Gaming Banners!

Myrddin

Howdy folks,

Boards is now giving communities an opportunity to increase their exposure, with the introduction of customised banners. These banners, one leader board style, & one skyscraper style, will be used to help point people to forums & communities who might not have known they were there at all. They can be animated, or static, & should be humorous, silly, fun, but obviously nothing illegal or inappropriate. If you'd like to promote a time sensitive event like a beers, etc, mention it here & the banner will be considered on those merits. Three banners will be chosen a month, & they will be rotated in accordingly so it's fair for all.

The dimensions of the banners are set in stone, & for branding consistency, the boards logo with the blue background is also fixed. Otherwise though, you're free to design something that, as mentioned above, is humorous & fun, but also serves to make people aware of the forum you think they should be. Lets' see what we can do

Kenjataimu

I can see a tetris style one working with the skyscraper banner.

I don't have the skillz to do it though.

CatInABox

Proco Jr. wrote: »

I can see a tetris style one working with the skyscraper banner.

I don't have the skillz to do it though.

Or a vertical shooter, like Ikagura.

Ghost and Goblins would work for the horizontal, or anything 2D really, like Fez.

Serious lack of talent at creation though.

Tokyo

this might give people a few ideas....





Tetris, vertical shooting games, etc, could all easily be adapted to the same idea.

Tokyo

Here's another idea - this time for the horizontal banner ad at the top of the page.

SeantheMan

Can someone grab the recent 20th anniversary Playstation mashup wallpaper, and make it into a banner or something similar ?

The likes of this, but if we could get different characters from different consoles, and a nice font.....would make a nice horizontal banner

Myrddin

Some more suggestions:

Dav:





Kith



Doctor DooM:



D4RK ONION:



mike_ie:

Tokyo

Here's another one for you - created it last night and forgot about it until now




Might give a few people ideas on how to use side scrolling games as inspiration...

DinoRex

Will try some more stuff out later but here's what I have so far:

DinoRex

Here's one for old school boards.ie users:

DinoRex

DinoRex

I kind of went down the rabbit hole here:

Zero-Cool

Generic Dreadhead

Some of these are brilliant

Dair76

I've no talent for this kind of thing at all, but fair play to ye for some of these!

If anyone comes up with something for the PC Gaming forum, I'd gladly sport it!

Nat82

First the AMAs now forum specific banners. How original!

Potential-Monke

Dair76 wrote: »

If anyone comes up with something for the PC Gaming forum, I'd gladly sport it!

I'm no artist, but someone had to do it...

Myrddin

Just bumping this, as entries are always welcome

Boards.ie: Niamh

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I'm no artist, but someone had to do it...

Popping this one up for June

Unfortunately for some of the others the category re-organisation means that the Games > Arcade & Rretro (for example) no longer applies. Although we've already run A&R and GTA and Fighting Games so I think that might be all of the above done except 'Games' which is now 'Computer Games'.

DinoRex

Ah yes... the tired old comparison of PC gaming to white supremacy. What a wonderful way to enthuse people about a hobby dedicated forum.

Kiith

It's pretty much tongue in cheek these days.

Though i would say that, being a member of the glorious race and all that :P

Dav

:rolleyes:

Yes, that's exactly what it means...

Digital Solitude

When is the union with stormfront Dav?

Anyone who doesn't realise its a joke by now is in for a shock when they venture into some other parts of the internet

johnny_ultimate

Because everyone knows a joke only gets funnier when it's repeated thousands of times every single day :pac:

Digital Solitude

Precisely! You know what I mean, its certainly not literally aligning PC Gamers with supremecists

DinoRex

Regardless of how funny you find the joke or not, appropriating Nazi ideology isn't a great way to advertise your hobby. I'm sorry if this is a difficult concept to grasp.

I'm from a Jewish family so the humour was never there for me to begin with, let alone after the same joke being repeated ad nauseam for 6 or 7 years by people with zero self awareness.

This is just my take on the thing. I'll say no more on the subject.

johnny_ultimate

Aside from what Dino mentioned above, the issue I'd have with the PCMR meme is its sense of smug, self-congratulatory, insular elitism. It's obviously tongue in cheek (anybody would recognise that), but really in most PC gaming forums you do encounter people with that narrow-minded elitism, who might use the meme semi-ironically but at the same time truly believe in the idea of 'console peasants'. As somebody with an absolute beast of a PC, it turns me right off engaging in any such forums. So using it to promote a forum to a wider audience might not IMO be the most effective tool, as I know there's plenty of others on here who feel the same about the incessant, condescending and ultimately alienating Master Race jokes that pop in discussions about gaming. It's a joke (and, to repeat, a joke that has been repeated so many hundreds of thousands of times it makes me cringe every time I see it now) that only makes PC gaming and even sometimes more general gaming forums more insular and unwelcoming, to be perfectly frank.

