Topic: Disable Ads by becoming a Nintendo Life Supporter

Hey everyone,

For some years now, we've been asked by users if they can pay a subscription to disable adverts on Nintendo Life without having to use their adblocker.

We've finally put together our subscription offering, which essentially allows you to disable adverts (although you can leave them on if you like) and show your support with a little badge next to your username.

We're announcing it here in the forum first, as I wanted to get some initial feedback before we promote it further. We've priced our subscription at $3.99/month (or $39.99 annually, saving 17%), and one subscription applies to ALL our websites too. We wanted the monthly price to be around that of a coffee, as we felt that is a fair price for what we offer.

Find out more: https://www.nintendolife.com/supporter use coupon 'EARLYBIRD' to get 10% off your first purchase (limited to the first 100 users).

Please Note: that whilst we're in this testing phase, only other Subscribers will be able to see your supporter badge if you have it enabled.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your feedback below,

Cheers!

@antdickens

This is great news. Been wanting this for a long time. Thank you Ant ant Team.

@Tasuki thanks; you're officially Supporter #1!

@antdickens Such an honor! Just a heads up need to put the code in as "Earlybird" tried all caps a few times and it said invalid code.

@Tasuki works in full caps for me (that’s how it is in the backend too), but glad you got it working!

Can you support the site in other ways like when you when you send money to an African child and they send you letters in return, perhaps I could adopt a writer?

@antdickens OK, then maybe it's the browser I was using. It's all good. Thanks again Ant.

@antdickens Just subscribed for one year! In retrospect the best thing that happened to me here is when NL decided to make an article about my DooM cartridge creation! It was such an honor and removing the ads is awesome!

@Tasuki @Zuljaras how are you guys finding the adfree version of the site?

@antdickens It is like a new experience! No more ads that cover some part of the actual articles or buttons.

Also, no accidental clicking on ads on the left and right

The empty spaces where the ads are little barren but that is ok. If you could manage to put background images of Nintendo games it would be awesome, some fan art or something like that They could change with some triggers or time of day I can imagine them not being in full saturation (little faded) so they don't distract the eye

But for now I'm loving it

@antdickens I am enjoying it alot. I don't get slowdowns from adds anymore when viewing the sites as Zuljaras said no more accidentally clicking on adds.

I think the price is a good price too, the only thing is, from a marketing point of view, I think giving subscribers some extras would make it easier to convince others to sub rather then using a free ad block.

Maybe like sepcial avatars or maybe sub only contests for stuff like a Nintendolife Tshirts or something along those lines.

While I don't think locking content such as articles or reviews is the way to go, but there should be something to convince people to sub rather then using an ad blocker for free.

I don't particularly have a problem with subbing I just feel it's right since you guys pour all this work into it and let's face it these sites are the magazines of today. I subbed to Nintendo Power as a kid for all the latest news and I don't mind add free sub here. But I remember back in the day Nintendo Power had only sub contests and such. Maybe even just a free 10% coupon to a Nintendolife store for eShop cards or something like that for subscribers.

From a technical point I have not experienced any bugs or problems since becoming a sub. As I said if anything it's a better experience for me.

Those are my thoughts.

@Zuljaras interesting… there shouldn’t really be any empty spaces, as things should collapse down where ads were. I’m curious to see what you mean, could you provide some screenshots for me?

@antdickens I think there were ads there before!

@antdickens Everything collapsed down for me. I even logged out and when I did the adds came back as normal and then when I logged back in everything collapsed as you said.

@Zuljaras Ah okay, that is expected. The ads are gone so that’s the default look. We will have an updated sidebar in due course that will have more things in it. As for the background, I quite like the idea of giving users the ability to pick one of their own if they want it, instead of being blank. I’ll note down that idea.

@Tasuki we should have some unique offers in our code store at some point once we get it all linked up. As for the adblocker stuff, we will likely look at blocking people with adblockers in the future so they’ll have to choose between ads or a sub, which should negate that part of the equation. Thanks for the feedback so far!

@antdickens No problem Ant. That was my biggest thought was how to make it so this would seem worth if for people who use free add blockers.

@antdickens Another bit of feedback. But if a person is paying a subscription, the person shouldn't be able to be blocked by normal users. I can understand staff but a person should be able to read a full thread if they are subbing. If you want to make it that they can't replay to a particular person that's fine but blocking access to posts......

@Tasuki no, that’s not really the purpose of the subscription, it’s to view the site without adverts and not to give them any special privileges of that kind. We won’t be adding any form of tiered users based on subs or not as they are both valid ways of paying for content. Benefits will be with things like our codes store or future merch stores etc.

@antdickens have you considered offering a second tier that costs less but still displays minor/small ads?

@Eel thanks for the suggestion, but I doubt we would do that. Unfortunately, the way it currently works we are charged a minimum fee per transaction, which would be the same even if we lowered the price, meaning it probably wouldn't be worthwhile.