For some reason, the traditional blue background of The Escapist has been replaced by very serious looking, very manly men with guns.

First, is this an experiment, or something that we should get accustomed to?

Second, this smacks of "Gerstmann-Gate" (Someone shoot me now. I'm sorry for even using the phrase already... maybe one of you serious looking gents could accommodate me...). I can hope that we won't be seeing an exclusive Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 preview, or *shock/horror* a Yahtzee Preview, anytime soon? Because if we did, you would be cashing in an awful lot of the goodwill that you've built with me over the last 2 years. Your balance is actually pretty high, and could probably afford the withdrawal, but it is a finite value.

I am not trying to rouse rabble, simply to clarify what could be a murky scenario. If I'm to continue being a proud, card-carrying member of The Escapist's community, I have to continue believing that you, The Escapist, are still on my side of the editorial fence. What say you?

I find it tastefully done. A couple snipers fading to black with a small name in the top right. I almost didn't notice it was an add in the background.

I just hope this doesn't somehow start hastily mutating into IGN.

I proffered the blue but I can adapt.

I just resized my browser window until I couldn't see it.

Next week: Yahtzee-gate. Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw fired after shock review in which he complains about Rainbow Six Vegas: 2!

Dah-dah-daaaaah.

I guess the OP doesn't realize the Escapist Magazine is a business?

Yahtzee will get assassinated by elite police forces because of a bad review.

Heya folks, these types of ads are needed to help keep us running, and providing content like our weekly articles and Zero Punctuation. As always, our advertising does not, nor ever will influence our editorial content. If Ben hates the new R6, well then that's just how it goes. I also tried to build the ad to be tasteful and integrate well with the site (Sorry, couldn't use the blue!). I was happy with how it turned out - though I confess to being an R6 fan, and of FPSes in general.

Hope this allays any concerns over us becoming Tom Clancy's The Escapist :)

Yeah I was gonna ask about the ad too. But its cool its needed to keep this place running. Though I will admit I am not buying a Tom Clancy game any time soon. Ask Nintendo if you can get them to advertise Brawl here. :)

I dunno, "Tom Clancy's The Escapist" sounds pretty cool. We could probably parlay that into a new office dress code.

To answer the original question, I'll just quote our CEO's most recent post on the topic:

Archon:
Bob, our policy is that sales are not allowed to influence editorial. We've said this repeatedly. Given the nature of the game industry, it probably bears repeating, so I just did.

JR "Razor" Sutich, on our sister site WarCry, actually blogged about this topic. We had a game publisher stop advertising with us & demand that Razor be fired because of a negative review he issued. Obviously, we didn't cave, as Razor blogs on.

runtheplacered:
I guess the OP doesn't realize the Escapist Magazine is a business?

I guess runtheplacered doesn't realize that I'm not questioning The Escapist's need to make money, and have defended its right to do so in the past? That doesn't mean the foggy line between journalistic integrity and affording for your kids to go to a nice college isn't worth pointing out (not implying that they're mutually exclusive, or that sometimes, integrity doesn't pay off even more in the long run, but just that sometimes it's more convenient to pass even though the line is solid on your side). I can't see the line, I can just see the stuff above the fog, and this is me asking the driver if they're sure they're still in the right lane.

@Landslide: Thanks for the response. I'm certainly not against advertisements, and you did do a aesthetically-pleasing job with it. If you weren't expecting SOME comment on it considering the state of videogame journalism (which is often covered here), then you all are not nearly as smart as I think you are. My concerns are allayed everytime I read another article; just don't start swapping out Editors like a man in a dark house filled with monsters with a dead flashlight and a boxful of used batteries, and I'll probably be okay.

Might I suggest, next time, we get some Google-like celebratory alterations of the Escapist logo? For R6, for example, maybe some little Yahtzee creatures taking cover? Bullet holes on the e-swoosh?

The blue was awesome, but the new background's pretty good too. No complaints, but I like the format, it's the best forum layout I've seen. Please don't change that, it's really easy on the eyes. (For some reason it seems slightly different on other peoples' computers, but I could never figure out why.)

Well, I have one thing to say about this. YAY FOR CAPITALISM! Ads like this help keep our lovely site up and running and due to the massive amounts of toolbars on my 14" screen, I never noticed it until now, but as long as The Escapist keeps raking in the cash for this oddly placed ad, I've got no problem.

I didn't even notice that advert until now :) So that's good!

Landslide:
Heya folks, these types of ads are needed to help keep us running, and providing content like our weekly articles and Zero Punctuation. As always, our advertising does not, nor ever will influence our editorial content. If Ben hates the new R6, well then that's just how it goes. I also tried to build the ad to be tasteful and integrate well with the site (Sorry, couldn't use the blue!). I was happy with how it turned out - though I confess to being an R6 fan, and of FPSes in general.

Hope this allays any concerns over us becoming Tom Clancy's The Escapist :)

Blood traitor!

But all in all it could be worse,
you could but adds at then end of Yahtzee's reviews or something bad like that.

Wow, that was quick. We're already back to blue? What happened?

Easykill:
Wow, that was quick. We're already back to blue? What happened?

They aren't long term things. Just short term ad campaigns so we can pay the bandwidth bills to keep you all happy and producing content. :)

Hey guys don't worry. The awesome red background has been replaced with the blue background and the darkblue lines.

On this page I can see two advertisments, one for EVE online and another for Dell laptops. Thats a healthy amount in my opinion. I can't see anything wrong with advertising on the Escapist but when the website gets a Rainbow Six vegas 2 "theme" and the Next ZP video has a nervous Yahtzze telling us how good R6V2 while we can hear Guns clicking in the background, then I'm out of here.

Whatever man, gotta make that scrill yo. I don't expect the folks at 'The Escapist' to go hungry.

Working in advertising, I can tell you that The Escapist is a shockingly pure website in terms of the editorial/advertising divide. The reason for this is that the site isn't positioned as a consumer buying guide, which is largely what Gamespot, IGN, etc. have become. People aren't coming here for review scores - they are coming here to have discussions with their peers.

Other websites begin to resemble nothing so much as a large scoreboard, as if the reader is in a casino and digesting all these numbers will somehow increase their chances of winning, or in this case playing a better game. Review centric sites will continue their Faustian fall into the hands of publisher's PR teams. We'll start to see advertorials and other dubious practices already common in print, if we haven't seen them already,on a regular basis.

I see this website as the point at which the species diverge, with review centric websites going one way, and videogame culture websites going another. As this distinction grows stronger, and it will, advertisers will adjust their expectations for return on investment. They will advertise with The Escapist because it reaches a certain target, influencers, the arbiters of game culture, and not because they expect their ads to translate into direct sales, or a gamerankings percentage.

They need to advertise to pay for website.

Hell, keep the ads up. Get a raise, you guys deserve it. The only ads that bothered me were the ZP ones.

[HD]Rob Inglis:
They need to advertise to pay for website.

I quit.