GameSpot’s paid subscriptions services ending
All good things must come to an end. here are a few bullet points about what is changing, why we’re ending it, and how this might affect you.
GameSpot paid membership service granted subscribers additional benefits, these included things like ad-free browsing, User Created Boards, game store discounts, HD downloads, and more. Today, we’ve officially announced that we are ending this service.
What this means for our current paid subscribers, you will continue to receive all of your account benefits until your subscription term expires. The good news, some of the subscriber benefits will now be carried over to free registrants, so you’ll still receive the same benefits such as HD 720p downloads, the ability to create a user-created forum board, and the ability to select a color for user names in forum boards.
There is a detailed FAQ available to help answer any additional questions you may have. Please read through it and share your feedback as always.
GameSpot would like to thank all of our loyal subscribers for being a part of the services that we offered. And while we currently have no plans to resurrect or reinvent any paid subscription benefits if there is enough demand for us to do so we may reconsider.
25 comments
1 Like All in all a positive move, but a shame there will be no method to view an ad-free site, except, you know, the obvious methods... ;)
If you're trying to just avoid ads, just get an ad-blocker extension on either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
2 Like One of the main reasons I pay for a subscription is so that I don't have to see the ads. I just tried using the site for a while without being logged in, and those ads were really annoying. I hope you'll reconsider and let those that want to pay to avoid ads continue to do so.
For as long as I've been visiting this website, I forgot paid subs actually existed here....
It had to come to an end eventually when what GS was offering its paid subscribers could be got from other gaming sites for free. And with ad-blocking add-ons for Firefox, every site has ad-free browsing pretty much.
1 Like Cool. Well, I never had any intention of paying to talk about a fun past time of mine, so I'm glad it's going all free. And hopefully there won't be any sort of really negative repercussions.
1 Like I don't think this will have much of an impact on the site since many seem not to be aware it even existed. If it wasn't for coloured usernames and an emblem on your profile I think even fewer would realise.
1 Like I... actually approve of this. Can't wait for the benefits that paid users got that are getting trickled to us.
So is this because they make plenty of money from advertising alone that subscriptions are negligible? Either way this is awesome for us.
I had a sub for a short time, if I remember right. I think I stopped it, because I was underwhelmed by what it had to offer. It's nice that they're carrying over some of the features as part of the free service, though.
1 Like This is not what I expected, but this would be good news for those of us with free accounts.
That's too bad. I've had it since they first started it back in 02.(or whenever it was). Good show.
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