Valve Angry Over Counter-Strike Subway Ads

Gamepocalypse writes "I noticed over on GamePro that Valve is considering legal action over the Subway ads that Engage In-Game Advertising was pumping into Counter-Strike matches. Valve's Doug Lombardi: 'Advertising or any other commercial use of our games requires our written permission.'" I'm unclear on this: Were the ads actually in the game already, or was the company just saying they were going to put the ads in? If the ads were displayed in-game, how was that done without Valve's knowledge? If the ads weren't in the game ... why would you make a public claim like this without clearing it with Valve first? Odd all around.

Comments

ridiculous

[abandonment]

This is ridiculous. There are hundreds of commercial server rental places that have in-game ads splattered all over CS servers and have for years.

Just because it's a non-CS commercial company that's doing this is irrelevant.

When we hosted CS servers a few years ago (pre 1.5 / steam), we were trying to figure out how to do the same thing. Considering how much money running game servers costs, bandwidth-wise, I don't see how Valve really has any say in the matter.

They should be happy to have server-operators willing to host their games, and if the gamers themselves don't care about the in-game ads to help buffer server costs, then so be it.

It's not like there isn't thousands of servers out there for CS anyways - if players don't like it, then market forces will react appropriately - ie players will go to a different server.

Re:ridiculous

[blanktek]

The article specifically states this is a legal matter. How the law handles proper use of copyrighted material is what is important, although it does seem unfair. Using the engine may have different arrangements. You did read your EULA, didn't you?

Re:ridiculous

[Jherico]

It's not like there isn't thousands of servers out there for CS anyways - if players don't like it, then market forces will react appropriately - ie players will go to a different server.

That's not the point from Valve's perspective. If I was providing downloads of a popular TV show and inserting my own commercials in it, the producer of that show would expect compensation. The point here is that someone is using Counter Strike as a vehicle for profit and the creators of the premium content, Counter Strike, are not being compensated. Whether players like it or not is irrelevant.

Re:ridiculous

[Guppy06]

"That's not the point from Valve's perspective. If I was providing downloads of a popular TV show and inserting my own commercials in it, the producer of that show would expect compensation."

No, the producer of the show would demand compensation regardless. Once an affiliate has bought and paid for the rights to distribute a show, it is out of the producer's hands whether or not there is any advertising included or how much of it there is.

The only way the producer could control the way the content was distributed would be through a clause in the license. And unless the game's license says "you can distribute the maps you make with this software freely, so long as you don't put any advertising into it," I don't see how Valve can have a leg to stand on.

Re:ridiculous

[valintin]

Also as the hammer maker your not entitled to a profit from the use to which the hammer is put. You don't get a percentage of every house built by your hammer. Car manufactures are not compensated for adds and they don't get a percentage of taxi cabs profits.

But, what about product placement in movies? Do you have to pay Ford to use their cars in movies? What about cars in comercials? Do movies use generic soda cans because they can't use Pepsi or do they use generic soda because it creates a market for Pepsi to buy placement.

Someone should complain, but not Valve.

[Dual_View]

Valve is not the one who has the right to complain in this matter; the authors of the modified maps are. (However, if the modified maps were originally made by employees of Valve, then it is most definitely their right to complain.) Most custom maps for virtually all moddable games these days ship with a readme, and this readme has a short legal disclaimer that outlines most or all of the following the following rights:

1. Others may not use the map as a base to build new maps. (But in practice, the author is commonly known to grant such permission if contacted directly.)

2. Commercial exploitation of the map and its supporting files by any method is strictly forbidden. (Such permission is almost never granted under any circumstances.)

3. Otherwise, anyone may freely distribute the map files as long as the readme is distributed along with it.

4. The license ends with a list of copyrights and trademarks that the map author used but that don't belong to him, such as the name of the game that the map was created for.

In general, such mini-licenses are just as binding as the GPL, and should be taken no less seriously. If I wrote a free game engine that people wanted to use for such a method, I would not object. However, I would require them to build their own maps; any maps I built for the engine would be off-limits for commercial purposes. On the other hand, any non-profit modifications they wanted to make to my maps would be perfectly fine, as long as the people playing those maps knew that my map was a base for someone else's work.

Meh

[Guppy06]

"Valve's Doug Lombardi: 'Advertising or any other commercial use of our games requires our written permission.'"

Translation: we want our cut!

I might feel sympathy if their stance was "There will be no advertising in our games," but as it stands now I couldn't care less. Let the lawyers deal with it.

Examples

[Chabo]

Here are some examples of advertising in-game. This is inside Valve-made maps, not custom maps.

Look at it this way...

[ReverendLoki]

Here's a similar issue - let's say you make a Half-Life mod, and distribute it for free on the Internet. Not only is this condoned, it makes Valve smile - this is what made HL the endlessly replayable hit it became, after all. Now, let's say that you start selling your mod, without permission from Valve. As a no-brainer, this is clearly verbotten.

Really, that's all that's going on here - Engage has made a mod that fills the game with advertising, and is being paid for it (though by advertisers as opposed to by gamers) without Valve's permission. Oddly enough, they could have filled CS with unpaid ads, and gotten away with it (though that would be a piss poor business model...)

I hate advertising. Period.

[MaWeiTao]

One of the fundamental reasons why I hate in-game advertising, beyond the fact that I already paid for the game, is that these ads are complete and utter garbage. First of all, no effort whatsoever is put into making them attractive or interesting, and secondly they just drop them in random places on the map.

It's pathetic.

It's like the crap that passes for advertising on the internet. At some point I had hoped that internet ad design would improve. It really hasn't, primarily because the barrier for entry into web design is so low. Any inept designer can slap together a web graphic and apparently thats sufficient for the web. These guys obviously don't put any effort at all. But I'm forced to stare at this garbage, advertising products I have no interest in whatsoever.

The best part is stalking around in a terrorist hideout and finding that the interior designer of the group decided to adorn the walls with soft drink and fast food ads.

Re:How do they do it?

[Premo_Maggot]

They are server side sprite files.

Eat Fresh?

[Rapter09]

Nothing like stalking through the ancient Aztec's holy temples and waterworks trying to headshot some n00bs to find out they loved to "Eat Fresh."

howto

[joe094287523459087]

in case anyone was wondering, i was one of the first people to figure out how to do it and i wrote up a detailed howto on how to add these to maps (as well as add spawn points, convert map types, and other things)...

here's the instructions
http://www.joe.to/cstrike/ents/