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Valve Angry Over Counter-Strike Subway Ads

Posted by Zonk on from the eat-fresh-lead dept.

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.

6 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. ridiculous by abandonment · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Gekido's Lair
    1. Re:ridiculous by Jherico · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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.
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      Jherico

      What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"

    2. Re:ridiculous by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "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.

  2. Examples by Chabo · · Score: 5, Informative

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

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  3. Eat Fresh? by Rapter09 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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."

  4. howto by joe094287523459087 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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/