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Valve strikes a CS in-game ad deal
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 20th December 2006
"This view brought to you by" - Valve and IGA have inked the largest in-game advert deal ever. Yay?
Now, you can add one of the most popular games ever to that list - Counter-Strike: Source. Valve has apparently struck a deal with advertising firm IGA Worldwide for what is reportedly the biggest in-game ad campaign yet. Soon, you'll be able to shoot the terrorists while thinking of your shampoo at the same time. Exciting, no?
It's no wonder that CS:S would be a prime target for the ad industry. The game generates over 5 billion minutes of views for many spots on its maps - per month. That makes billboard advertising almost pale in comparison, and even beats the monthly views of a top-ranked one hour television show in the US.
Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide, had this to say:
"This exclusive agreement between IGA Worldwide and Valve adds significant value to our network and provides brands with a surefire way to reach millions of consumers with high impact advertising, and with highly measurable results."
Before you go getting your poison keyboard to send some hate-filled emails, though, you should at least hear some of what Valve has planned for the money. Not all of the tremendous profits from your attention will go straight to the company's coffers. Instead, Gabe Newell and company have promised to spend at least some of that money on helping to fund new mod projects for the game.
All in all, it will be interesting to see how this will unfold in the game world. Valve has a chance to really do this right, using the bonus revenues to bring down the cost of its own games as well as fund new and innovative projects. However, it's always hard to resist the urge to stuff a few more bucks in your pockets.
Whatever the outcome, maybe we'll see some of the old dancing-over-the-corpse moves finally retired. Instead of crouching and standing, you can lather, rinse, and repeat.
Got a thought on the in-game adverts? Vent your spleen in our forums.
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Comments (62)Stats: 0.140 seconds
w00t Valve ?
It's sad, I'm just going to go back to 1.6 now.
EDIT : It looks like it is on 1.6 !!
(http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=514441)
Read the interview here
Ugh, next it's gonna be on other source games aswell, you'll buy no longer buy Episode 2 instead you'll buy Pepsi Presents: Gordon Freeman's Pro Crowbar 2007.
Can't believe that all of these companies are doing this to their loyal gamers, it's only going to backfire on them in the long run, people will go back to the old fashioned garage gaming. Especially now that XNA has come out and we're gonna see ALOT more home made games.
I'm hoping someone will create a hack to get rid of the ads.
Valve have really betrayed the community here, and frankly, I'd be happy to see them go under for it. I know it won't happen, but they're right behind EA in merit for it.
It's Valve, they'll just turn some more mods into games instead of thinking up anything new and delay them even longer! :D
Rip off. I hope valvE goes under. I think it's time for a lawsuit.
i for one cant stand all the crap that people put in there servers logos etc.. and now valve are just making it worse.
it really should be a server side option if they are going to do it at all.
how? I hope it is, so we can all tell valve to shove their IGA up their arse!
IGA is damn wrong, I dont if people say "well if its placed right I don't mind" that's bs! If i've paid for a game then I sure as hell dont want to see ANY advertisements. If they want to post adverts then they should reduce the price of the games simple as that!
Only thing I see happening is random advertisement trying to fit itself onto the game.
For example, a pepsi machine in a corridor somewhere would be an acceptable ad.
I'm sorry but this is utter rubbish.
It's totally ironic that consumers are getting in line to bash on Valve whilst the games industry is patting them on the back for leading the pack in firstly e-distro and now in regimented in-game advertising.
I'm really hesitant to play this card because I don't want to come across as anything other than a student who is studying the games industry, but all developers want to do is make good games. They couldn't care less about lining their pockets. No body gets into development to get rich. It just doesn't happen. Not even publishers are making the most money; retailers actually scoop the largest percentage from every title sold.
But anyway, Valve are sticking it to the major publishers so if anything they are the antithesis of EA. EA exploit people and gobble up smaller companies whereas Valve have mastered their own electronic distribution service and could operate quite happily without any publisher support if they wished. Publishers are asking to publish their games! Valve are in a place where any developer with an ounce of sense should aspire to be, so it really is crushing when so many consumers complain about something as superficial as in-game advertising. People have been saying it's the next step for years.
It's not a fairytale and I guarentee that more money for Valve will mean better games. End of.
Screw you Valve, way to sell out
True, it is nice to sit and relax playing your favorite games without having all those adds shoved in your face.
things like pepsi machines in corridors, or name brand places in the cafeteria of a level are really fine by me, but when you had things like posters for gamefly on the wall in bolivia (SCCT) or adverts for upcoming DVDs on nearly every terminal, it got retarded...
If they want to profit from me, fine. But I'm not paying for games with ads in them, full stop. I'll buy a game with no ads, or I'll pirate a game with ads. Their choice - I don't greatly care. Especially since they're never contextually appropriate.
