CS 1.6 Ads: Now Screening

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Awoken again is the discussion of advertisement placing in Counter-Strike v1.6, recently revealed to be appearing on the popular online PC title in the near future. CS-Nationhttp://www.csnation.net/comments.php?id=8631 has published some intriguing new revelations, that is, you can partake in a beta of this new system now - You know, so you can complain and present real evidence to your arguments.
To run this beta version you will need to add -beta cs to your command line when you start Steam. This can be done by opening up the Windows shortcut you use to launch Steam and adding -beta cs right after Steam.exe. Please report any bugs or issue you find in this article.
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[br][br]Valve has extended details of the beta on their developer Wiki page located here. Remember, after beta comes the official launch of a project. This means, advertisements will soon become permanent to all users; You have no choice in whether you can view them or not.
 
Hmm.

That looks more awkward than I imagined. Maybe if they blended the ads into the levels a bit more. For example, there could be ads instead of motivational posters in Office, and maybe a more grittier version in Dust. The screenshot from Dust just seems too out of place. The ads on the scoreboard are just fine.
 
Qonfused said:
Hmm.

That looks more awkward than I imagined. Maybe if they blended the ads into the levels a bit more. For example, there could be ads instead of motivational posters in Office, and maybe a more grittier version in Dust. The screenshot from Dust just seems too out of place. The ads on the scoreboard are just fine.
Click to expand...
same =\
 
Reminds me of when EA made crappy ad's for BF:2142. I rarly play CS. I really don't want to play online games with ad's. If it goes to far then I guess I will not play games anymore, just mods. That or find ways around them. Hey, I can't wait to play HL2: Ep2 with big huge ad's that will make the game suck.
 
Well as long as they are only Valve related ones i'd be happy with it :)
 
I wouldn't expect people playing 1.6 would have a good PC to be able to run HL2/Portal? Should of done it on the CSS market.
 
Evo said:
Well as long as they are only Valve related ones i'd be happy with it :)
Click to expand...

I doubt they're keeping the ads Valve-only if they've drafted in an agency to sort them out.
 
Mutley said:
I wouldn't expect people playing 1.6 would have a good PC to be able to run HL2/Portal? Should of done it on the CSS market.
Click to expand...
Thought the same myself... But I think these ads are specific to the beta, and different ones will start appearing later.
 
The ads are MUCH worse than I expected. Funny how they hardly ever update their games and can't get new ones out on time, but when it comes to the one update that nobody wants because it actually makes the game undeniably worse it's the one thing that goes as promised.
 
Those are some of the worst out of place ads I have ever seen... (instead of nicely adding them to the environment). Lucky I don't play CSS anymore ;p
 
That does look pretty out of place..

Like others have said, I don't really mind ads on the scoreboard or when you join a server, but plastering them all over existing maps just ruins the look of them. If they actually designed the map so that the ads blended in to the environment (billboards, etc) it wouldn't be as bad.
 
simon said:
Those are some of the worst out of place ads I have ever seen... (instead of nicely adding them to the environment). Lucky I don't play CSS anymore ;p
Click to expand...

CSS? The ads will only be part of CS 1.6, not CSS (for now). Good thing too - I don't play 1.6 anymore so as long as they stay away from CSS, I'm fine with it. Still looks crappy though.

Besides, it's a beta. There's room for improvement, but Valve have definitely lost the charm they once had when they were smaller and just focused on the games. They feel too corporate-like, and the ingame ads won't help.
 
i agree, if the in-game ads are THAT obvious it will hurt more then it will help.

They need to be better designed so that they blen into the map [like everyone has said].
 
not cool. we cant do poop about it though. hopefully over time they willave more inventive ads ingame ala office, maybe cars or pop cans we can shoot.
 
just get the word out to the CS community to stop playing until valve removes the adds. the end
 
Hyperion2010 said:
just get the word out to the CS community to stop playing until valve removes the adds. the end
Click to expand...
Doesn't seem to have done much to stop the uptake of BF2142.

(Disclaimer: I have never played BF2142, so I don't know how obtrusive the ads are in said game.)
 
I haven't played 2142 for a few months, but I'm pretty sure the ads never happened. The billboards just show fake 2142 related ads.
 
CodeFire said:
Reminds me of when EA made crappy ad's for BF:2142. I rarly play CS. I really don't want to play online games with ad's. If it goes to far then I guess I will not play games anymore, just mods. That or find ways around them. Hey, I can't wait to play HL2: Ep2 with big huge ad's that will make the game suck.
Click to expand...

2142 has ads it depends where you live. Aussie players don't get any but we do get the Northern Srike ads and silly propaganda. However it fits into the game world.

Here we have a decal on a wall. At least make it look like it belongs some how. They need more wear and tear to fit into the Dust environment.
 
DarkDamo said:
i agree, if the in-game ads are THAT obvious it will hurt more then it will help.

They need to be better designed so that they blen into the map [like everyone has said].
Click to expand...

Because we know that the CS community is mature, organized, and fully capable of something of that scale.

/sarcasm
 
Good thing that's a beta, because I'm not liking the looks of that.
 
Haha! Yeah, that isn't awkward and totally out of place. Could they atleast try to blend the ads in so they aren't so blatantly out of place? Better yet, put the ads in the menu screen or put them up when you die.
 
I have a problem with being forced to see advertisements on a game I've already paid for.

Edit: My GOD my sig is out of date.
 
so what does the player get for the advertisements? We payed for the game, now it looks like we payed for advertisement too! How logic is that?!
 
So far everything that's been shown on the billboards in 2142 blends nicely with the surroundings.

What we see here... well if EA placed such (completely not blending) ads in 2142 people would start putting their "**** YOU EA" sigs in bold.
 
