CS Ads Are a Go - Deal Signed

[FLeK0]

sadisticflirt wrote..

Well here's the thing Skippy, by PAYING money for HL2 or w/e, we legally paid for our rights to play. We've already done our part by paying for the game.

Actually you paid for a subsciption over steam, which can be terminated by valve at any time if you do something against the current EULA.

[kovah]

I think i'll just stay on the fence for this one.



On one hand, I agree that companies shouldn't have to resort to selling ad space in their games without the end-user who purchased that game having a choice to view the ads or not.



On the other hand, capitalism ftw. Make the money when and where you can. If Valve uses the proceeds to help them make newer and better games, then yth not?



To be honest, I think i'd only really be against ads if this was a Pay 2 Play game like some popular MMO's are considering. If I'm paying you a monthly fee already I don't think you should force ads that were not part of the original game that I purchased down my throat. At least give the option to opt out.



Also, like the news headline yesterday stated, it all depends on how they are placing these ads. If they are scanning my Favorites and IE History folders and placing ads based on that, F them.

[Hutz]

We're not arguing about whether or not what they are doing is unethical/"wrong". It isn't either of those. What it is is a big piss-off to everyone who already paid for the game, and yet must still be subjected to advertising.



Yes, capitalism ftw. When consumers don't like certain products/services, they voice their opinions by avoiding them. Which is exactly what as many 1.6 players as possible should do when this crap feature is released - voice their opinions by either not playing for a few weeks or by finding a workaround (such as not playing on official maps, or only on remakes without ads) - optimally both would happen and pretty much cripple the vision of some of the most intrusive advertising ever invented.

If there are ads in real life, why wouldn't there be ads in a simulation? If anything playing cpl maps takes you "out of the game" because they don't seem "real".

Who said CS is a simulation? Game with realistic elements =/= simulation. But anyway, putting advertisements in a game doesn't automatically take you out of the immersion. If it's an ad that's either clearly or highly possible to be targeted to the pretend people of this world, then that just helps build the immersion. But if it's something obviously targeted at real consumers who are playing the game (ie, "Don't miss the new Lost episode, tonight at 8/7 central!"), that instantly (to me anyway) breaks any immersion in the game.



Nobody plays the CPL maps because they're pretty. In Source they have a good level of detail for a Source game, but if you want breathtaking then you'll go play on Inferno or Militia or some other map where you'll be lucky to break 60 FPS at any given moment. The CPL maps are tactically interesting for competitive play, which is why they were popular enough to be remade in Source. Don't get me wrong. I think of those maps as awesome competitive arenas and nothing more, thanks to dumb crap like the cat sign in Mill and the CAL banners on Mill/Fire. When I play Cbble or Train in a competitive match, the game is much more immersive, regardless of how tactically interesting it is. If Valve goes through and puts ads in all their games, then they've lost their biggest selling point: immersion makes deep gameplay more fun.

[woah]

Isn't it great how the greedy and extravagant interests of an isolated few can result in mass distress among the many?



The sad thing is, even if Valve loses a massive amount of their player base as a result of this, they're not going to give a damn because they will be feasting over massive advertising sums.



What many people don't realize that is that forcing us to watch and take in (either consciously or subconsciously--you cannot escape them) these advertisements is akin to having us continually PAY for Counter-Strike each and every day that we play the game. It is analogous to Valve enforcing a monthly membership fee required to play the game, except this form of taxation just looks and sounds prettier.



When you take into account the fact that most of us already payed for the damn game four or five years ago at full price off of Steam, and then subsequently experienced Valve's almost absolute disregard and reluctance to support Counter-Strike (the most popular multiplayer action game in the world, for that matter), the utter insidiousness and shameless greed Valve is now portraying seems almost criminal.



This is the reality of the situation: We are all--right out of the blue--being forced to iteratively pay for (in the form of a submission to advertising) a 5 year old game, that of which we ALREADY payed for many years ago, and that of which we will not receive any further compensation for.

[pistachio]

omgomgz wrote..

