Back in Monday, we claimed that this week was one of the most crucial weeks for the future of DSOG. And today, we are ready to discuss what has been happening these past days, as well as some minor changes we’ve implemented.
So, in Monday we got a report from Google about some pages featuring adult/sexual content. Google is against such things, and is very strict about its policy. Therefore, we had three days to comply to it, and remove any offending images, videos or text.
But what is considered ‘offending’ content? Well, basically everything you can imagine; from bikini images to mere words. You all know that we want to provide freedom to you – our readers – however it seems that some comments triggered Google’s bots. After all, the example page that was included in Google’s report did not feature any adult images or videos.
As a result of that, we have added a new filter to Disqus (basically it will censor a lot of ‘cursing’ and ‘harsh’ words). It may be frustrating, but we strongly believe that it’s better to play it safe. We are currently at a crucial point where every mistake can be grave. And though this filter may frustrate some, we believe it’s better dealing with it (or being careful with your comments. No reason to resort to cursing people. We always value discussions with arguments) than letting everyone loose and – eventually – closing down DSOG.
Truth be told, we’d love to be funded by our readers. Our ideal scenario is to have an ads-free website. Yes yes, we’d love a website funded by our fanbase that does not contain any ads at all. However, and let’s be realistic and honest on this, that won’t be happening any time soon.
But how are we so certain about this? Generally speaking, we love experimenting with all sorts of things. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to include a ‘Donate’ widget at the right sidebar. That widget was purposely placed at the top of the sidebar. We did not inform anyone about it as we wanted to see whether people would notice it themselves, and whether we’d have any pledges without ‘asking’ our fans for such a thing. Our total earnings from that ‘Donate’ experiment – that lasted a week – were $0 dollars.
DSOGaming is slowly – but steadily – getting bigger, which is precisely why we need to be extra careful. We do know that some of our readers are using ad blockers. And while this does ‘hurt’ us economically, we are against using plugins that prevent our content to those using them. No, that’s not who we are. We’ll never block our content. And we won’t blackmail our readers in order to whitelist us. That’s their decision.
Decision. Yes, that’s the right word. After all, it all comes down to this; every decision has a consequence. And unfortunately, we don’t know how things will turn out unless we make a decision. Some of those decisions may backfire in the long run while others may benefit both us and our readers. And right now, all we can do is hope that we’re making the right ones.
For what is worth, it will be an interesting journey!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
I can’t remember seeing ANYTHING sexual on DSOG ever and curse words have gotten filtered for as long as I can remember. Have you been able to reach a real human employee of google? Maybe someone with bad intentions wrongly reported you or something.
Exactly my thoughts . We once posted a video about PS3 emulator and fanboys reported that video to youtube admin, claiming that it is fake and stuff . The video was flagged so many times by Sony drones that it was taken down by youtube and later the user re uploaded the video . This site is used by lot of PC gamers as source and I’m pretty sure some but*hurt fanboy must have reported it .
Definitely agree with you there, there are so many fanboys that would do such things just to spite everyone, I know one can’t cure it , but I don’t understand why would they come to this site just to try and scream,shout and whine that their choice of gaming is superior to all, same like how we all have stopped visiting those sites catering to console fanboys. same should apply here, but I admit it is fun to read those comments.
We all just gotta think before we comment nowadays
John: idea, why not run both ads and user based donations, add a recently donated sidebar(enough space under comment of the week) but obviously automate it since there’s almost a bot for everything these days. would slowly start a transition and make DSOG even better.
Yeah, there are a lot of petty jerks out there that would report DSOG simply because they get called out pretty hardcore when they try and spout their ridiculous anti-PC crap here.
those sony drones are insanse. SHOKIO has a video about how anything negative sto nitendo and ms are filled with sony fanboys but when something negative about sony is posted eg the billion losses each year they keep geting, it does not make it through n4g because the fanboys are flagging it.
Sony fanboys get a life, you do not represent sony stop damaging controling for them.
Stop spreading fanboy lies, hatred, and FUD, it accomplishes nothing. It’s not healthy to hate pieces of plastic and people who like playing video games on them. It’s sad that you hate good video games for being on the wrong piece of plastic.
