If you’re a Quake nerd, then there’s a good chance you’re smacking your lips in anticipation of August—the month when QuakeCon is held. For the uninitiated, QuakeCon is a bring-your-own-computer LAN party held in Dallas, Texas. It’s named after id Software’s Quake FPS.

So what’s going to happen this year?

QuakeCon 2008 will hold its first Enemy Territory: Quake Wars console tournament, and first Quake Live competition. The contests will be held at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas from July 31 to August 3. Event people expect over 6,000 gamers to attend the four-day event.

Aside from bragging rights, there’s big money involved in winning at QuakeCon—particularly from the new contests. The Quake Live championships will feature a $12,500 one-on-one tournament along with a $12,500 capture the flag team tournament.

As for the Quake Wars console tournament, it’s for the PC and Xbox only. On the Windows PC side, 16 teams will compete for $15,000 in prize money. In the Xbox 360 competition, eight teams will vie for $10,000 in prizes.

Whoever said gaming is all about spending? Then again, you only earn cash if you’re good enough.

Image for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is courtesy of Activision.

Post from: EveryJoe

QuakeCon lets FPS nerds earn cash

Neil Postlethwaite, managing director at Splash Damage, explained that the developers want to keep supporting ETQW and not just “walk away” after releasing the game. Postlethwaite thinks in-game advertising would help maintain the persistent stat servers and the community site, in addition to the updates and improvements that they planned.

It all sounds great, but where will the ads be placed?

According to the Splash Damage executive, the ads won’t be intrusive and you won’t have to interact with them. The ads are planned to be part of the normal environment, and might actually add to the game’s immersion. Container trucks, for example, would have ads on its sides. Postlethwaite assures us that if the ad isn’t appropriate or it’s distracting, it won’t go in. No personal data that can be used to identify you will be stored. They said you’ll be tracked on how long you look at the ads, nothing more.

The problem with this is that the developer decides which ad is distracting, not the community.

Splash Damage could handle this aspect well, or they could ignore distracting ads and argue that it’s not—all for the sake of revenue.

It’s odd though that Counter-Strike: Source, one of the most popular multiplayer games, doesn’t use in-game ads, and Valve (and Turtle Rock Studios) has continued to support the game for the longest time. So far, Splash Damage has also been mum on the effect of in-game ads on the game’s retail price.

All these things considered, would you tolerate in-game advertising?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Quake Wars will have in-game advertising