Then why don't you just go smoke hookah with your hippie friends too. Fight the power man.

Because if anybody is annoyed with advertising, then they are clearly a hippie and hang out with other hippies. What other logical conclusion could there be? Apparently thats the only one right omgomgz? I mean, why wouldn't a regular gamer love to see shameless plugs to buy crap we don't need? In our games of all places? But then again, apparently you make presumptions on other people's lifestyles and conveniently put them into stereotypes based on a few paragraphs they wrote, I guess I can't put it past you.

[DevgruSeal H.E]

Let me give you a prime example of ads breaking game immersion.



Battlefield 2142. Goto Minsk, and look for the Core 2 Duo ad billboards.



First of all, we're placed in an environment that is similar to post-2nd-ice-age here, and I see an advertisement still rolled out on a billboard? Secondly, it's an advertisement for a core 2 duo processor, people. Don't you think that about 136 years from now there would be..I dont know..Better technology?



Basically, "We have hover-tanks, battlewalkers, and hovering titans with shiny force fields, so why do we still have dual core processors?"

[Hutz]

I think it's time to face the facts - business is business. Valve does not give a crap about anything besides money, which is what makes a business successful.



This is why no company could have made a game this popular on their own. Companies try to sell their games too much, and end up focusing more on how to GET people playing rather than how to KEEP people playing (except pay-to-play games, that do the opposite in the most sinister ways... OCD tendencies ftw). People making a mod for fun are much more likely to make the game long-lasting and for hardcore players, instead of making the game short lived so casual players will buy it and play for a few weeks at most.



My conclusion? Let's play Insurgency when it comes out (an independent Source mod based off of USMC vs Insurgent battles... looks hardcore) while it hasn't sold out yet. Selling out is inevitable and expected if it is successful, though.

[peagle]

woah wrote..

The sad thing is, even if Valve loses a massive amount of their player base as a result of this, they're not going to give a damn because they will be feasting over massive advertising sums.

That would be a short sighted, and suicidal business policy, also I doubt they are getting the kind of revenue you may think advertisers are willing to pay.

[elite-mafia]

they should just make this game free already jeez

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Alright, I have a few thoughts, but I'll put them in the context of the few gems that have been said already:

woah wrote..

The sad thing is, even if Valve loses a massive amount of their player base as a result of this, they're not going to give a damn because they will be feasting over massive advertising sums.

Under normal circumstances this would not be the case for a game developer. However, currently we're talking about CS1.6, not any of VALVe's new titles that have higher price tags and large shelf presence at popular retail outlets.

It is analogous to Valve enforcing a monthly membership fee required to play the game, except this form of taxation just looks and sounds prettier.

This hits the nail on the head more than anything else that has been said here.



Let's look at the financial history of CS. VALVe's first financial benefit from CS was in HL1 sales... this free mod became more popular than the game it modified, and boosted sales of Half-Life for a while, but then it tapered off. Why? Because your average Joe Schmoe didn't see Counter-Strike at the local brick and mortar, so he wasn't shelling out his parents' cash for it.



Enter VALVe's financial planning. How could they glean more income from CS than they were already? Buy the mod, then package it up with some pretty cover art and sell the same game to people all over again. Sure enough, enter CS1.0 retail, a smash hit that turned a significant beta user-base into a teeming mass of users, all to VALVe's huge financial gain. A few things needed polished to bring it up to date and keep more people coming, so we got the next few versions out the door.



VALVe needs to sell CS to make money, and this idea spawns CS:CZ, a strange compilation of the ideas of several 3rd party developers and VALVe themselves. CZ sells poorly, and despite its slight graphical and gameplay advantages, most CS players are content with the game they've been playing faithfully for several years and don't switch to CZ.



Fast-forward a few years. CS:S is released, and VALVe expects a huge migration to the new game that simply doesn't happen. The next few years prove that CS1.6 retains roughly 3x the popularity that the new version has. Unlike so many other titles by every other developer, the old version retains its enormous user-base far beyond the lifetime of any other title featuring similar technology.



