Seriously, it takes a lot to make something like 4chan seem civilized, and yet N4G manages to pull it off splendidly while feeding their own agenda.

You are more than entitled to your opinion but it is incorrect. That was not the case and it is not the case for many sites who have come to us voicing their experiences dealing with N4G. Many of those sites have decided to remove the embed feature on their video.

You are looking at it from the point of a reader, and that perspective is understood. However, you also have to consider the many contributors that helped to deliver content to the site that were not in the top ten each month and were not getting paid via a "contest" each month. Those contributors did what they did to build awareness of their site.

To then force (and it is forcing) those that want to continue to use the site to embed the video and images is a demonstration of the site's moderators complete disregard for the contributors that helped make the site what it is today.

You will see a select few contributors who get their palms greased by N4G, and they will of course defend the site as expected, but that doesn't account for the majority who speak up and have their accounts banned or chat bubbles deleted. The fanboy aspect effects the readers and the strong arm embed policy effects contributors.

To be clear, the corporate evolution that N4G is experiencing is not unique to them. Digg, eBay, and many other sites have done this as well. They start off with one reality that they use to suck in members and then kick into another phase when the dollars start rolling in. Ebay was free at its inception and only began to charge once they had a firm grasp on the majority of the online bidder/seller market. That is when posting, selling, and final sale fees went into effect.

If you didn't start your blog a few years ago, you would be very hard pressed to generate social networking traffic today via Digg or N4G. The sites are both at the point now where they don't need the small sites to contribute in order for them to prosper. It is unfortunate, but it goes to show that in a bottom line driven economy, the early bird gets the worm.

HHG is one of the worst most biased bloggers I have ever seen.

They get told to embed the video because it's just more convenient and no ones forcing them to do it.

The reason N4G is lame now is because of fanboys overruning it. Seems to be a toned down now, but it's still pretty bad.

N4G used to be a place where we could go to find some useful information but now everytime I go on it there is a pissed off fanboy posting pointless bullshit. And not to mention how whenever a pair of breasts are shown in one of the posts people decide to click on it and it gets over 1000 degrees. How can this qualify as gaming news, it's just a pair of fake breasts that was drawn by some person and people admire it. Once again Chad, Great Post

Think of it this way: If 100 people saw the N4G post, chances were that about 80 people read the follow-up link. That's good- 80 unique hits in a certain period of time is great for a single article, especially if it's on an unknown site. However, if N4G posts any video from the article as well, why would people even bother to click the link? They've already seen/read everything, there's nothing for them left. There are sites like ScrewAttack, Destructoid, and GameTrailers that have entire video series that help bring new users and new content to their site. If videos move from their sites to N4G's, then chances are that the 80 viewers will decrease to about 60, or 50. It's almost equally as bad that N4G tucks away the original site's URL in a small, sans-serif font where many people just passing through the site won't bother to notice it.

This is not an issue with our videos. We rarely create original videos. This has to do with the principal of those who create the content being told they have to embed it.

People can argue that sites like RIpten, Kotaku, or Joystiq embed the video from other sites all the time and we do, but if we were ever contacted by the creator and asked to link to them instead I bet you any money that all of the sites mentioned would do so out of respect for the one who made it.

N4G does not do that. N4G believes they have the right to force content creators to embed the code. My problem with this is on multiple levels, but maily the issue I take is that it wasn't always like that.

There was a time where say 100 people submitted content to N4G and N4G went out and advertised their site as the place to go for news. During that time they had to be very nice to that 100 or so people submitting content. There was no video embed drama. You posted it and they were glad to have you submitting content to their empty shell site backed by advertising dollars and user submitted goodness.

Now, they have .. lets say thousands of users submitting content and parent site to answer to. So they care less about those submitting the content and more about their own readers and the parent company they answer to. What they forget is that the readers they have wouldn't exist without the sites who submitted content in the first place.

The bottom line is that what they are doing is not right and they know it. It is why their moderators rush to point the finger at ripten. It is why people that support us and what we are saying on their site get banned or have their comments deleted by moderators.

They are free to do all of that. N4G is a breeding ground for fanboys at its current state. Those that frequented it in the beginning know this. I know because I am in contact with many of them. There are many who are in denial as well, those that can't see further than their own nose. To them I say God bless.

It's all about traffic and Chad makes an excellent argument.

No I don't think having to post the whole story is needed, but what I don't get is how having your videos embeddable in the first place gives you the reason to be upset and make this horror story of this.

If the story is good and the video is good people will want to know where it came from. Pretty much every N4G member knows it doesn't get original content so if they see this great info and videos from such and such site they'll go there. Although, some if not a lot of people do get turned off with 'Amazing announcement after the click' and that's all there is.

Also, sorry I keep replying to Tommy and not you Chad :(

Seriously though. Your complaining about embedding videos on N4G because they just want hits when in reality you are saying I'm mad that my site could lose hits and effect my bottom line.

honestly, though, N4G is just a roadmap for trolls these days. used to be that the top stories were actual gaming news. these days, the most popular stories always seem to be irrelevant sony v msoft bs. real gaming news is passed over for the latest ps3 v 360 video comparison.

on a side note, this story seems to be picking up steam

I think you are getting a little to hot headed about a very small matter. Yes embedding could take away some hits, but so is not submitting news or just submitting a click here for more info.

You are focused to much on the negative and neither look for or acknowledge a positive light.