[Scummvm-devel] GOG-Affiliate program, recent additions to website

[Johannes Schickel]

clem schrieb:
> I saw the svn commit when the GOG-change was made to the templates; I voiced
> my concerns in the channel. Nobody seemed to take it seriously.
>   

Actually it would be interesting to hear why the template changes are bad?

> I'm surprised that the GOG "affiliate program" was not discussed on -devel
> beforehand myself actually.
>   

I can't see any reason why it wasn't discussed public. But actually I 
don't really see it as something bad, thus I don't see any urgent reason 
why it should've been done so. I agree that a discussion might have been 
helpful. Actually I would've found it nicer myself.


> Was there any prior discussion about the affiliate program on the channel?
> I can't find one in the logs offhand.
>   

I can't find anything about it either.

> I posted on the forum because this seemed the obvious place to reply to the
> announcement. I also posted there to have opinions from other (forum) users. 
> I am not happy that my post miraculously vanished over night.
>   

I didn't notice anything about that, so you are saying a moderator 
removed your post without any word? That does sound bad and I can 
understand that one might be a bit angry about it, especially when he is 
in closer contact to most (all?) of our moderators / team members. But 
as I got it Eugene wrote you a mail discussing the points mentioned in 
your post? One might argue about whether he should've just wrote a 
public discussion mail to -devel or not, but at least it doesn't really 
look like the points "miraculously vanished".

>> No problem. Give me a nice-looking replacement and I will publish it.
>>     
>
> My suggestion is to remove the GOG link, remove the banner from the main
> page and have the respective link(s) on "where to buy games" on the wiki:
> http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Where_to_buy_games
>   

Why should we remove the banner from the main page etc. when we have an 
affiliate program with GOG?
I guess the button could be changed to something which matches the 
"Support this project" button size wise. With that we might have a 
slightly nicer and consistent look.

> To ask more provocatively, why is there just the GOG banner up? Why not also
> make the forum link to Amazon, ebay, and the other sites selling ScummVM-
> supported games? Because it does not generate revenue? 
>   

I guess there are different reasons for that:

(1) GOG mentions us on their http://www.gog.com/en/thanks/ page.

(2) They do bundle game data files with our ScummVM releases. (legally 
that is)

(3) We're now having an "affiliation" program with them.

(4) We get revenue (which is nice of them, since they do not really have 
to do this) when people buy games after following the button link.

ebay and Amazon don't meet any of those criteria. Apart from them being 
not focused on "old" games.

> I think the announcement is enough to announce it, there is really no need
> to make permanent changes to the web design for that. If you mentioned it
> again in the 0.13.0 release post, I'm sure all regulars will notice it.
>   

Again I don't see what's bad about changing the web design? Is it now 
"bloated"? I don't think so. As stated above the button size and 
position could be changed slightly, but by itself I don't see anything 
bad about it.

> Again, more provocatively asked: people sending out bulk email could as
> well claim that their message otherwise could go unnoticed. That does not 
> make them right. But at least I can delete/filter unsolicited email,
> whereas I'm stuck looking at the link at the forum.
>   

I wonder how you can visit any modern internet site then. They are all 
full of links, which I might don't want to see. But actually we have a 
good reason to show the "Buy Supported Games" link there: it gives users 
an easy way to access games. Many questions on the forums are related on 
how to obtain supported games, thus I think that's enough justification 
to add a visible link for a site.

>> Give us a replacement. Or provide the button size which I could request
>> from GOG.com. Give us replacement of PHP code which generates the page.
>>     
>
> Ditto to above. Remove it.
>   

I stated my opinion on that a few lines above.

>>> In conclusion, I liked the original design better. Any chance to get
>>> back to that?
>>>       

Being provocative right now: You are asking us to design our website 
after how one user thinks it should be? That sounds pretty much like a 
bad attempt of a joke. We have good reasons for designing the website 
like it is. And I don't see any reason why we should keep an alternate 
website version without that GOG banner. As I stated the banner 
'implementation' could've been handled a bit better, but it shouldn't be 
impossible to do so.

(Please note that this is no personal attack)

> Yes, I would prefer to have both the button from the main page and the
> link from the forums removed (and the "contact us" link, or at least move
> that to the bottom of the page). I don't have that much of a problem with
> the news item/the announcement on the forum (other than it's a pretty
> thinly veiled advertisement), but at least I don't have to look at that
> constantly.
>   

Judging from that your main problem is that we do a advertisement for 
GOG? And why do you want the "contact us" link moved? In my opinion it's 
placed nicely there, it's easy to see. If we would move the "contact us" 
to the bottom of the page much fewer people would notice it.

// Johannes