So now we've got a situation where the bulk majority of people playing a VALVe title are playing something that VALVe only makes a small portion of its money from... a title many of us purchased 5-7 years ago. They recognize that the majority of us are satisfied with CS1.6 to the point that technological advances aren't going to make us switch games. This presents a huge problem to a company that has historically tried to squeeze every available dollar from this outdated but still wildly-popular game.



From that perspective, it's hard to be surprised by VALVe's actions on this matter. They want our money, and if we don't spend every dollar of it on their latest episode for their newest game, then they'll find another way to milk it from us, directly or indirectly.

DevgruSeal H.E wrote..

Battlefield 2142. Goto Minsk, and look for the Core 2 Duo ad billboards.

My thought had been seeing an Intel ad placed in Day of Defeat, but similar suspension-of-disbelief-destroying anachronism exists in both cases.



Just one more thought. VALVe providing bandwidth for the Steam service has been mentioned as a service that could plausibly be ad-supported. However, when you look at the base motivation for the Steam service--cutting out the middleman and making a higher percentage profit from every sale--it's pretty clear that providing this bandwidth is to their advantage. Realistically, how often do you download games via Steam unless it's something you've purchased? The videos you can download are advertisements for other games you can buy from them.



Steam's bandwidth is for selling things, not for entertaining us. Independant 3rd party server admins are the ones paying for that bandwidth, and they're exactly the people who will see nothing from the advertisements VALVe is forcing upon their clients.



Remember where this all started... a few server admins wanted to put an advertisement in-game to defer their costs for running these servers. VALVe's response? Legal action to stop this immediately, then jumping into bed with the advertiser so that they could be the ones making the money instead. Corporate whoring at it's most raw form, but that's nothing new from VALVe.

[omgomgz]

Edited by [user="381418"] @ [time="1166680890"]

pistachio wrote..

Because if anybody is annoyed with advertising, then they are clearly a hippie and hang out with other hippies. What other logical conclusion could there be? Apparently thats the only one right omgomgz? I mean, why wouldn't a regular gamer love to see shameless plugs to buy crap we don't need? In our games of all places? But then again, apparently you make presumptions on other people's lifestyles and conveniently put them into stereotypes based on a few paragraphs they wrote, I guess I can't put it past you.

Apparently if you joke around with calling someone a hippie they get all worked up.

-:Nighthawk:- wrote..

Remember where this all started... a few server admins wanted to put an advertisement in-game to defer their costs for running these servers. VALVe's response? Legal action to stop this immediately, then jumping into bed with the advertiser so that they could be the ones making the money instead. Corporate whoring at it's most raw form, but that's nothing new from VALVe.

Interesting thought. Valve obviously knew how popular the idea would get, and essentially may have stolen the idea for themselves.

[pistachio]

Oh What-the-fuck-ever. You back down when I refute the statement and act like you were joking the whole time to try and make yourself look so much more mature. Please. Anyways, I stick to my guns: Fuck in-game advertising.

[omgomgz]

pistachio wrote..

Oh What-the-fuck-ever. You back down when I refute the statement and act like you were joking the whole time to try and make yourself look so much more mature. Please. Anyways, I stick to my guns: Fuck in-game advertising.

Chill out bra. I didn't back down from anything, as I had no original claim. All I'm saying is that it's nothing to freak out over.

[pistachio]

Edited by [user="124355"] @ [time="1166682055"]

Oh yeah good point, unless you count that whole claim about the hippie thing. Look I don't care if you agree with me or not but I took time and thought it out (for whatever its worth) to write about my position on this. If you do or don't agree, talk about it in a constructive way. Schools out for the winter, I got time.

[omgomgz]

Edited by [user="381418"] @ [time="1166682487"]

I didn't claim anything. I said to go have a relaxing time with your hippie friends. Everyone has a hippie friend. Smoking a hookah with your hippie friends only furthers relaxation.



Anyway, I heard Valve was going to have a GEICO blimp roam around the CS maps while occasionally landing at bombsites.