked at IGN, okay? Trust me, they are NOT IGN.

No, the contests at first were free, but then, due to legal reasons, had to becomes somewhat of a competition, ie the background one.

Para, it was closed but re-opened for a reason.

Here is a good response to this "controversy":

As was just mentioned, this is a promotional contest. Just about every contest you'll ever come across is created for this exact same reason. This site is a business, they've never claimed differently. This site employs 8 people, and there is someone on shift every hour of ever day. The personnel costs alone easily total $8,000-10,000 a month. That money has to come from somewhere.

So I don't see what the problem is with a site attempting to draw in new users, especially when they're giving away about the coolest PSP prize pack you'll find anywhere. Sure, they're trying to make money because right now, the site isn't breaking even.

I am not trying to start an argument of any kind here, I like this site, and I wish to contribute the best I can. I just want to clear a few misconceptions up about another one of my favorite sites, and the above quote explains all you need to know. So as Wraggster said, let's not talk about PSPU anymore, ruining another site is not nice

[Cap'n 1time]

No, the contests at first were free, but then, due to legal reasons, had to becomes somewhat of a competition, ie the background one.

Para, it was closed but re-opened for a reason.

[b]Here is a good response to this "controversy":


I am not trying to start an argument of any kind here, I like this site, and I wish to contribute the best I can. I just want to clear a few misconceptions up about another one of my favorite sites, and the above quote explains all you need to know. So as Wraggster said, let's not talk about PSPU anymore, ruining another site is not nice

Sorry, but this is somthing that needs to be discussed. First off, your making money off of hosting other peoples games and setting up a forum. Thats not much differant from selling homebrew games on ebay.. and to your promotions... thats like Selling your homebrew on ebay but saying that each buyer has a small chance of winning an extra prize! guess what! its still ethically wrong in the end! there is no excuse for what pspu does and ive heard 2 really lame suggestions trying to create a reason for it.

1 (my favorite) "We arnt doing anything that IGN is doing" (thats not a direct quote, but its what you said)

well whats wrong with this? its completely wrong. IGN advertises for Commercial game companies, Makes money, and Makes them money in the end... What is pspu doing? Making money... and.... doing nothing for the creators of the software!

2 (the lamest) "We work 24 hour shifts and this is how we pay the bills" (thats not a direct quote either.. but it came from an email to someone we all know and love)

If thats the case... thats really pathetic. get a real job mac. muching off of decent, hard working people, that find the time to make these programs is beyond wrongl. And dont even try to suggest its how you keep your site up. Wraggster is a hardworker (hes got a real job) and somehow he manages to host all of these files and keep ads to a minimal, meanwhile receiving all the respect of the coders... hmmm.. so he can do it but you cant? once again.. get a real job. (this may or may not be directed at you Frozen)

[FrozenIpaq]

Sorry, but this is somthing that needs to be discussed. First off, your making money off of hosting other peoples games and setting up a forum. Thats not much differant from selling homebrew games on ebay.. and to your promotions... thats like Selling your homebrew on ebay but saying that each buyer has a small chance of winning an extra prize! guess what! its still ethically wrong in the end! there is no excuse for what pspu does and ive heard 2 really lame suggestions trying to create a reason for it.

1 (my favorite) "We arnt doing anything that IGN is doing" (thats not a direct quote, but its what you said)

well whats wrong with this? its completely wrong. IGN advertises for Commercial game companies, Makes money, and Makes them money in the end... What is pspu doing? Making money... and.... doing nothing for the creators of the software!

2 (the lamest) "We work 24 hour shifts and this is how we pay the bills" (thats not a direct quote either.. but it came from an email to someone we all know and love)

If thats the case... thats really pathetic. get a real job mac. muching off of decent, hard working people, that find the time to make these programs is beyond wrongl. And dont even try to suggest its how you keep your site up. Wraggster is a hardworker (hes got a real job) and somehow he manages to host all of these files and keep ads to a minimal, meanwhile receiving all the respect of the coders... hmmm.. so he can do it but you cant? once again.. get a real job. (this may or may not be directed at you Frozen)

First: This is America (where the site is hosted), and this is how stuff works when you want to make a living off websites. From the above quote I wrote, the site is barely making enough to come by, but they are.

