Valve angry at Engage's in-game advertising
by Ross Miller 
{ Jan 13th 2006 at 5:30PM }
There goes Engage's brilliant plan. The
company had recently gloated
over their success, an ad campaign which involved plastering Subway paraphernalia on over 31,000
Counter-Strike servers. This caused some furor from our readers, and also from the bigwigs at Valve.GamePro has learned from Valve's Doug Lombardi that "at no time did Valve grant permission nor discuss this advertisement with Engage. As such, this is now a legal matter." Watch out, Engage - Valve has a really good team of lawyers at their disposal.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Neil @ Jan 13th 2006 5:50PM
Umm... if Valve didn't know about it or authorise it then how the hell did the ads get there?
ko[gfo @ Jan 13th 2006 5:54PM
is the "sub gun" a joke by j-stiq, or really in the game? I want one! Bam! Bam!
PayTheMan @ Jan 13th 2006 5:57PM
I would also like to know how the ads got there but I'm happy about this. I hate advertising in games, I play them to get away from the world not get bombarded with more ads. Go Valve!
Lindsay @ Jan 13th 2006 6:04PM
I think it is a really smart idea on Engage's part, but so not legal, and very wrong. People have to pay to advertise, that's the name of the game. Everybody knows that. I agree with Valve that they should take legal action in this matter. I'm sure no one who plays Counter-Strike cares, but it is Valve who is gettin screwed on this!
MosquitoControl @ Jan 13th 2006 6:21PM
Got there, most likely, by 3rd party servers installing a mod, how many have things like gambling or multikills.
gamer1 @ Jan 13th 2006 6:23PM
Thats ridiculous. Id be mad if someone butchered my game like that too! Not to mention the fact that Engage is making all the money from Subways advertising and that Valve does not get any of it. What is that all about? If Valve wanted advertising from Subway, they would have asked them for it and made all the money off of it. Engage wouldnt have made a cent from the advertising. But Valve doesnt do that because they want to preserve the image of their game. The fact that Engage even thought of doing this is just wrong!
AoE @ Jan 13th 2006 6:28PM
Awesome! Hopefully Valve will sue Engage into non-existance :)
Jago @ Jan 13th 2006 6:34PM
Engage is not the only one organizing in-game advertising but the way they did it was just horrible and pretty stupid too.
In-game advertising is coming whether you guys like it or not BUT there are some games where it won't work...and an FPS like CS is not the right area.
In-game advertising is more fit for sports games b/c instead of all the banners saying "EA" they would be dynamic banners that would change for relavent companies who really sponsor that particular sport or age group.
KingBigos @ Jan 13th 2006 7:36PM
Engage is bout' to get raped. :D
octinovious @ Jan 13th 2006 7:44PM
i love valve so much..
James @ Jan 13th 2006 7:58PM
I HONESTLY hope that Valve are going 'legal' on principle and not just because they want a slice of the action. :(
Neil @ Jan 13th 2006 8:51PM
I guess this is like Microsoft suing Joystiq because Joystiq displays ads in a web browser...
It's the server admin's choice if they want to install the mod - Valve shouldn't have any say. That's the nature of open modding.
lagsalot @ Jan 13th 2006 9:07PM
"Go Valve!" Ummm.. No.. #12 is correct, it should be up to the admins of the servers. The only, and I mean ONLY reason Valve is hacked off is because they are not getting any money sent their way...
Not Impressed (Dmitri) @ Jan 13th 2006 9:30PM
*Sigh* I am so0o0o0o0o suprised and worried that no one else came up with this idea.
What if the people at Engage just came into servers and started spray-painting Subway logo's everywhere?
Justin Nolan @ Jan 13th 2006 9:43PM
I don't see how Engage can be held accountable for this at all. The ads were likely ran on private servers. Whether or not this is against the TOS for the CS server software is a different story, and is more of a dispute between the server operators and Valve. Overall I don't see how this is different from any other server-side CS mod which are abundant.
Lastly, I Valve is just being greedy. It seems like a win win situations. No one is forcing you to play on a certain private server that runs ads. Afterall, the owner of that server has to pay to run the server, and what better way that some innocent ads? If you dont like it, don't use the server. Personally I wouldn't mind ads if the server was good enough to make it worthwhile.
Franklin @ Jan 13th 2006 9:50PM
I doubt Valve is thinking of suing on a matter of principle. They probably want to sue for not getting a piece of the advertising revenue. Color me cynical, but I don't think Valve is looking out for gamers -- they are looking out for themselves and don't want to be cut from a potentially lucrative revenue stream.
soniCron @ Jan 13th 2006 10:44PM
I'm not sure I understand how Valve could have any say in this.
Last I checked, the producers of Star Trek: TNG don't have any say what commercials are played during breaks. 'Cuz they don't. And when was it that TiVo was sued for displaying their own commercials when commercial-skipping? 'Cuz they haven't. And I rue the day that Microsoft decides that anything created with a Windows PC is their (MS) property. Because, you know, they have a say in it...right?
Wrong.
Until the day Valve "owns" your chat conversations (because, of course, it went through *their* software), I think we can all rest assured the judges will laugh this away.
Nevertheless, Valve is certainly not doing this for the good of the people, I can tell you that.
Jeff @ Jan 14th 2006 12:03AM
"Until the day Valve "owns" your chat conversations (because, of course, it went through *their* software), I think we can all rest assured the judges will laugh this away."
Wow, some of you guys are just absolutely clueless about copyright, aren't you?
