I’m not buying D4 or WoW or MW. Your pop-up ads are really annoying. Just give me a do not show again option.
Please.
15 Likes
I missed the old launcher where it only shows the last game you played.
Now you have to navigate your way to skip the ad just to start your previously played game. 
2 Likes
I’ve been cursing in 2 languages and I’m about to start in a 3rd. I really loathe ads being shoved in my face on my device. I don’t care if they make a billion $$$ with their games, but don’t push it to me. I’m fine with a 1 time and I can opt out of it being shown.
THIS IS TOO DAMN MUCH. ITS TIME TO BACK OFF AND LET ME BE. I DON’T WANT YOUR DAMN PRODUCT.
6 Likes
For Diablo 3, at least, there’s the option to run it from the command line and bypass Battle.net app entirely. Only thing is you have to type in your account password each time. And there’s a couple of options like -window to open it in windowed mode. (this is off the top of my head, please correct if I’m wrong!)
1 Like
Put this into hosts file.
127.0.0.1 content-ui.battle.net
127.0.0.1 telemetry-in.battle.net
127.0.0.1 images.blz-contentstack.com
127.0.0.1 bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net
3 Likes
Hi:
There’s an option in BNet Settings where you can select to see the last viewed game page when you launch BNet… instead of the Home page.
It doesn’t kill all the popup ads… but it now looks closer to the old BNet.
Best of luck in your games !
11 Likes
Thank you very much for this info. Very helpful! 
3 Likes
Thank you everyone for your kind suggestions.
@sp5it:
I’m not going to mess with my hosts file. This is an issue that sits in Acti-Blizzard’s lap. They need to adjust the launcher. I expected the advert blitz leading up to release date and a few days after. We are 5 days beyond that date and its gotten worse then when it started.
@Boubou:
I have the launcher set as shown in your pic. This was before the most recent pop-up ad. Thanks.
@Everyone
During the betas once a player crossed specific thresholds in the game, the player was presented with a “Pre-Order D4 now” advert. This was in the beta game. Ok fine. If they want to use the beta as a marketing tool, so be it. This happened for each of the public betas I participated in. There have been a few updates to the launcher itself since the first public beta. What spurred me to make this post is the following:
- A recent update to the Launcher. I installed and restarted the launcher. BAM! Pop-up D4 buy now advert. Ok that was not good. You have to click to get passed it. I click to get passed it.
- The rotating advert that is on each game page, has a D4 buy now advert. OK. This isn’t a pop-up, I’ll tolerate this since I can pause the rotator and it does not block me from launching a game or interacting with the other elements in the window.
- I noticed a driver update was needed. OK. I exit the launcher completely, close the open apps, and run the update. I reboot after the update finishes, fire up the launcher, and walk away to get water. When I return… BAM! The same D4 buy now pop-up advert. This is annoying. I click to dismiss the ad.
- I notice there is a video driver update notification. OK. I exit the launcher completely and start the driver download/install. I reboot after the installer completes. Once back at the desktop, I fire up the launcher. Hello… the same damn D4 buy now advert pop-up again! Nah… They need to stop this crap immediately! I don’t do pop-ups on my devices. Those days ended back in the late 1990s. I always surf with ad-block. I temp. disable the ad-block if there is an urgent need.
I’m ok with a 1 time showing of a specific ad because they are doing it as part of their media blitz to get people to buy their product. However, they need to:
- provide a clearly labeled opt-out link
- the opt-out setting should be tracked on their servers so that I don’t have to opt-out across multiple devices
If D4 is going to have a steady stream of new ads on some sort of regular basis then there needs to be an opt-out to all if I don’t own the game. I haven’t purchased D4 and I’m not interested in buying it so get rid of any ideas about spamming your cosmetic/transmog shop items at me. I don’t care if they are selling pink toe nail paint for the in-game mounts. I don’t care if one can transform the horse into a turtle, a unicorn, a t-rex, a giant cucumber emoji, and I want nothing to do with their seasonal advert blitz. I’m not interested in battle passes. No thank you. Keep your product. I DO NOT WANT IT, and I don’t want to know about all of your cutesie and neato trinkets/charms for it. I’m not interested in any mugs, t-shirts, hats, panties, thongs, scratch-n-sniff stickers, posters and other works of art, candles, collectibles, or other merch. I am not concerned with BlizzCon at this time.
I don’t care if other companies are pushing pop-up ads with their launchers.
The data tracking on their servers should not be a problem because I know that they are data harvesting other info. D3, D4, and D2R multiplayer are currently online only so all of the activity can be tracked on their servers. If the opt-out has to be per game I’m OK with that.
2 Likes
You can start the game directly from the app in the DiabloIII folder.
2 Likes
Damn this dude has some anger issues over virtually nothing.
Go have a bud light or something Skeeter.
2 Likes
Advertising clearly works as I don’t see it being a multi billion dollar industry otherwise. I doubt they will refrain from it because it annoys you.