I am not a "paid staff" at PSPU, just a forum moderator. I agree that it is quite un-reasonable to pay so much for such a simple job of posting news..The reason for the ads are not "profit", but to pay the workers, there is hardly any profit, if any made. I am 16, well educated and am not working, so I spend my free time helping others. I do agree in somewhat that PSPU should find alternative ways of hosting, but I have no background of interent/website hosting.

How is PSPUpdates selling hombrew, they are not. They are posting the files free of charge, the only "problem" is that ads are intrusive, but that is all. The site is free everyone. Those who signed up for premium members have decided to sign up to donate to the site, to help it stay up in these hard times.

So overall: PSPU does not make money from this, they need money, so they try their hardest to run a site. You have to make money to live in America.

I guess I'm just frustrated over this whole ordeal, and the fact that Wraggster (nothing against him, he's a good, hardworking fella) called this a Scam Competition, when as said above, it's self promoting, nothing wrong in promoting your own site, not a scam.

[wraggster]

But by using the giveaway to basically force a load of peeps to be premium members your taking another shit on the scene.

[FrozenIpaq]

But by using the giveaway to basically force a load of peeps to be premium members your taking another shit on the scene.

Well I do agree that adding that premium membership point addition is a really bad idea, but some users are willing to dis out their own $$'s on PayPal to their friends who sign up. This is just an unfair contest overall and is a bad move politically on PSPU, I do agree on that part

[Mental2k]

Homebrew should be free, that's the whole point, if we wnat to pay for it, we'll buy comercial games. Premium content is not a donation. the whole PSP scene is getting the homebrew scene in general a bad name. too much childish bitching. Maybe v2 firmware is a good thing after all.

[wraggster]

Let me point a few facts out, im a one man newsposting and website updating machine and own 17 sites and each site is perfectly up to date, i spend anythig from 6 hours to 12 hours a day on the sites even on a work day and i do that on my own and if i only had the site the update crew has got i could easily without a shadown of a doubt trounce the update sites for news etc and you dont see me on that sort of money.

ads are fine and releveant ads enhance a website but the premium thing ruins and i mean it does harm to pspupdates and the scene as well.

also dont believe all the rubbish you are told from admins, they will only tell you what they want you to know ;)

[Mental2k]

yeah, wraggs is telling us only wat he wants us to know;) Nah wraggs is the man, some day i'll get round to donating him something, he deserves it, not these twats who charge for the service (sorry I have trouble understanding this, when wraggs does sucha damn good job, why use anyone elses site?)

[FrozenIpaq]

Let me point a few facts out, im a one man newsposting and website updating machine and own 17 sites and each site is perfectly up to date, i spend anythig from 6 hours to 12 hours a day on the sites even on a work day and i do that on my own and if i only had the site the update crew has got i could easily without a shadown of a doubt trounce the update sites for news etc and you dont see me on that sort of money.

ads are fine and releveant ads enhance a website but the premium thing ruins and i mean it does harm to pspupdates and the scene as well.

also dont believe all the rubbish you are told from admins, they will only tell you what they want you to know ;)

Yes'm I agree 100% with you on your points. Although, the site is struggling a little and I guess are doing quick decisions that are ruining them even more :( As long as they keep news up and forums active, I'm fine. I don't really use their file host much, so they can get rid of that :) (but then again, everyone else does :( )

Everyone has valid points now, wraggster, you work really hard (17 sites!!) I had no idea it was that many :clap:

Verdict: 2 frowns, 1 smiley. Guess I'm frowning :(

[Cap'n 1time]

Yes'm I agree 100% with you on your points. Although, the site is struggling a little and I guess are doing quick decisions that are ruining them even more :( As long as they keep news up and forums active, I'm fine. I don't really use their file host much, so they can get rid of that :) (but then again, everyone else does :( )

Everyone has valid points now, wraggster, you work really hard (17 sites!!) I had no idea it was that many :clap:

Verdict: 2 frowns, 1 smiley. Guess I'm frowning :(

hey hey, dont get the wrong idea, our point isnt to make you feel like crap.. the more people we can make understand what pspupdates is doing the better.

