Valve Plans In-Game Ads For Counter-Strike

An interview with Valve Software’s director of marketing, Doug Lombardi, on fan site CS-Nation has confirmed that the company plans to add in-game advertising to its titles, beginning with the original version of Counter-Strike. Working with well known in-game advertising firm IGA Worldwide, ads will be placed in the current version of the original Counter-Strike, one of the most popular online-only games on the PC, but not the more recent Counter-Strike: Source or Condition Zero, apparently as an initial test to see their effectiveness and audience reaction. The ads will begin to appear early next year and will not be optional. According to Lombardi, “There will be some ads posted on walls in the game world, an ad on the scoreboard screen, and one in the letterboxed area of Spectator mode.” Answering a question on why in-game ads are a good idea from the perspective of a Counter-Strike fan, Lombardi answered: “We make these kinds of decisions with our entire community in mind, not just the people who play Counter-Strike … For a long time we’ve looked for new ways to let mod authors make money … 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.” The choice of IGA Worldwide as a partner is notable since the two companies were at odds earlier in the year, after IGA added advertising to Counter-Strike without Valve’s permission. However, the issue ended in what was described as an “amicable resolution of differences”.