Valve Angry Over Counter-Strike Subway Ads 58
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.
Re:ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone should complain, but not Valve. (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
I hate advertising. Period. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
howto (Score:5, Interesting)
here's the instructions
http://www.joe.to/cstrike/ents/ [www.joe.to]