You believe many lies and blatant falsehoods to fuel your sick fanboy hatred. You are vastly ignorant yet full of blind, delusional hatred.
Forza, Sunset, Halo Remake, etc. articles are nearly untouched by negative opinions let alone a dozen+ malicious shills invading to spread blatant lies, blind hate, and trolling.
They outnumber anyone else on any other platform doing the same thing. It’s pure evil. Where’s the PS equivalent to crapgamer, misterxmedia, zaire, and other fanboy lie and hate propaganda outlets on the internet, youtube, twitter, disqus, etc. accompanied by dozens and dozens of vile shills? Nowhere.
Microsoft shills are far more likely to be constantly wrong or delusional and out of touch with reality. There is no PS equivalent to misterxmedia’s cult or dsogaming.
Claiming Xbox is secretly more powerful than PS4, claiming Xbox is outselling PS4 or will soon start outselling it, claiming Sony is broke or bankrupt, accusing Sony of lying when they didn’t, accusing Sony of saying things they didn’t, lying about non-existent downgrades in games like Infamous, lying about PS4 having no games or only indie games, lying that PS4 is only selling “on hype”, lies about PSN, or delusional conspiracy theories in general.
PS4 will continue being successful despite the constantly WRONG shills spreading lies, FUD, and hate. You are helpless, nothing you can do will stop it.
There are dozens of microsoft fanboys constantly invading articles to spread utter lies and blind hatred, and pretty much nobody doing the same for any other console (PS, Wii, whatever). Even PC fanboys don’t do it that much. And then there’s misterxmedia, the most delusional, crazy, and lying fanboy on the planet. ms fanboys are incomparable in terms of utter lies and blind, deranged hatred.
unity 900p 30 fps because they are bottlenecked by the cpu just like sucker punch admited th cpu is bottlenecked.
drivcelub got dwongraded
Dat downgrade
http://abload.de/img/dc12cgsvi.jpg
http://abload.de/img/dc8i4sc3.jpg
http://abload.de/img/dc9elsmn.jpg
http://abload.de/img/dc1011syi.jpg
http://abload.de/img/dc11josix.jpg
http://abload.de/img/dc13twstn.jpg
http://abload.de/img/downgradeclub7uws0b.png
“There will be no parity if PS4’s stronger hardware is being pushed.”
Thats why they aim for parity so sony damage cotnrolers like you can stop spamming.
“Exclusively 1080p 60 FPS console games on PS4: MGS V, CoD Ghosts, FFXIV,
Tomb Raider, MLB The Show 14, Resogun, Trials Fusion, Diablo 3 (higher
framerate), Project Cars, Metro Redux, TLOU Remastered, more.”
Those are last gen games and most of them are on pc as well.
“Driveclub, The Order, Uncharted 4, etc. are technically superior as they
run on more powerful hardware. Normal, unbiased, sane people recognize
PS4 exclusive games look better,”
You have only seen the order and it was downgraded.
“PS4 has many great games that gamers love. That’s why it’s 11+ million
in sales and growing. Sony’s large number of well funded 1st parties
will ensure PS4 has a ton of great AAA exclusives, as many or more than
PS3.”
AHAHAHAH
First of all
“only 4/10 sony exlusives sell”
-yoshida
So you are wrong most sony exlusives are irrelevant
ps4 hasnt sold 11 milion it has sold 8.5 it has shipped 11 milion sony lies as usual.
Yoshida already said that ps4 will have less AAA exlusive than ps3 because they cost to much so no you just talking nosense.
“PSN is hugely improved and Sony is continually investing more into it. PSN handled the Destiny launch just fine.”
Sure sure we are definetly not gonna see any more psn down time NOPE psn is worthless.
“All 3 consoles have good exclusive games, and pros and cons, it’s only fanboys blindly hating one or the other..”