I don't give a flying **** what Valve wants to do with the money. The fact that they're retroactively making people pay for a product stinks. They are making the user provide them with more income after the deal is done and dusted(and years old in most peoples case). What they want to do with that money is irrellevent, it's the fact that they're doing it that's completely wrong.
If they want to make better games then fine, good for them. That's nice. But by buying CS people did not sign up to buy every future game, they're not part of some communist agenda. Each game should be seperate and stand on it's own. That means funds should not be removed from one group of gamers to pay for a game that many of them will not want.
and all those hatred in BF2142 communities for putting ads ingame (which, IMO, suits nicely with the ingame environment, in contrary to what most people imagine; very few, subtle, and doesnt affect performance at all), and all those CS/CS: Source players bashing BF2142 players for still wanting to play and "be scammed" by IGA...
good luck! LOL
this is not a big deal, I can't even muster up enough effort to care
Just like the rest of the world, if we as a consumer doesn't like something, we'll change it now matter what the law states.
The titles of good servers will be something like 100 TIC | FF ON | NO ADS
With the next upgrade you can buy the weapon you are using in the game for the price you bought it in the buy system, and you can pay with your cc card. Or get info from a website after you run into a add on the wall in CS...
The whole weapon industry is behind this i tell ya. they are funding this. They have oozes of miljons to bring to the cs laundry...
Either stop pirating games or stop bashing intuitive ways that developers can earn more money. Do any of you have the ability to look passed your own noses on this one?
Just wait till this gets implemented. People will realise what a massive overreaction this all was.
To be honest, this is the sort of thing that encourages piracy, not solves it.
Plus, I bought the game. It is mine. I own it. the company that sold it to me does not have the right to modify it after the fact to generate themselves more revenue for themselves.
Consider this analogy. You buy a car. Six months after you buy your car the dealership comes to your house and puts a bumper sticker on your car advertising Pepsi ot Tesco or whatever. The dealership gets paid for every bumpersticker they apply, and you get to be a moving billboard for their benefit.
At a minimum, this is going to encorage server admins to hack the game, and there is no doubt in my mind that in the end it will make piracy more attractive.
But I didn't buy my copy of CS on steam. I bought it in an electronics boutique store years ago. I paid for it then, in full.
For the majority of people CS 1.6 was free. It's always been free whether as an online download or a bundle with Condition Zero. So you have never paid a penny for it.
Also, how exactly does in-game advertising affect you? You're not paying any extra for it - if anything, games may turn out to be cheaper as a result of it's influence.
And to anyone who thinks this will encourage piracy, that kind of attitude only fuels the problem and I bet you're the first kind of people to bitch when good games aren't being rolled out.
I think you guys are overreacting so much. As if Valve would ever do anything that wasn't subtle yet effective. Jesus.
In game advertising effects the game enjoyment, for some people at least. But just as importantly, gamers have fullfilled the agreement in buying the product already. I don't know whether you're ignoring that or are missing it, but making people look at adverts is a way of making them pay you(through the advertisers) money. In this case many people have already paid, so valve have no right to do what they're doing.
In the cases where people havn't paid, you're right, they never paid for anything. But then again, Valve didn't do the vast majority of work on original CS so it's perfectly argueable that they have little right to be charging people extra(through advertising) at this point.
Yes, games might be better in future(be realistic guys, they ain't getting cheaper) - but what if I don't buy those games? What if they aren't to my taste, why should I be forced to pay for them anyway?
I shouldn't. As for overreaction, those of us who care have to make our point strongly - at least for myself this is because as far as I'm concerned every person I convince is a person who might think twice before giving Valve money from now on. Also, I simply feel strongly about this from a money<>product POV. I have paid my money for their product. Them wanting more just stinks, and they stink.
Today it's in-game advertising.
What happened each time? Prices went up! What's blamed each time? Piracy! And people believe those companies?
Lame, lame, lame.
Developers already get screwed by everyone. Valve, after everything they have done, deserve nothing but praise, respect and trust.
Honestly, what is it spec? Are you just jealous that Valve are going to be making more money? I don't get why or how people seem so put out by in-game advertising. Alienware have been advertising in Neocron for years and the adverts are subtle and appropriate to the game's context. If Reakktor can do it, I can promise you Valve will do it better. So stop moaning about your rights or whatever. If they were adding something that benefitted you directly, you wouldn't complain that it wasn't in the EULA and now they're adding something that'll benefit you indirectly. So live with it.