2 Likes
Nah… that is 3x of a pop-up ad that is a separate window and impedes my ability to start a game. They are advertising on the Home screen and in the ad rotator for every game. If I pause the rotator on the ad then the rotator ad remains in place. Again, I’m ok with them doing the Pop-up ad 1x. Let me opt out. Even if I opt out they are still going to have the home screen in place ads and the ad rotator ads. They need not be so hyper aggressive, and they should know that some of us have a very low tolerance for repeat pop-up ads. They do not need to push the pop-up ad in my face every single time I start the launcher. Remember some folks have the launcher set to exit once they start a game. This means if one runs into any issue with a game that abends repeatedly (ex: bad game patch) they are going to be repeated subjected to the pop-up ad. It is simply overkill. Lastly, they don’t own my device so I don’t have to allow this.
Thanks Jazz. There is a slight wrinkle though. If I want to play D2R online one has to start it from the launcher as far as I know. There is a way to play D2R off-line and start it without the launcher. This locks one into using the launcher for that reason.
See what I wrote above.
Will D2R launch if your BNet App is minimized in the Windows System Tray ? —> right-click on BNet App icon in System Tray and select D2R.
If so, you can keep the BNet App in the Windows System Tray until you need to use the App – for changing regions, or checking the online status of some friends not playing D2R, or… applying an update to a game or the BNet App itself. That’s what I do.
I also keep the BNet App screen size as small as it can be… it limits the number of rotating ads to just one. Sometimes, I can go days without actually looking at the BNet App… but then, I only play D3.
I also find the ads obtrusive… but I don’t think Blizzard will remove them just to please me. 
Cheers !
1 Like
As stated above, you can start the game without using the app.
Just make a shortcut on your desktop that points to the game, and put -launch at the end of the target field. This will open the game, and bypass the app altogether.
This is also the way to open multiple games at once if you have more than one account.
5 Likes
I did. Being able to opt out means they lose exposure, which might lose sales, so again, I doubt they will stop because it annoys you.
You seem to not understand. Their advert message is going to reach the broad audience regardless because of home screen ads and ad rotator ads. There isn’t a need to spam pop-ups. They are still getting their message through a single pop-up with opt-out. Spamming it is unnecessary and does not guarantee an increase in sales and based on my response it produces a negative end result. If I was on the fence with respect to buying D4, spamming pop-up ads pushed me firmly on the side of hell no I’m not buying it. You are working way too hard to defend their excessive tactics.
When I said “See what I wrote above”, I was talking about my response to Don Martin in the same post. You have a track record of selectively reading and therefore selective comprehension. Try again and re-read my entire response in post #12 slowly.
@VitaKaninen:
Thank you.
@Boubou:
Thank you. Rebooting a PC means having to relaunch the launcher (points @ D2R). Even if the launcher is launched directly to the system tray I doubt that it would stop the pop-up ads. As long as their is no push back our silence is taken as a permission slip. I’m not the “you [Acti-Blizz] can do what ever you want on my device” type of person.
I wonder if you get the same pop-ups if you already have bought D4 and are actively playing it? We can also foresee that with every new D4 season there will be battlepass adverts etc.
Well it’s a free market.
1 Like
[quote=“BossDogg-1898, post:8, topic:60432”]
I’m not going to mess with my hosts file.
[/quote] So keep suffering from ads and don’t bother.
I don’t “defend” it, I explain it. I loathe advertising, as far as it goes a popup that takes less than a second to get by is not really close to the top as far as annoyances goes, that aside advertising is worth hundreds of billions annually so clearly “spamming” works, ergo the people like you are not worth the hassle to cater to.
Again, I did.
They can though as long as you have it installed, you have zero power to change anything on their end.
Opt-out to all. I have no interest in their cosmetic shop items. No way am I going to be on board with them trying a spam-o-la campaign, and running it through a stream of pop-up ads every 6 to 12 weeks, plus every PTR and new season. I mean a pop-up, opt-out… pop-up, opt-out… pop-up, opt-out, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. Hells to the NO. This would be abusing the opt-out mechanism.
Its one thing to put ads within the application window., but once they cross that boundary to spawning a new window on the desktop to issue an ad. they have committed a violation. To me it would be the same as the state, local, or federal government thinking they are going to store something on my property. The only external windows the launcher should create are for the games themselves, maintenance of the game files, and settings dialogs for the launcher and/or games.
[quote=“sp5it-1574, post:18, topic:60432, full:true”]
No need flip from one extreme to the next. Once you get into modifying the hosts file, you are being manipulated into a cat and mouse game. You make a change and they have an army of devs to counter your changes. This is a never ending game of cat and mouse, but Blizz has the upper hand. Don’t engage that fight. Don’t fight them on their terms. Ultimately they are pushing you toward being a non-customer. I’ve walked away from WoW. I was excited for War3Reforged, but they poisoned the product. I’ve walked away from Warcraft 3. I was excited for D4, but the final product is not what I’m interested in. I declined the opportunity to purchase it. This pop-up ad spam thing procc’d revulsion in me toward D4 and Acti-Blizz. This isn’t me walking away from D4. This is me pushing them and it away from me and running away at top speed.
…And there is your defense of their actions. You might think that you are powerless. You might defend and shill for them. I’m not going to join you. You tried to shift the context (aka moving the goal post). You take it. You accept it. You open your mouth and you swallow it. Let me be clear. Not on my device. Not today, not next week, not next season. Blizz stepped over the line.