Says
the guy who desperatly damage controls sony for minor things and doesnt
have a life other than praising sony you keep doing this i am gathering
people to contact disquss and tell them what a spammer you are so they
can contact your isp and ban you from the interent from good
YOU ARE A NO LIFE KID WHO EXISTS ONLY TO DAMAGE CONTROL SONY, STOP SPAMMING PEOPLE I WILL REPORT YOU TO DISQUSS SO THEY CAN CONTACT YOUR ISP AND TAKE AWAY YOUR INTERNET ACESS AND PRESS CHARGES
I KNOW YOU CALLED SOMEONE A XBOT AND HE GAVE YOU HIS PSN AND YOU SEND HIM ANGRY LONG MESSAGES, I KNOW YOU GAVE HIN HIS ADRESS.
YOU ARE INSANE.
“It’s not healthy to hate pieces of plastic and people who like playing video games”
its not healthy to love a plastic box and a corperation and spend your entire free time to damage control and post popaganda you freaking nutcase. Go to a mental asylum where you belong
“Microsoft shills are far more likely to be constantly wrong or
delusional and out of touch with reality. There is no PS equivalent to
misterxmedia’s cult or dsogaming.”
THIS IS A PC SITE YOU CRAZY DUMBASS WE DONT HAVE ANY XBOT HERE
CRAZY DELUSIONAL MORON.
“claiming Sony is broke or bankrupt, accusing Sony of lying when they didn’t, ”
sony is going bankrupt and where it does people like you will KILL THEMSELFS so we can be free of your nightmare.
so ps4 cred parity edition 900p hahahah
you sony san mateo shills will keep getting pwnd.
i have sometimes cursed people in my comments but now that is has come to this,i will be much more careful. it is our responsibility not to harm the site and i and many others,obviously.want this site to exist. long live DSOG…
i second that
agreed, from now on i curse people like this:
you *** little **** m*** s*** r*** t** a** ******! :))
a new era of cursing is coming here!!!
lmao!
Long Life To DSOG.
Preach it
DSOG is my 1st choice when it comes to video game news and I check it several times per day. I will admit that I use adblocker but I would absolutely “whitelist” DSOG when you guys decide to use some less intrusive ads. A couple of banners by the side? No problem. The more pushy kind which actually messes up my experience? No thanks.
My words right out of my mouth. I at one time removed adblocker for this site but hated the ads that make you look at something on a countdown(hate this) before it lets into the site. I’ll switch adblocker off here again to help support the site but, if the those terrible ads continue I’ll switch it back on. I don’t mind the ads like you mentioned. I love the site except for the kids who argue in the comments all the time and I wanna see this site improve. I’d love to see intelligent discussions going on here but, right now its nothing but people constantly bagging on consoles like they’re on some kind of mission or something and it’s so embarrassing.
DSOG = The best PC gaming website.
and apparently the only thing that hasnt been touched by corruption, that and totalbiscuit, pr gamer, rockpapershotgun, superbunnyhope all have a part on this.
Oh great, does that mean all the Gamegate tin-foil hat misogynists are going to show up here?
or maybe it means that all the crazy hate-spewing SJW won’t come over here 🙂
so people who believe some websites are corrupt are misogynists ?
Gamersgate is not about women, its about corruption on gamejournalism. Gamers are not misogynistic, thats what the gaming press told you by posting the same articles about how games are scum and gamers are over at the same day.
There is no proof of hate against women or anything like that.
The game journalism has gone to crap many years now. Eg patricia in kotaku keeps posting bs like “are legos sexist?” or how defeating a woman in counter strike is rape because it is about overpowering women.
The reallity is there are feminazis who post nonsense like that and social justice warriors who think by defending fat feminazis they will get laid.
Zoe quinn is not a game developer she has no programming skills. She posted a text adventure on a 4chan board about disney witches movie and expected to get called various insults, but didnt happen, she posted no proof, she cried on her twitter that she was herrassed yet there is no proof.
Multiple idividuals have step forward saying that zoe quinn isnt who you think she is.
Where do i start? She has done nude modeling, you know the type, with explicit shots and tattos, she doesnt respect herself as a woman she does everything to get money. Zoee quinn isnt her real name. She has organized game jams that never happened yet she kept her money, her ex boyfrien has posted alot of info on how she cheated him and raped him. People who worked with her said she cannot be tolarated and some have lost their jobs.
