February 14th, 2007
Valve Starts Testing In-Game Ads for Counter-Strike
By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
It appears that Valve has started testing in-game ads for Counter-Strike 1.6, Valve’s most popular game even 7 years after its release. When the news first broke that Valve would be adding advertisements into Counter-Strike, there was an uproar among the gaming community. Very few people supported Valve putting ads in their favorite first-person shooter, especially since they had paid for the game back when it didn’t have ads and development of Counter-Strike has essentially stopped. This action has already prompted a thread on Valve’s forums with over 550 comments, and almost all of them are negative.
Apparently gamers can now see Valve’s test ads for themselves if they add the line “-beta cs” to the launch options of their Steam executable. A few of them have already done so and taken some screenshots of what these new ads look like. As you can see from the example in this story, the ads in their current state are incredibly obtrusive, and users have also reports drops in their frame rates, though I have not verified these claims. These changes are not yet in Counter-Strike by default, so there is still hope the Valve will reconsider its decision. It is more than a little ironic that Valve, which was angered by third-party attempts to place ads in its game previously by some server administrators.
Orga says:
I’d have a lot less of a problem with in-game advertising if we didn’t have to pay just as much goddamned money as we normally do.
I mean, really… when is this shit supposed to result in lower game costs?
February 14th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Mumblix Grumph says:
This may sound stupid, but product placement really doesn’t bother me. In fact, I think it actually enhances things.
People in the real world drink Diet Coke, not Fake Soda. People say “Let’s meet at the Starbucks.” Not, “Let’s go to the local franchise coffee shop.”
In the real world, billboards are visible everywhere…is it really some kind of shock to see them in a supposedly realistic game?
I think it actually makes things seem more real.
Now, if they go overboard, such as having an actor say “Let’s go to Starbucks. They have awesome coffee, great ambiance and very reasonable prices considering the quality of the products they offer.” That is not good
Or if the billboard in a video game becomes intrusive or if the camera locks on to it in a cut scene for five minutes. I’d have to give it the thumbs-down.
Anyway…no big deal to me
February 15th, 2007 at 3:52 am
Tom says:
It isn’t ironic at all that Valve was unhappy. They just want to control the revenue.
February 15th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Mark says:
People play games to get away from that crap. It’s one thing to stick in a Coke can instead of a made up soda brand, but when you start doing bill boards like that you’re just going to piss people off. Especially if they don’t provide a way to turn them off if you don’t want them.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
www.deltasleep.net says:
Valve has a nasty reputation for being anti-consumer. They make great games, great enough for consumers to put up with most of their abuse.
Consider this:
To install ANY valve/sierra game, you must first install Steam, a constant connection to the Valve servers is required to run the games. Steam serves ads all day, is notoriously buggy, and this past fall it was offline for over 48 hours, leaving paying customers unable to play the software they purchased.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Erik says:
where i downloa counter strike 1.6 steamserver
March 17th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Erik says:
i want CS 1.6 where where i download plz tell me where who tell me where plz i want so muts plz plz plz plz
March 17th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Erik says:
who plz :@
March 17th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Dan says:
What is the big fucking deal? O no, an ad, OMG. What can an ad take away from the experience? Its not ads everywhere, its not like Rainbow 6 or FNR3, where your getting bombarded with ads.
March 24th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Dan says:
Steam isnt buggy, and you dont pay for steam, also, if steam is offline, you can play the single player games. You dont need a connection. I see people complain less about xbox live, which you PAY for, and that was offline for times too.
March 24th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
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