Plus, i respect you... and im the biggest asshole of all these here forums :D

[FrozenIpaq]

hey hey, dont get the wrong idea, our point isnt to make you feel like crap.. the more people we can make understand what pspupdates is doing the better.

Plus, i respect you... and im the biggest asshole of all these here forums :D

lol, not nice to say about yourself ;)

I don't hate PSPU for what they are doing, but I just don't understand them completely, and no one really does. There are two sides: Good and Bad. I'm saying they are good in some aspects, but in some others it's bad. I'm not one to call a news site bad like there's because it's not all bad, just some parts.

Calling yourself an a**hole, makes you one. When you don't call yourself one, then you are not. Call youself a noob, and you will be one, simple as that ;)

[Cap'n 1time]

lol, not nice to say about yourself ;)

I don't hate PSPU for what they are doing, but I just don't understand them completely, and no one really does. There are two sides: Good and Bad. I'm saying they are good in some aspects, but in some others it's bad. I'm not one to call a news site bad like there's because it's not all bad, just some parts.

Calling yourself an a**hole, makes you one. When you don't call yourself one, then you are not. Call youself a noob, and you will be one, simple as that ;)

no no no.. im the biggest asshole in the world and im proud of it. :) . generally they have found its best to be on my good side.... some how i have managed to stay a year without being banned... lucky i guess :) .

[FrozenIpaq]

no no no.. im the biggest asshole in the world and im proud of it. :) . generally they have found its best to be on my good side.... some how i have managed to stay a year without being banned... lucky i guess :) .

No use trying to tell you you are not, I clearly don't know you ;) So you have a good side to your evilish behavior, that's good to know ;)

[Smiths]

I don't hate PSPU for what they are doing, but I just don't understand them completely, and no one really does. There are two sides: Good and Bad. I'm saying they are good in some aspects, but in some others it's bad. I'm not one to call a news site bad like there's because it's not all bad, just some parts.


Ipaq, at this point man I honestly can tell you are conflicted with this. At age 16 with not much understanding of corporate greed and ignorance ruining a "community" I can understand why you want to believe P$PUpdate$ is "in this" for the community, and users like you.

You obviously really do. As does Malumense, and anyone else who takes the title/position of "forum moderator" seriously; as if the "creators/admins" bestowed responsibility upon them.

Unfortunately, in the end, this "contest" will also just shit on you the most. Who spends the free time moderating the forums? Who spends hours upon hours cleaning up garbage? Who spends their time linking people to existing posts, closing posts, editing posts?

You. You. You.

And now there's a "contest" to simply "add as many people as possible to the forums so you can WIN".
In the end, who will be "taking care of" this immigration of retards.

You. You. You.

Who gets paid for it?

Them. Them. Them.

Yeah, that's worth defending. It's not like you already don't put up with enough garbage from them. My god the bullshit they feed you about "IGN" and "legitimacy" of these "contests" and their "practices". and the shit you have to swallow to stay with them.

IGN makes money because they write about products that make money. It's a cash-whoring system, and it's legit and fine. It's the same way CNN has "premium" content; they are reporting on news from paid reporters who work through paid agencies (UPI/AP) to spread the news. It's a circle of cash and you can't be upset about that.

On the other hand, P$PUpdate$ main page currently has:
1 Scam Contest post
5 Posts containing "news" obtained from other sites
15 posts concerning free programs/downloads made by other people

What the hell is "exclusive" about that shit? Because they have idiots who work "70 hours a week in shifts" (according to them), we should give them money to use those 70 hours pilfering other sites' stories and other peoples' hard work?

