Don’t you just love capitalism and the commercialization of nearly everything good and noble? Most websites that started off with no sponsors have since bowed to the gods of advertising, selling pixels of their soul for the very ingredient that makes the world go round. Counter-Strike, a Half-Life mod that took the world by storm more than half a decade ago (has it been THAT long already? Gosh!), will come with in-game advertising in version 1.6. According to Valve and IGA, both companies issued a joint-statement that they will be sitting down at the table to discuss mutually beneficial opportunities (read: moolah in their pockets) in the near future.

One of the main reasons why in-game advertising is being added into Counter-Strike 1.6 would be the ready pool of audience that have reached an incredibly large size. I guess being the largest online action game in the world does have some advantages, but the fact that these advertisements are not optional will certainly detract from gameplay as in-game settings will no longer be considered to be realistic enough. Who would want to go hunt for terrorists when you have a large Coca-Cola ad staring at your face?

Will such a move pull more players into the Counter-Strike world, or will it turn people away from it? The very word advertisement strikes a taste of disgust with most computer users as it reminds them of nasty pop-ups and spam. I personally don’t think in-game advertising would work well since seasoned users are already numb to the amount of ads they are bombarded with each day. Hopefully Blizzard’s World of Warcraft will not undergo the same treatment sometime in the future.

Source: CS Nation

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