Valve OWNS this game. They OWN it. It's THEIRS. The fact that they allow you, via their EULA, to do various things to it doesn't change that. If they decide to rescind or change the terms of the EULA, that's up to them. If they decide the game can no longer be played anywhere around the world, that's up to them. If they decide to enforce terms already in the EULA, also up to them.
I have no idea which is the case here (I would guess option three), but the fact is THEY OWN THE GAME. You don't. The modders don't. Engage doesn't. Valve does. Get that through your head. If I lend you my car, that doesn't mean you own it and it doesn't give you the right to stick a bunch of Subway bumper stickers all over it. You can tell me I lent it to you, you can tell me the stickers are only on the outside of the car technically on top of the car and only exposed to public air, but it's still MY CAR. I have the right to remove those stickers and I have the right to sue you for defacement.
This is the way copyright works. You don't have the right to deface someone else's copyrighted work for commercial gain. End of story.
Joey Geraci @ Jan 14th 2006 12:25AM
Wow, this thread started out with a refreshing amount of sanity, but all common sense has apparently left the room. Comparing the commercial breaks in TV shows to this? The right comparison would be if a local affiliate decided to alter the original recording and superimpose an image of Subway on the side of the Enterprise as it goes whizzing across the screen. After all, it is their own private tv station that is displaying the broadcast isn't it? Nothing wrong at all.
soniCron @ Jan 14th 2006 1:53AM
"If they decide the game can no longer be played anywhere around the world, that's up to them."
Wow. I hope you're not a lawyer. You may be aware of this fantastic thing that the makes the free world so..."free": Rights. In fact -- at least in the U.S. -- what you stipulated would become the laughing stock of the legal system. Just as they can't tell you that you must kill your mother in order to install the game, nor can they just decree that you're no longer allowed to play it.
It may be their property, but you licensed it, and you have some protected rights as a licensee.
"The right comparison would be if a local affiliate decided to alter the original recording and superimpose an image of Subway on the side of the Enterprise as it goes whizzing across the screen. After all, it is their own private tv station that is displaying the broadcast isn't it? Nothing wrong at all."
Not unlike my TiVo example, above.
MosquitoControl @ Jan 14th 2006 1:59AM
#19 is dead right. Valve allows ads in the MOTS. Valve does not allow ads in the content.
What this essentially has become is a company, Engage, making money off Valve's hard work. They're a parasite, nothing more. They've contributed nothing but are trying to profit. Valve's EULA will prevent this and shut them down.
Why? Because some people will be going into servers with it and thinking it's part of Valve. It will cheapen the product and the company. Valve would be damaged if they stood by. Not to mention it would take marketing partially out of their hands, and while I hope Valve never stoops that low, if I'm going to be forced to see ads in games I want the right people getting paid.
Although, truthfully, a nice entry in my host file will end any streaming ads before they ever start.
MosquitoControl @ Jan 14th 2006 2:02AM
"It may be their property, but you licensed it, and you have some protected rights as a licensee."
Not many. Courts have said, so long as it's reasonable and conscionable companies get away with it. So they cannot demand a pound of flesh, but they can really limit how you use a product.
No, I'm not a lawyer. I'm still a three semesters and one large exam away from that title.
charlie @ Jan 14th 2006 10:46AM
Valve is being retarded. The whole reason that half-life was a success was because it was open: they allowed and even encrouaged people to modify it and make their own games. And now we have Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress. Valve should be happy that some entrepreneurs found a way to put advertising in game as it can only HELP THEM: In game advertising will encourage more people to run faster game servers- gamers, knowing that half-life has an overabundence of extremely fast, high quality servers, will buy more copies of half-life. This can't in any way be hurting valve or leading to a decrease in revenue. On the contrary, only good things can happen from allowing thousands of new servers to serve their clients.
pfriedel @ Jan 14th 2006 11:04AM
#23: Y'know, you're absolutely right. I mean, I hate going to the CS:S server list and only seeing 3 or 4 servers. Valve needs help getting more servers running.
kurdt @ Jan 14th 2006 9:50PM
Oh yeah, in-game ads - great idea. It's not b/c it totally alters the gaming experience. Maybe not in a racing game, or if there were billboards in an urban area. It can be done tastefully, subtly. But come on! That subway business was just horrible! For you guys who think it's a good idea, or that it was implemented well in this particular case, just imagine playing mgs with a solid snake wearing a big pizza hut backpack, or master chief wearing a footlocker smock. Ads don't belong in-game. IMO. Just b/c companies can do something, doesn't mean they should. This is really about margins, not profitability. Greed, essentially.
TaiZ @ Jan 14th 2006 11:10PM
The day someone can tell me how to get around the stupid brightness lock in HL2 and the other Source games, is the day I start to support Valve. Otherwise they get no support from me, since their support told me to just "Buy a new monitor".
Brett @ Jan 15th 2006 1:43PM
#26 TaiZ
Try using the program called "Adobe gamma". Im not sure what program installed it because I have the whole adobe suite, but it was probably photoshop. It's in the control panel once it's installed and can drastically brighten up your monitor. I haven't used it in years but it used to always make games brighter on my dying monitor.
jp @ Jan 16th 2006 8:47AM
Whether Valve is right or wrong to sue for this, the BEST thing that could happen is if everybody playing on the servers with the subway adds quit playing immediately and started playing on servers without the subway adds. That would be even more effective than a lawsuit, especially when the lawsuit is only aimed at taking a piece of the pie... not stopping it based on principle. Show the game companies you won't tolerate that and DO NOT PLAY ON AD-DEFACED SERVERS.