Adware in the installer -- EXTREMELY unclassy

I am for ads for free users.
Totally legit and generally accepted business model. Also include a little nag to 'buy premium for no more ads' or similar.

However - one caveat is that it may not be compatible with some distributors. I really have no idea what rules companies like valve insist on for the games they sell, but including ads sounds like something that some of them may take issue with.

 

@Trelawney: true that.

@Shadlington: fair enough. I guess it's something to consider, but generally we'd be approaching distributors to sell the paid version anyway.

 

They had no problem when Deus Ex : Human Revolution added them in, although it wasn't a thing that was always there.

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I see them working great for free members only.
Should probably consider sometime in the future replacing 'donation' with actual purchase of the game as well, but I'm sure there are reasons it was worded the way it is for now (most likely having to deal with people also taking gripe often with purchases being on a website along with donations).

A 2% conversion rate is really low, I hope to buy it as soon as I can, but I'd be happy to look through ads or such if it meant profit was actually going towards you guys (a lot of ad companies have payouts so low it's usually not worth it, and pp click instead of ppi just makes it worse since no one ever clicks)

 

@Blueluigi: it's termed donation some places and preorder in others, but essentially once we add some premium features (cusomisation, powder kegs, z-...october specific stuff) then it'll officially be buying stuff because you'll get something for your money on top of the whole gold name thing ;)
In terms of advertisement we're certainly going to look into where the money is coming from. We might just end up adding a nag rather than other ads, it seems quite a few people don't even know that you can buy the game, or who/what the guards are.

 

These are trusted ads from OpenCandy - http://www.opencandy.com/
There is no spyware or stuff, just click don't install if you are not interested.
I am making some extra money on this and until KAG pays enough money that these ads will be insignificant they will stay. Sorry that's life with releasing a game for free :p.

 

Fair enough, but look right on their front side and you see 'Cheat Engine', a website dedicated to hacking, a tool used for hacking MMOs (such as this one).

With that said, doesn't really matter if there's no way to get money and this works, can't argue with results, they win every time.