[ill-thought out rant]

Am I the only one that thinks it's disgraceful that Valve have sold a game to us without advertising and are now telling us that from one day forward this game we paid for will include adverts!!!??

That's like buying a film and then finding out 2 years down the line that when you fire it up in your DVD player there's a commercial break halfway through!

I hope there is something in the original license that came with the first copies of CSS/Steam that covers Valve's back for adding in content not specifically relating to the game, or people might want to contest this. (I suspect they've smuggled it in somehow in a new 'Agree to this' agreement on a subsequent Steam update)

Honestly, this whole "advertising in games is necessary and inevitable" ethos is bullshit. You can save money through using online content delivery systems and cutting ou the middle man, harness the internet and this very same online content delivery system for low-cost, high-yield marketing. Then you can do something sensible with the savings and put it into sponsorship of games-related educational establishments that will have their students train with your preferred industry and proprietory dev tools and save you time and money you would otherwise spend on recruitment and on-the-job training.

I've seen other pics of the ads which look far better intgrated, but they still intrude on the experience and I still think there's a lot to be said about the subliminality of in-game ads (in a fast-paced MP game your attention is going to be actively on the task at hand, but your unconscious mind will log these adverts each time you see it. This sort of subliminal advertising in television -messages appearing too fast to be registered in 'active memory' are illegal. So what's to say that a game that is capable of the sort of fast-paced gameplay that will mean the glimpses you get of these ads could register on a subliminal level only should not also fall under the same legislation?). Personally I'd love to see some psychological tests run to see how in-game ads (as in: within the gameplay experience) register in our memory dependant on the pace of the game and amount of concentration required.

I'm fervently against advertising that appears inside the game itself unless the adverts form part of a recreation of a real life scenario (i.e. trackside/pitchside advertising hoardings, urban setting billboards, etc.). Advertising is the easy way out when there are other options available to minimise production and distribution costs.

Oh, and one more thing: bring on the client-side custom content addon packs that replace all ads with invisible layers!

[/ill-thought out rant]
 
they can fo tbh a fix will be made as soon as they're released

All the things they could do to help 1.6, fixing flash bugs / reload bugs / interp, they don't they just ignore 1.6. But when they can make MONEY from a game they just left aside they jump right on it.

They know 1.6 has 4x+ the amount of players as all their other games so instead of improving the game for us they just throw in some ads.

Within a month of their actual release drax or someone will make map fixes and no one will have to see these crappy adverts that don't fit in at all. Also, if when they are released it stops old demos from working, its 1.6 non-steam all the way

edit: spread the word to make everyone post on forums saying that the ads update stops their CS from starting up. If everyone says it and keeps saying it valve will never be able to fix this non-existent problem and will have to revert back :)
 
The 2142 adverts are very well placed and blended in.

Although they can be really repetitive, like a street with 6 billboards all showing the same thing.
 
Crispy said:
[ill-thought out rant]

Am I the only one that thinks it's disgraceful that Valve have sold a game to us without advertising and are now telling us that from one day forward this game we paid for will include adverts!!!??

That's like buying a film and then finding out 2 years down the line that when you fire it up in your DVD player there's a commercial break halfway through!

I hope there is something in the original license that came with the first copies of CSS/Steam that covers Valve's back for adding in content not specifically relating to the game, or people might want to contest this. (I suspect they've smuggled it in somehow in a new 'Agree to this' agreement on a subsequent Steam update)

Honestly, this whole "advertising in games is necessary and inevitable" ethos is bullshit. You can save money through using online content delivery systems and cutting ou the middle man, harness the internet and this very same online content delivery system for low-cost, high-yield marketing. Then you can do something sensible with the savings and put it into sponsorship of games-related educational establishments that will have their students train with your preferred industry and proprietory dev tools and save you time and money you would otherwise spend on recruitment and on-the-job training.

I've seen other pics of the ads which look far better intgrated, but they still intrude on the experience and I still think there's a lot to be said about the subliminality of in-game ads (in a fast-paced MP game your attention is going to be actively on the task at hand, but your unconscious mind will log these adverts each time you see it. This sort of subliminal advertising in television -messages appearing too fast to be registered in 'active memory' are illegal. So what's to say that a game that is capable of the sort of fast-paced gameplay that will mean the glimpses you get of these ads could register on a subliminal level only should not also fall under the same legislation?). Personally I'd love to see some psychological tests run to see how in-game ads (as in: within the gameplay experience) register in our memory dependant on the pace of the game and amount of concentration required.

I'm fervently against advertising that appears inside the game itself unless the adverts form part of a recreation of a real life scenario (i.e. trackside/pitchside advertising hoardings, urban setting billboards, etc.). Advertising is the easy way out when there are other options available to minimise production and distribution costs.

Oh, and one more thing: bring on the client-side custom content addon packs that replace all ads with invisible layers!

[/ill-thought out rant]
Click to expand...

very very well put, i completely agree
 
ElFuhrer said:
The ads are MUCH worse than I expected. Funny how they hardly ever update their games and can't get new ones out on time, but when it comes to the one update that nobody wants because it actually makes the game undeniably worse it's the one thing that goes as promised.
Click to expand...

hahaha
so true
 
It'll be easy to remove the adverts. The map files, I'm sure, have some sort of "advert" entity that specifies where the adverts should appear. Someone can easily rip these entities out (or maybe even just change the map's filename) and put that on their server and play ad-free. I'm sure custom maps will be advert free too.

I'm sure we'll be seeing de_dust_adfree.bsp soon enough.
 
The scoreboard thingies are unobtrusive, but the ingame ads? Blech :|

BTW make the images smaller, they're 900KB now :p
 
Hm. They not noticeable.

From far-away D:
 
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