They try to create this "sob story" about how they work so hard and so long for you, and hardly make any money for it.

Have you ever viewed www.contentholdings.com?
THEY BUY ****ING DOMAINS FOR INSANE $$$$.

P$PUpdate$ == ContentHoldings.
Explain to me how they are so broke and barely paying the bills?
Moodhacker.com PAYS PEOPLE FOR LINKING TO EXISTING IMAGES

If they are so broke and need your money so much, how are they affording to squander it on all this other stuff?

Answer: they aren't so broke; they want you to believe they are.

This has been in their cards since day 1; since nem first released "Hello World" and they saw a "Gameboy Emulator" released. Where was this "network of sites 24/7 70 hour a week" before then? Where was it when the Dreamcast homebrew community existed? Or more recently, the GBA community was thriving?
Hell, even PS2NFO.com scum were "reporting" on PS2 homebrew way back when.

These guy$ came along and saw an opportunity to "cash in" for themselves and have exploited everyone since Day One.

The reason people see them as "the source" in the PSP "scene" is because they would remove credits and links to everyone's page/translations, etc... back in the beginning. Therefore, ignorant sites would come along and think "Wow, this site must be the source of all these releases!"
By not citing PSPWiki from the start, being patient on authors' requests, posting anything and everything without verification, they tricked everyone into believing it was them who had the releases of the PSP "scene"

They silenced anyone who said opposite (in their comments section) for weeks at the beginning. Even simple things like "post a link to the author" were deleted.

And now people defend them as being some "poor shmoes working 70 hours a week and barely scraping by"

Cry me a ****ing river. The day they die is the happiest day for the PSP Community.

[nexis2600]

Hey just a funny note to add while we keep bringing up IGN. I'm a moderator over there and have been one for quite some time. I feel they owe me nothing because I like helping others out with tech related info but IGN still gives me insider service which is quite nice since it's not cheap. :)

Just though I would throw in another ign reference to this topic for fun.

[faceless]

yeeah i remember when they did the first contest, i posted a comment about the legality of having a contest that required a fee on a site based in the usa that wasn't a non-profit organization...

it got deleted in about 10 minutes...

[Shapyi]

Wow this topic has grown. I was originally going to comment on this reply to my post but the topic got locked.


See this is where people go wrong about PSPUpdates. The premium membership is like a donation, with your donation, you get no ads, forum privledges, entered into free competitions, and more. You don't have to sign up for premium membership just to see the news, you still see the 24/7 news with a few ads that can be blocked anyways. So Premium Membership is more than just ad blocking and most of the people who have signed up think of it as a donation.

There is a difference between signing up for a service and a donation. At church they pass around a collection basket for donations. You have the choice of putting in money or not. The people who put in money don't get anything extra for putting it in. The people who don't give money don't lose anything from not putting in money. But the church benefits from the donation making the community better for EVERYONE (even the people who don't give money). Thats how my church works anyway.

At PSPUpdates, people who give $ 3 get a service that people who don't give money don't get. Its not a donation because the only people who benefit from it are the people who give the money and the people who collect the money. Its not improving the whole community like in the church example.

Thats all I have to say to your reply to my post Ipaq. Moving on...

This contest is sort of like those fund raisers in grade school. You get those crappy chocolates that taste like wax and try to sell them to your family, friends and neighbors. The kid who sells the most and racks up the most points gets a prize, like a new bike, while the others get nothing. This contest more or less operates in the same fashion.

The only people who benefit from it are the people running the site. Because they basically have a bunch of people recruiting people to join their site for free. The only person who will benefit is the person who wins. The person who gets in 2nd will get nothing and will have done all that free recruiting and advertising for nothing.

There is no need to charge people when running a scene website. They can't play the "we need money to keep the site up" card because they are basically asking for more people to surf and download from their site. And if keeping the site alive because of bandwidth issues was a problem they wouldn't have a contest that encourages people to get as many people as possible to join.