The gaming media refuse to cover up the other side of the story and simply copy and paste articles saying she was herrased.
But hey apparently everyone is a misogynst and a horrible person who doesnt have the right to talk just because those sites told you so and deleted the comments of everyone saying otherwise.
H3ll techraptor took a stand in this and explained what happened and their site was taken down.
But thats all a conspiracy right?
Will sites get flagged because of their Disqus comments? I find that hard to believe. Just the fact that IGN is still online is proof something is wrong there – have you been to that site recently? Thousands of foul-mouthed, angry teens spouting their hatred for all things.
This. Totally this.
Money maybe?? Who knows. .. we cant deny that ign is very popular. And google cant deny the way that people talks in that page. Trash and more trash
About dsogaming, 80% i connect using my phone. This page is my source of games news. Guru 3d for hardware reviews. Really wishing you the best dsogaming
I’m guessing it’s the advertisements.
Dsogaming my favourite !!!
Not going to lie, I use adblock software (otherwise it becomes unbearable to navigate, the slowdown it’s huge, and there’s the ones with the dodgy scripts that automatically takes me to dodgy pages) and I always planned to contact DSOG about the use of it. Just when I’m about to do it, a wild editorial appears and then, Whitelisting DSOG and looking for a software to care about the dodgy thingies (it should be “donating to DSOG” but things are kind messy 4 me at the moment, as soon as possible I will donate the s*** out of it, this staff/site just deserves it).
The cursing thing is hard to believe… but anyway sorry if it causes trouble, I’m pretty sure we will do better from now on AM I RIGHT YOU GUYS?
Its ok!
Keep it up john! There isnt another site like this (as gamespot and ign are biased as hell and only care about consoles) so keep telling the truth and dont let the developers keep getting away with sh**ty ports!
You F*** RULES that is a fact and I for one will DEFINETLY be one of those that just have to drop my Fbombs and start behaving ..LOL!
Well this is the best site on the net and it’s free of console garbage so let it keep it that way and I wish you the very best John and hope everything will work out fine!
You are the best man 🙂
First of all wtf google?
You telling me google can delete sites for explicit stuff?
YOU COULD HAVE FOOLED ME GOOGLE…some of the things i find in google. Or gamingbolt.
Anyway can we all agree to turn off adblocks when we visit this site?
I’m not gonna give you any money.
But you do have my clicks. Here’s one more. Cherish it.
Adblock doesn’t hurt anyone if you’re not going to click the ads anyway and half the time the ads don’t actually have anything to do with the site. Thankfully, like you said John, it’s down to the users. I think most of us here would be more than willing to click to ads every so often to support you though and you quality content for us PC gamers.
That’s only if a website is running CPC (Cost Per Click) ads. If it’s running CPM (cost per million) then viewers don’t have to click on them. We’re running both so you don’t have to click on ads ;). Also, clicking on ads just to support us may as well get us into trouble. Do NOT click on the ads if you are not interested in them 😉
Odd system considering they don’t know if the person who clicked the ads is interested or not or does it show how much information they have on users?
I think he means he would get in trouble if he asked us to do that
I just turned it off. The awful full-page ad when you go to the site is still there, so it’s going back on. Plus the page seems to lag a bit now, and reloads itself o_O It just makes me uncomfortable.
Maybe it’s time to get rid of disqus. If people could actually downvote comments and their downvotes would count for something, I imagine there would be less cursing and colorful language.
What? Closing down the site because of curse words? What the f’? Never heard of anything similar.
democracy,democracy ? democracy, democracy 😀 freedom of speech. we saw the opposite in these past months in media specially in gaming media, dsog excluded.
Apparently even supperbunnyhop is on the list of corrupt journalists.
i really like this site and i added an exception to ad-block for it but cant you guys customize how many ads there are ? I mean i’m totally ok with 2-3 ads at the top of the page but having 8-10ads is a bit to much
How doe other disquss sites make it through? Seriously the cursing in other sites is insane.
