We had mods. They're a bit like skins and new content, only free and far more creative. They are what you call microtransactions today but you didn't have to sell your right arm to get them because anyone could make them.
CS 1.6 was peak gaming. There were servers with Warcraft 3 mod where you could pick your race and level up to receive additional modded abilities and items, and it would save your progress over months. Not to mention the map customizations.
Also, no paying for season passes or DLC, no paid skinpacks, no censorship or embedded ads or tracking. And custom porn sprays.
EDIT: there were definitely skins, they were just free downloads from modders. And they were client side so you could see them but other players would just have their own skin or default for the same item.
Trollbait, it has to be. "no brand tie ins" is genuinely hilarious to me. I'm picturing a videogame reviewer going like: "The game is an artistic and a technical milestone. The gameplay is also the smoothest we've seen so far. Unfortunately, the game does not feature a Ronald McDonald skin or even a Slurpee coupon, so we have to give it a 7/10".
God I miss those times, it was all about skills. Cheating was also also extremely rare in CS (according to my memories) during the earlier 2000s. Loved that game
I used to play LAN Quake at Uni before 3D graphics accelerating boards (and before that things like Pacman and Manic Miner on a ZX Spectrum and before that arcade games) and I ain't a boomer.
Boomer entertainment is more playing the original castle Wolfenstein while smoking meth and beating your meat to tucker Carlson telling you you're degenerate scum who's going to hell.
Istg zoomers will call anything older than them "boomer". I was born in 99' and I used to play the shit out of 1.6. Mainly because my pc couldn't handle source