The people who program homebrew programs do it in their free time for FREE. There is no reason that a site like PSPUpdates should benefit from the hard work of others. The members at ps2dev.org and other developers who came up with the toolchain, the legal SDK, the samples, the forum help and much more did it all for FREE.

So if wraggster and others can keep us informed on the multiple console and handheld scenes then those guys can do the same. Also this site remain up to date, is a lot easier to navigate and has local downloads of all homebrew (even past versions) which is awesome.

[Giga Phil]

Ipaq, at this point man I honestly can tell you are conflicted with this. At age 16 with not much understanding of corporate greed and ignorance ruining a "community" I can understand why you want to believe P$PUpdate$ is "in this" for the community, and users like you.

You obviously really do. As does Malumense, and anyone else who takes the title/position of "forum moderator" seriously; as if the "creators/admins" bestowed responsibility upon them.

Unfortunately, in the end, this "contest" will also just shit on you the most. Who spends the free time moderating the forums? Who spends hours upon hours cleaning up garbage? Who spends their time linking people to existing posts, closing posts, editing posts?

You. You. You.

And now there's a "contest" to simply "add as many people as possible to the forums so you can WIN".
In the end, who will be "taking care of" this immigration of retards.

You. You. You.

Who gets paid for it?

Them. Them. Them.


You know, we didn't get forced to be moderators, its our choice.

[FrozenIpaq]

You know, we didn't get forced to be moderators, its our choice.

Yeah, what he said ^^

We, well me atleast, enjoy helping others, and as a moderator, we get to help out even more. This is volunter work, and we do it out of the goodness of our hearts.

I wish to take back any bad things I said about PSPU, I like them the most of any site I have ever been to, and to me that deserves a cookie! I was just trying to watch my back, but right now I don't really care.

[woo]

The point I think that PSPU's owners, etc.. seem to be missing is a simple one. You're trying to make money out of a community that is non-commercial based, doesn't want to be commercially based and never will be commercially based. Right from the developers who put together the toolchains and write the demos, games, apps, emulators, etc.. to the people responsibly reporting the "news" of these developments in our community, and those that share their knowledge and help the end user in getting things up and running. We ALL have a responsibility to look after each other!! That's how a real community works!...

PSPU philosophy is anti-this principal. Their "quest" is to make money and money alone and they'll do it any damn way they can think of. Everything about that is wrong. It's not about 24/7 news, which I hate to point out, most releases I've monitored recently our good friend Mr 12 hour, 17 sites seems to get the news out first. Have you wondered why that is? Could be to do with author's primarily contacting him first or posting directly in his forums. We from Emuholic have great respect for Wraggy! :)

If PSPU really want to know how to run a website in this kind of community that has respect, "fast" news reporting and is commercially viable, try www.xbox-scene.com ... You'll find all your answers there. The rest of us.. We're just happy to actually be considered a friend.

[Cap'n 1time]

The point I think that PSPU's owners, etc.. seem to be missing is a simple one. You're trying to make money out of a community that is non-commercial based, doesn't want to be commercially based and never will be commercially based. Right from the developers who put together the toolchains and write the demos, games, apps, emulators, etc.. to the people responsibly reporting the "news" of these developments in our community, and those that share their knowledge and help the end user in getting things up and running. We ALL have a responsibility to look after each other!! That's how a real community works!...

PSPU philosophy is anti-this principal. Their "quest" is to make money and money alone and they'll do it any damn way they can think of. Everything about that is wrong. It's not about 24/7 news, which I hate to point out, most releases I've monitored recently our good friend Mr 12 hour, 17 sites seems to get the news out first. Have you wondered why that is? Could be to do with author's primarily contacting him first or posting directly in his forums. We from Emuholic have great respect for Wraggy! :)

If PSPU really want to know how to run a website in this kind of community that has respect, "fast" news reporting and is commercially viable, try www.xbox-scene.com ... You'll find all your answers there. The rest of us.. We're just happy to actually be considered a friend.

interesting you brought up xbox-scene.com. I think its great that they work so closely with xbins.org too! great example of how a partnership should be.