How the pier lights are paid for

Nobody buys a ticket at Promenade Arcade. You walk up to Seawall Breaker, Harbour Watch or Dockside Crates and play, with no account and no name asked for. The electricity bill still arrives, though: a server, a domain and many evenings spent tuning walls, nights and shifts. This page lays out who settles it.

Adverts along the boardwalk

Most of that bill is meant to be met by advertising. Wherever the pier is for reading and not for playing (the front page, the games overview, the level lists and the guides), a few spaces wear the word “Advertisement” over them, three at the very most on one page. They are the only adverts on the pier, and a page with a live game screen has none.

We are still wiring in Google AdSense. While it is off, each space holds a short note of ours asking firms to take the spot, and the browser fetches no advertising code at all. When it comes on, Google's adverts drop into those same spaces at the size already set aside for them, so nothing on the page shuffles about as it loads.

Sponsoring a cabinet

A company can also put its name to one of the three games, or to a string of numbered levels, for example the stormy nights or a block of seawall walls. That block is headed “Sponsored by” with the company named right after it, so it reads as a notice pinned on the pier and not as part of the game. Sponsors buy a mention, never a hand on the controls: rules, levels and records stay the same for everybody.

What the pier will not do

• Put adverts inside a game screen, over the play area or next to the game's buttons.
• Sell anything that makes a wall easier, a night shorter or a score bigger.
• Sell or hand over anything about visitors; nothing is collected, so there is nothing to hand over.
• Throw up pop-ups that cover the game while a round is on.

Talk to the harbour office

To advertise on the reading pages or sponsor a game, write to hello@promenadearcade.com. Tell us which game or which part of the site you are thinking of.

What advertising will mean for cookies is covered on the privacy page.