Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

With there being over five billion player minutes a month dished out in CounterStrike - its no wonder that in-game advertising is finally live in some of its environments.  The new version makes adverts non-optional.  Ads are appearing in levels including Dust2 and Aztec.

I just hope in the name of realism - that players can interact with the adverts in all the many ways as non virtual world including defacing, adding graffiti etc.

Reactions to the news are mixed with player comments including:

Player Equalizier offers

“Now onto the adverts… Well I just hope they stay as apart of maps and not huge popups through your game, if that happened that would be a travesty.

Hmm, so if they are advert/sprites stuck to maps, does that mean the bsp files are going to be updated, or is there some technology out there, server side etc that just sticks sprites to certain objects in a map.

If the advertss are just like this, then I wouldn’t be too bothered, but still the community are disapointed.”

Player PIstachio Offers more criticism:

“What a crock this is. Is nothing sacred anymore? Am I the only one who has a problem with bringing corporate interest into our games? Wake up people, in-game advertisements exist because big-industry executives need to make their Lexus payments. And before anybody says “BUT PISTAHCIO! IT’S JUST A SUNGLASSES AD? WHATS THE HARM??! LOLZZ!!!11″ Shut-up. Its not just the ad, it’s the principle of it.

Call me crazy, but when I play game, I do it to go places and do things I can’t do in the real world. Its fun ya know? I don’t need to see a Pepsi billboard or a Dell banner in my games, it takes you out of the game. It reminds me of how the developers sold-out.

I know, here it comes: “BUT THE DEVELOPERS NEED TO MAKE MONEY TOO ROFLMAO!!!”

No shit? Of course they do. But why not make money by developing good solid games that people want to play? That people want to go out and buy? It subtly says something about the quality of the game if you have to sell-out to advertisers. If you made such a good game that you’re sure everyone will enjoy, then what do you need more money for? Did you put out a half-assed game? Let’s say the game is good. Is the expense of ruining a good game with greedy corporate interest worth the extra money?

The world wide web might has long-gone been one big mall where every site tries to sell you something any chance they get, but I’ll be damned if thats going to happen to my games.”

Player Peagle in response states:

“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”.

More comments and reactions @ CS Nation