[Daniel.PinionGG]

Hi Everyone, just a heads up that we've just sent out an email with specifics around next month. Check your inbox and if it's not their for whatever reason contact [email protected] and we'll resend.

Thanks

[ocwoody]

For anyone that did not get the email:

Update For February Changes Please read carefully Welcome to 2013. There's only two years left for someone to invent the hoverboard before Back to the Future II becomes a filthy, horrible lie. While we're not working on that we have a lot planned in 2013, and would like to assure you that the changes we're implementing over the coming months are to designed to ensure we are able to support you and your community in the long run. We're confident that if everyone sticks to their guns we'll get through this together. We've written a Blog, about you! Something we've learned over the last few months is most players don't understand how servers work. They don't understand that you guys put blood, sweat, tears AND money into these things. We want to change that, so we've written a blog. We're asking your help in getting the message to as many people as possible, so please Tweet, Facebook, post and spread the word as much as possible. The more we educate the players the more understanding there will be around why ad based servers need to exist http://blog.pinion.gg/articles/meet-your-local-community-owners/ TF2 crash help We're hearing a lot of complaints about people crashing during the TF2 MOTD. The problem is we can't reproduce it here, and no one has actually stepped forward to help us investigate! Do you experience this problem? Know someone who does? Get in touch and help us knock this problem on the head! Completion rates A big part of the new model is completion rates. Lets face it, at the moment the system isn't where it needs to be. We've got people forcing duration for 25 seconds and coming out with a low completion rate. There's problems with it, and we're working on it, but we have decided NOT to implement completion based payments in February. We want to be 100% confident that when we pay you based on a 70% completion that is what you are entitled to, if you are entitled to more we want to pay you more. February changes With February just around the corner, we want to make sure everyone is 100% clear on the changes coming into effect: 1) Payment terms will move to 60 days. To clarify, On March the 1st you will be able to invoice us for your February earnings, this invoice will be paid on May 1st. On April 1st you will be able to invoice us for March, this will be paid on June 1st, 60 days after the invoice was raised but 30 days after the Feb invoice. 2) We'll only be buying impressions in regions in which we sell. These regions were updated in the TOS after our email in December, but for reference they are: USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Australia and New Zealand. So, if you have a server in the United States and attract some impressions from Mexico, we will only buy the US impressions. Keep in mind it's not the location of the server that determines this, but the location of the end user. We are working on opening up new sales fronts, so expect additions to be made over time. March (planned) changes 1) Only communities with a completion average above 60% will be eligible to have their impressions purchased. The higher the completion rate the higher the CPM. A completion rate average over 85% will generate a CPM of $2. That should make everything clear, as always if you have any questions please reach out. gg,

[Horsedick]

The March (planned) changes are what will be or could be an issue.

60% is going to be very hard to hit. They also need to drop the video times from 30seconds to 15 as it is really ticking off players. How many teen players do yall think we have in TF2? I'm willing to bet a shit ton, and I just started seeing a bunch of truck ads - now what the hell!?! The ads are not getting geared towards the types of players or age groups I've seen lately. Combine a vehicle ad for a total of 30seconds and you really just bore a player into leaving or not returning to a server that runs ads.

[PresidentEvil]

I don't use pinion so can someone explain to me: "Only communities with a completion average above 60% will be eligible to have their impressions purchased."

so if you have 1000 people join your server and watch the MOTD ad, and if atleast 60% of those 1000 people watch the whole ad, you will get $1.50?

and: "A completion rate average over 85%
will generate a CPM of $2."

if you have 5000 total ad watchers and a completion rate of atleast 85% you get paid ($2.00 x 5) $10.00? and if its 65% you get paid ($1.50 x 5) $7.50?

and if you have only a 50% completion rate you get nothing?

what if for the first 1000 ads watchers you have a 60% completion rate but for the next 4000 watchers you get a 40% completion rate, so will you get $1.50 for the first 60% completion of the first 1000 and $0.00 for the next 4000 that had 40$ completion???

or do they average it out?

im confused

[clutchh]

Originally Posted by Horsedick The March (planned) changes are what will be or could be an issue. 60% is going to be very hard to hit. They also need to drop the video times from 30seconds to 15 as it is really ticking off players. How many teen players do yall think we have in TF2? I'm willing to bet a shit ton, and I just started seeing a bunch of truck ads - now what the hell!?! The ads are not getting geared towards the types of players or age groups I've seen lately. Combine a vehicle ad for a total of 30seconds and you really just bore a player into leaving or not returning to a server that runs ads.

I concur.

[loranger]

Originally Posted by clutchh Yeah, yet when I emailed them, they said the required lowest is 25.

Lowest timer you can use at the moment is "15".

[nightrider]

Originally Posted by loranger Lowest timer you can use at the moment is "15".

Received the email last night.
Yes I'm using the lowest setting of 15, but allowing the advert to be bypasses.
I'm unsure on how to give the admins immunity via the ban flag.
I didn't see a line in the pinion.cfg other than allowing immunity.

For the time I have added the Pinion plugin back on two servers,
but I don't see the ability to add the server in the Pinion control panel as before.
scratches head.

[nineteeneleven]

Servers auto add themselves now

Also add advertisement_immunity "flag" to the admins_override.cfg

[ElitePowered]

@President Evil:
They take the 30 day completion rates and take the average.

@HorseDick They have very limited choice as to what to show you. They have some control but most of the ads are given via a network. That's the way the business works. You're not getting paid for ad clicks anyway so you should not worry too much. Most of the ads are relevant to the audience but you rarely have a couple that may be weird. Keep in mind that the ads are different for each area. You won't show a Coke ad right after a Pepsi ad. You won't show ads about winter coats to someone in Arizona. Hope this clears things up a bit.

@NineTeenEleven You can also use a source bans flag or a reserved slot flag which should not be too hard to implement.

[Daniel.PinionGG]

Originally Posted by Horsedick The March (planned) changes are what will be or could be an issue. 60% is going to be very hard to hit

We've got a lot of communities tracking above 60% already, but yes we are definitely going to be focusing on 15 second ads. The good news is, this seems to be the way the industry is tracking so we will hopefully see a decrease in the 30 second slots.

Originally Posted by PresidentEvil I don't use pinion so can someone explain to me

If you have 1000 views off your MOTD, and the average user watches 85% of the video you will receive $2.

If you have 5000 views of the MOTD with a 85% completion average you will be paid $10

If your average completion rate is under 60% it lowers our overall network average and significantly damages our ability to sell, you we do not purchase those impressions.

If 1000 impressions have an average of 60% completion rate and 4000 average 40% we pay on the overall average which is 44%, attracting a $0 CPM

Originally Posted by loranger Lowest timer you can use at the moment is "15".

The lowest timer you can use is 15 seconds, though we are looking to change that to give you more flexibility.

As always please feel free to contact us directly with any questions, and we'll be continuing to monitor this thread.