40 Days #13: Get rid of dashboard ads that gamers can't interact with or can't find

Xbox Live Gold members frequently gripe about the fact that they are paying for a service that still shoves advertising in their face. Me, not so much. In fact, I like that most of the ads alert me to new content or even events that I may have not noticed otherwise.

What's really annoying about some of these ads is that they are totally useless as a way to get me to actually do something. There are several sizes of ads in the dashboard. The narrow sliver ads and the very large one seen within the Marketplace blades can be highlighted and then followed to whatever content they are promoting.

However, there are medium-sized ads on some of the other main blades, and those are the ones that really annoy me. These ads just sit there, mocking me, and I can't highlight them. I may see an ad for some new download, but since I can't navigate to them, I can't go and see that content. Even worse, some of these ads promote events or services that are accessible through a URL...which the 360 can't open anyway, given that it doesn't have a browser. So now we are relying on me not getting distracted by everything else I may be doing on the console, memorizing the URL, and then remembering to look at it when I sit down in front of a computer. That hardly ever happens.

These non-interactive ads are great for announcements like game and accessory prices, community event dates, and other bits of short, non-web related trivia. However, if you want to stick a URL in there, you have to give me an easy way to look at it later. So how about making those ads interactive, and once they are opened, displaying a little summary blurb and a button that lets me send a message with the URL and more information to my e-mail (which the console already has on record anyway) so that I can look at it later at my convenience? Most people probably wouldn't spam themselves on purpose, but this would at least make those types of ads useful, which they certainly are not at the moment.

The other issue with the advertising system is the cruel cat-and-mouse game that it makes you play. Quite frequently, there is some sort of featured content - like the Army-sponsored Halo 3 training series - that is actually neat and you really want to check it out. The only problem is that you generally can't find these content islands in the Marketplace. Rather, you have to follow a special ad banner. And good luck finding one when you need it. It either doesn't show up at all, or falls into one of the non-interactive spaces, so that it can just sit there and tease you. The only way to find your way through to the featured content is to move back and forth repeatedly (usually many, many times) between different blades, until a clickable version of the ad shows up somewhere. Gee, the 360 really values your time.

I just don't see why the Spotlight section of the marketplace doesn't have an area that lists all these special content islands, so that no matter what ads are appearing, I can just go there and see what all special content is available. Without something like that, many gamers might never even see some of these content sets, if they never find the ad that leads them to it, which is a shame, since some of them are pretty neat.

So the ads can stay - even for paying accounts - but don't make me work just to reach whatever it is that you are advertising.