Yeah, there’s definitely something “fishy” about this…
gamersgate?
lol, please no, not that thing D:
I was thinking about, aliens or something…
youtube is filled with hate comments, sexual videos etc… i guess google should start with itself first, but how they can monitor Disqus ? is it owned by google ? anyway, we want this site to be great, it’s my only source for news, because of it’s freedom and these lovely people i’m intracting with, i will support it, not with money because i can’t (don’t have an international bank account). most of these ads are for usa/europe, i guess thet should do something about other regions for more clicks
just add one of these “please disable your adblocker for dsogaming.com. ads help keep our site alive” banners. personally i’m always open to disable it for a site i’m willing to support (unless the site uses atrociously invasive ads) but very often i forget about it if i’m not reminded.
Long Live DSOG!
This is my first post, I’ve read DSOGaming for a couple of years now, always loved the PC-centric slant and the interest in computer graphics, gaming and hardware. It is one of the four pages I visit daily. I have to say that I’ve tried whitelisting your page in the past only to quickly turn adblock back on due to invasive advertisements. I understand that you may not be in control of what your paying advertisers place on your web page even youtube, Google ads, have links to malware/bad sites. I will turn off the adblocker for now as I genuinely want to support your site.
I have to ask though, you put up a donate widget and you didn’t tell us about it or your current monetary situation. What made you think that would work out? You say it was only up a week, how in the world, I’d love to donate (I didn’t even see it!), just give it time and those who feel the same WILL donate something. How will these donations be used and for those of us who are interested we’d like to know more about How and Who runs DSOGaming.
Your website Dark Side of Gaming makes me happy. I’ll disable adblock and I ask that you show us who you are and why we should be donating. I think, no, I know your site is better than those Gaming pages (IGN, Gamespot, Polygon, etc.) let us celebrate YOU. As to the real issue, this isn’t the first time Google has had issue with your website, correct? It always ends up being something stupid, completely unrelated to any actual legitimate complaint. Will being a bigger name in the “industry” stop these things from happening?
The reasoning behind the experiment was quite simple: “We need a monthly revenue in order to abandon all ads. So let’s see if people do notice our layout, our widgets, and whether they are willing to donate”. Of course if we ask people for their support, we’ll get it but we have to think in the long run. The first three months people may support us. After those, they may not. Or they may still support us. Again, it’s a matter of choice. “Why should I donate when I can use an ad blocker and have a fast loading website for free?” We do understand such a thing that crosses some of our readers’ minds. But honestly, going full ‘donate’ is simply a big gamble right now, given what we’ve seen thus far.
Regarding the ads. One of our ad networks had major issues. We’ve decided to ditch it (as we were getting a lot of complains about it, especially from mobile viewers). Since abandoning it, we’ve not heard about awkward pop-ups or re-directing mobile ads, or other such things. As for the full-page ad, it is being shown only once per 24 hours (unless people clear their cache or use another browser).
For what is worth, we are doing fine right now (Thomas and John are not being paid but then again, they are simply contributing some articles to DSOG). This Editorial is not about the doom of DSOG. We’re getting bigger, we’re doing fine at this moment, we’re not going anywhere. However, if Google had banned us, then yes; we’d be facing MAJOR issues.
There might be a time when we won’t care about Google. But that time has not come yet, and it would be too risky to face such difficulties when everything is going well and as planned.
If I am greeted by a full-screen ad page every time I visit a site you better believe I’m going to use an ad-blocker. Until you at least ditch that atrocity I won’t be turning it off.
The “adult content” Google detected probably came from advertisements as well. I’m totally okay with them being here, but *you* are responsible for making sure they are safe. At this point they seem like a mess. They also seem to lag the page, I can actually notice it when typing or scrolling sometimes.
told you about the language in the comments, things look better lately
OK , I’m not using any adblocker on this website again . I’ve disabled it permanently for your website 🙂
Wow.
Starting from now,I will disable adblocker on DSOG.
Best PC gaming site i’ve ever found. And mostly the first to post the latest news compared to other sites which are slower.
…put the widget back up I’ll gladly donate this is a class site to say the least!
Need to do something about linking pictures like whitelisting Imgur or Abload. Having to have screenshots approved is irritating