CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
advertisements coming to cs
interview: advertisements coming to cs
If the headline wasn't enough, and the blurb was simply looked over without a second look, then let me say it again. In-game advertising is coming soon to a Counter-Strike 1.6 game near you. Some CS-Nation readers may remember back to a couple of news pieces that dealt with ads appearing in Counter-Strike. This particular quote from a joint press release comes to mind.
Valve and IGA have announced that they are pleased to have reached a swift and professional resolution of any issues that may have existed between them, IGA's advertisers and IGA's advertising agencies. Valve and IGA look forward to discussing mutually beneficial opportunities in the future.
Sit back, place your tray tables in the upright and locked position, and prepare to have your game of Counter-Strike turned on its head. Advertisements are here, or rather, they will be soon. CS-Nation is bringing you this exclusive interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi about in-game advertising in CS1.6. We tried not to hold back any "punches" in this interview. As this is the case, not every question was answered, but we will still include these questions throughout. Without further delay, on with the interview.

CS-Nation: Why is in-game advertising being added into CS 1.6? Why not add this into CS: Source, Condition Zero, or one of Valve's more modern titles?
Doug Lombardi: As for why CS 1.6, the main attraction for potential advertisers is the audience size. Counter-Strike is the largest online action game in the world. Putting ads into our games is a new thing for us. Whenever we’re testing something new, we try to be somewhat scientific — isolating the implementation so we can measure its success or failure. That’s why we chose just one title.
CS-Nation: When might we expect to see in-game advertising in CS1.6?
Doug Lombardi: We’re still pinning down the exact date, but folks can expect to start seeing them appear early next year. We will let folks know once we’ve pinpointed the time and date.
CS-Nation: Will the ads be optional on the part of server owners or players?
Doug Lombardi: The ads will not be optional.
CS-Nation: Why are in-game ads a good idea from the perspective of Valve?
Doug Lombardi: Advertising is a new and evolving part of the entire gaming industry. We’ve watched for the past few years as some of the biggest players in the software industry (Google, etc.,) have bootstrapped their efforts with advertising-supported business models on the Web. We felt that now is the right time to try advertising in one of our games.
CS-Nation: Why are in-game ads a good idea from the perspective a CS fan?
Doug Lombardi: We make these kinds of decisions with our entire community in mind, not just the people who play Counter-Strike. Our very first Counter-Strike experiment was actually a business-related one: Bringing the game to a retail audience when it was already available on the Internet as a free download seemed to the community like a pretty questionable choice — but it’s worked out well with the community becoming larger and stronger.

As another example of ways that an advertising model may benefit the CS community, for a long time we’ve looked for new ways to let mod authors make money. Funding a game development project is currently a chicken and egg problem — you can’t get funding without having already built a great product, and you can’t build something great without money in the bank. If this experiment with advertising in CS 1.6 is successful, it may turn out that we’re able to help the next round of successful mods get off the ground because of ad revenue.