Pay for ad free options

Please
Please
Please

2 Likes

If it wasn’t for the ads, Season 13 wouldn’t exist.

Honestly I love how they did the ads. And I appreciate these companies paying to support via Kickstarter.

I’m sure if you really wanted to, you could download the episodes and edit out the advertisements.

14 Likes

This is already a thing.

The standalone non-livestream versions of the episodes are ad-free.

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The only ads we get are from the highest tier backers, whose reward was to have their stuff promoted all year. We can’t cheat them of their rewards, any more than we can skip over the 259 people who paid $500 to be thanked by name during the live streams. The ads are short, as fun as they could make them, and they feature the MST3K cast, which makes them stand out less.

At some point, the Gizmoplex might offer a discount on the member pass if you voluntarily accept actual ads. (Similar to Hulu’s model.) At least, that was an idea floated in a recent survey. But that will have to wait until the viewership is established enough to attract sponsors. We’re not getting those ads now. The site right now is entirely funded by backers (and those who have purchased tickets to individual events) so you already have paid to not have ads.

12 Likes

The ads are so cute though!

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Just watch the episodes instead of the premiere livestreams. No ads.

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This was me in the pre-internet era. I made a point of always taping the shows in real time so I could keep out the ads. It meant that my collection grew more slowly, but I accepted that.

Ad free should be a standard perk at or above a certain backing level.
As I’ve stated elsewhere, satire and advertising don’t mix. Seeing the gang degraded by turning them into pitch-people is so sad. They already have a job, and that job is being funny. Selling product is not.

How would that work during a live stream, which is primarily where these ads appear? Would they be running a second live stream simultaneously that just shows an “Intermission” card while the other stream sees the ads? Would that really be better?

Or would they just have no ad breaks for the alternate stream, and then between the episode ending and the live Q&A, just a really looooooong period of dead-air while the sponsor-supported stream catches up? If so, how would they accommodate for the members of the live chat being split between two different points in the episode?

6 Likes

I guess I really don’t see the three sponsors as adverts. Those three companies backed the KS at a pretty hefty price for the ability to have their products highlighted. As advert-averse as I am, I’m okay with that.

We aren’t getting 3-5 minutes of Hostess Twinkies, car sales, and a pill with death and death-like symptoms here. It’s a quick 30-second spot from a fellow MSTie.

If I had any feedback to give them, it would be that I wish the adverts were more of a story (like the old International Coffee adverts with Anthony Head). As an example, show a mock walk-through of the game progressing as the season goes on, or Crow and Tom getting more and more obsessed with Bendy comics and Jonah wondering how to deal with it.

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That would have been very cool, if they’d had time to script it, get it approved by the sponsors, make revisions, and film it.

2 Likes

Honestly, I enjoy them. At least a whole heck of a lot more than I enjoy the much longer ads for specialty medicines I seem to get on the bigger-named streaming services with ads. I like that they are for other quite-niche products that are in adjacent segments of nerdom. I like that they are couched as being forced upon Jonah and the bots by Pearl and Synthia. I even like that they filmed several different versions. I’m kind of hoping they were able to get Emily, Kelsey, and Conor to film a few that we’ll get later in the year.

Also, as others have said, they are only during the livestreams and you can essentially cut out the ads if you watch the non-livestream version of the episode and then fast-forward to the post-show Q&A (or join the livestream for the Q&A only).

7 Likes

More than okay with that here.

This is how we got to Season 13. I’m watching them every time on general principle.

6 Likes

Anyway, we already know there won’t be any Hostess ads since Joel angered them by almost blowing up the whole S.O.L. with the Snack Cannon back in the day. Bad for the ol’ corporate image.

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“It was a dark day for the Ho-Hos, Sno Balls, and Ding-Dongs. STOP LAUGHING.”

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“They say you never hear the snack cake with your name on it.”

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I know some cavemen that would beg to differ…

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