Excuse me? You're accusing me of pirating a game I already said at least twice that I bought. I've bought every valve game I ever played(HL, CS, HL2/CSS)
What? What exactly have they done? They've taken a free mod and made people pay for it, they've abused a compulsory distribution system by doing this, and they've continued to charge the same US prices as they did before when they had a publisher taking a cut.
How many times must I say this? I'm pissed at the deal between myself and valve being changed retroactively. That's scummy, it's wrong, and the only reason they can do it is through ******** EULA's - the sort of thing that could never apply to anything but software because nowhere else are the masses willing to get screwed so badly.
I also hate adverts in games, this I've also already said. I think adverts, even if they start out tastefull, will eventually end up as big obnoxious unavoidable things that really detract from gameplay.
Riiight. Because I should just bend over and let EA or Valve do whatever they want and keep paying them money. I don't know why you're so obsessed with defending this repugnant move by valve - but they're in the wrong, they're doing something they should never do, and like I said earlier deserve all the misfortune they get as a result.
b) As I've already said, Valve have paved the way for digital distribution services by releasing their own download platform and thus encouraging the production of other similar services. They also spearhead large technological developments. Their positive effective on the industry is massive.
c) For your information, Counter-Strike has always been free. Valve have made not a penny from it. They bought the rights to it when they developed Counter-Strike: Condition Zero which is a standalone game developed solely by Valve. It came bundled with Counter-Strike but you have always been able to download Counter-Strike for free. The "retail" CS was the version that came with CZ.
d) Why do you hate adverts in games? Thousands of games feature adverts in them as part of a contextual scenario, usually for fictional businesses. So what if these are replaced with real business adverts? It's really no skin off yours, and games companies, especially Valve, are not going to make them "big, obnixious, unavoidable things that really detract from gameplay". You are wrong. Valve are not UK2.
e) And on the subject of what Valve aren't, they're also not EA. They're fundamentally different to EA in every possible way - but that said, your ignorant bashing of EA and Valve shows you really don't know what you're talking about.
Furthermore, it definitely was not free when I bought it.
http://home.thursday.com/tfausak/counter-strike.jpg
(It's not like Gunman CD keys are worth anything. You can't use them on Steam.)
:) Meant with the best possible intentions.
Sigh. Please read the posts before making an asshat of yourself.
The point is, in the links you posted, you're not paying for Counter-Strike. You're paying for CZ and you get CS with it. I'm fairly sure that once you have an activated Half-Life 1 cd-key on Steam, you can download Counter-Strike. If you have ever paid for it I feel immensely sorry for you.
You realise many games sell less copies now, kind of scary as for example the final fantasy series is rapidly declining in sales. In addition development costs are mushrooming out of proportion. Still game prices have gone down if you take into account inflation!
EDIT: Some intense research shows there was a standalone retail version of CS. My apologies for the aforementioned claims. Anyway...
So ok, they've used it to boost sales but there has always been an option to download it for free. At no point did they turn round and say to the 85,000 people playing CS and say "Right. Now you've all got to pay." That just never happened.
Anyway, lets stick to in-game ads.
I understand that you feel like you're being hard done by spec, but my question is just why do you think in-game adverts are going to be so bad? What exactly do you envisage??
However, does that make it any less wrong?
I bought this game with the knowledge there would be no ads in it.
Valve do not cover the cost of the servers which make the game possible, as I stated in the other post the people who pay for the servers are the ones that make it possible for Valve to sell the game, no servers would equal no game.
Now why should an individual or company pay the running costs of a server that could potentially run ads for their competition.
My example would be the bit-tech/intel server potentially running hexus/AMD ads?
Also, think of it another way, would you be happy for Toyota to come along and put ad stickers on the side of your car 5 years after you bought it?
It wouldn't effect the driving capabilities of the car after all.
To stay on topic, I believe that Valve has an immense effect on the industry. They can set standards for other companies to follow, which is why their move to add advertisements to the most popular online action game in the world is so despicable. If we, as CS players, accept the ads without question, other companies will look at what happened (years from now) and say, "Look, Valve did it with CS, surely we can do it with out game!" Eventually games will become what TV shows and movies are today: just another medium for advertisements.
You say Valve won't let that happen - I don't doubt that there are people within Valve who'd love to think they can ensure that, but they cannot. The people who deal with the money side of things have the power, and those people are employed to make more money. Even if that means pissing off the dev team every once in a while by making them stick yet another advert into something. All it takes is a foot in the door, and we can wave goodbye to a games without obnoxious adverts - because sooner or later the marketing and advertising people will get their way, and gamers will be nothing more than commodities.
and according to Bunnyfoot the ads have to be in your face so they can work.
hmmmmm if a person can hack the channel that transmits these ads.... we can put very naughty ads in there.....
@DXR_13KE im sure someone will.
And the pointlessness and how itll only slow his dell down./