It’s been a while since I last logged in, and today I was surprised to be greeted with a page that looks like this:
There are ads all over the place, including a video that keeps playing, and I can’t even see the navigation bar at the top anymore. And the little area of the original website that’s left has somehow inverted colors. WTF happened?!? Is this a temporary malfunction, or is the website going to stay like this? The forum still looks fine.
I see no ads…i have my ad-blockers turned of as well. I suspect this may be happening for reason’s other than Grouvee.
I have no ad blocker of any kind and the page looks the same it always has for me.
Hmm. I did go with a new ad provider about 3 or 4 weeks ago. This company Playwire approached me, and they’re fairly legit. I’ve not seen it be as bad as what’s in your picture. That ain’t cool. I’ve been letting the ads run for me too, and it’s normally just a little annoying thing that pops up in the bottom right corner you can close, and a thing that pops up when you click on anything. I don’t like them, but I needed something to supplement the Gold money to pay for the servers.
Let me know if this is a constant thing, or just a one off. I should theoretically have those full page ad things unchecked on my account, but I don’t have as much control over what shows as I’d like.
That’s because you’re a Gold member. I don’t display for anyone that pays for the Gold.
Thank you!
I’m not a Gold member though.
Which browser are you using? Some browsers have basic tracker and ad blocking built-in that might be activated even if you didn’t expressly activate it.
I’m using Edge. The problem still persists. I found out I can disable most of the annoying ads when I deselect all permissions in the cookie management dialogue, but that’s really cumbersome, as there are a lot of options to deselect and there is only an “allow all” button, no “deny all”.
Ah, sorry I meant the other person who doesn’t see ads as I thought they might be using a blocker without realizing it.
As @peter stated, what you’re experiencing shouldn’t be the norm as the standard setup only displays a few minimal ads. Not sure what’s going on here but I’m sure Peter is looking into possible causes.
As the ads I’m seeing are geo-personalized, I’m wondering if other users located in Germany see them too. E.g. @Nelemania ?
Peter did recently move the site to a German server but I’d assume that wouldn’t have a bearing on the ads, unless there’s something I’m not aware of.
I checked, but I am a Gold member, so no ads for me. If I log out and go to a game page or the forums it is fine too, same on a private session without ad-blocker. I use Firefox if that has any influence.
FUUUUCK, I tried Edge and it looks exactly like your picture. I have no addons on Edge, since I don’t use it except for movie streaming where ads are no problem.
Not only does it look like your picture (why did everything on the games page get pressed to the left and on the right there is empty space, ads should not mess up the layout of the page), if I move the cursor there are also sometimes pop-ups showing up in the middle of the screen that I have to click away and the games page reloads sometimes as a whole when scrolling which is irritating.
@peter @BMO This is really bad. Can you check with a VPN and on Edge to see it yourself? I do not have any other browsers installed, might need to check on them too.
@Squidward If you can try Firefox and see if it helps with the worst ads. It should even without an ad-blocker, but I recommend uBlock Origin.
Thank you for checking, Nele. I tried Firefox and the annoying ads show up there, too.
I’d hate to install an ad blocker just for Grouvee - it’s the only site that gives me this kind of trouble.
I’ve emailed Playwire’s support to try and get them to disable that ad type.
I really can’t just completely disable ads anymore. Until I get that thing fixed up, just use the ad blocker. I don’t mind. I honestly think the majority of the ad view money comes from non users. I’m just kind of guessing at that though.
They said they just deactivated that ad type for Germany. I hate that kind in general, so I just asked them to deactivate it for everyone. Let me know if it’s any better!
Yes, I can confirm that it looks much better now. The website is now usable again even without using an ad blocker. Thank you, peter!
Oh no, I spoke too soon - now the annoying ads are back again! It looks exactly like in the screenshot I posted earlier! 
OK, now the ads are down to two static banners and an occasional pop-up. I can live with that.
Just a heads up: US-based here, using Safari, and I’m seeing the same layout that was reported originally (including site navigation being obscured when you click into My Games):
I’m working on it. This is pretty ridiculous.
Here’s the story on this whole dumb thing. Grouvee hardly made any money on ads when I used Google Adsense. On the absolute best days in November/December years ago it would make maybe $5 a day. Most of the time it was less than a dollar per day, so it was never worth it. I’ve had a few places approach me and promise better ad revenue, but never came through. Playwire approached me earlier this year, and I decided to give them a shot because they do seem to power ads on quite a few sites. I actually started to see some OK ad revenue from them, and my server costs had gone way up, so I thought it was good.
Recently, I saw some huge jumps in ad revenue. We’re not talking millions, maybe $10-$15 a day kind of money. Turns out Battlefield 6 must be spending a ton of money right now. I’ve got a message into Playwire support to see if we can figure this out. If not, I’ll just have them disable this style of ad. It’s obviously not worth the money to make the site unusable.