Sorry if that seems a bit harsh on what many do use as a throwaway gag, but I really do feel it's one of the most toxic memes in the online gaming community

Where are these banners being displayed? That is one thing that wasn't exactly explained ..

Mr E

Are you blocking ads?

degrassinoel

The glorious pc master race pun is/has and will be used both ways, for and against, it's as much a slagging as it is boasting or self deprecation/praise, or whatever else

Mr E

Mr E wrote: »

Are you blocking ads?

On my laptop, yes, but on my phone I'm not and I can't seem to find anything when accessing the desktop site on there.

Digital Solitude

Fair enough I'm fairly indifferent to it to be honest, boards is the only forum I use these days so I don't see it a whole pile.

I can't see the banner here either, with no adblocker. Though I'm not sure is it on Boards as a whole or just Gaming (General)

Digital Solitude

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Fair enough I'm fairly indifferent to it to be honest, boards is the only forum I use these days so I don't see it a whole pile.

I can't see the banner here either, with no adblocker. Though I'm not sure is it on Boards as a whole or just Gaming (General)

Good to know I'm not crazy then! Are they supposed to be displaying in specific places? I can see that they're being embedded here in this thread using the IMG code, but that's it.

Digital Solitude

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Good to know I'm not crazy then! Are they supposed to be displaying in specific places? I can see that they're being embedded here in this thread using the IMG code, but that's it.

They come up in a cycle. Reload the page a few times

I've reloaded a few times and still get nothing but the advertisements. Am I supposed to be looking in specific forums or on a specific page?

Digital Solitude

Worked for me on the homepage

Digital Solitude

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Worked for me on the homepage

Ahh. On the homepage. I was checking here and on the PC Gaming forum - but I can see it now.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Well the only place you definitely won't see it is in the PC gaming forum. It should be appearing sporadically around the site over the next month along with some ads for other forums (Archery & Scuba Diving this month). You may have seen some of them around over the past few months on the desktop site if you are displaying ads.

The idea of the ads is to use some of our ad space to promote some forums to drive some extra traffic and new users to them.

If someone wants to create a different version of the ad for PC Gaming, I can swap it out with the one that's up now, that's no problem.

Zero-Cool

If I went into a forum looking for gaming chat and saw that ad for their PC gaming section, I would make a Grandpa Simpson hat grab u-turn and look elsewhere. Just my 2 cents.

Myrddin

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Aside from what Dino mentioned above, the issue I'd have with the PCMR meme is its sense of smug, self-congratulatory, insular elitism.

Is it any different to any of the other nonsense you see bandied about, like fans of one console brand pledging sole allegiance to that brand & none else, and anyone who differs is called a 'fanboy' of the other brand? "Xbox fanboys", "Playstation fanboys", "Nintendo fanboys" are all terms you see thrown out there regularly enough, all contributing to insular elitism, & validation of ones own loyalty to a particular brand. I just see this PCMR thing as the pc-equivalent of that, albeit it's directed inwards, rather than outwards like the 'fanboy' thing. Sure, PCMR is cringe inducing, but tbh, so are all the "My brand is better than yours" arguments, regardless of format...

johnny_ultimate

Oh absolutely, don't get me wrong, any of that bull**** is obnoxious. Yet Id also suggest that none of the other format evangelists have a single meme or slogan they flock around quite like the PCMR one (which we can't forget is incredibly condescending to non-PC owners too), and IMO the silly elitism isn't quite as common elsewhere (not to say it doesn't exist coughxboxvsps4threadcough). Plus, y'know, the Holocaust references...

Retr0gamer

Honestly I see a lot more genuine hostility towards PC gamers from console gamers than PC gamers joking about. A few times someone wants to discuss a PC related issue or even just flat out states a fact of how the PC version is better with no hostility intended they get shouted down for trying to derail discussion or told nobody cares about PC gamers or some other such nonsense. There's two sides to the story but I find the console fanboys a lot more obnoxious when they start this.

Anyway that's a totally different topic. I'd agree with Dinorex that the banner is a bit insensitive.

Boards.ie: Niamh

I've replaced it with this.

Myrddin

Here's a very basic effort, to try get rid of anything offensive from the PCMR thingy

kunst nugget

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

I've replaced it with this.

Don't worry, I've got them sorted. One for PC Gaming and one for the Gaming (General) forum…

Boards.ie: Niamh

Myrddin wrote: »

Here's a very basic effort, to try get rid of anything offensive from the PCMR thingy

^^ This is the final one now.

Thanks kunst nugget If you could apply that creative flair to some of the other gaming forums, I might post them for next month. (Maybe leave out the men in underpants :pac:)

Kiith

Probably too late, but for the next time around

Myrddin

Myrddin wrote: »

Here's a very basic effort, to try get rid of anything offensive from the PCMR thingy

You should make WASD worn down. Always the sign of a proper gamer :pac:

degrassinoel

Yo dawg, i heard you disliked PCMR so i made you a PC PCMR banner so you can be PC on your PC