The folks over at Ars Technica have a nice
break down of how those Subway ads got into Counterstrike a few weeks ago. The interesting part for me was how they actually did it. Basically the marketing team got several server owners in a few areas to run a specialized mod which placed the ads in the games. The server owners were compensated for this although the amount is not disclosed in the article. It seems like kind of a shotgun approach (wide dispersal, low accuracy) given that you really can't track who is going to see the ads (they were targeting people in the California area). Valve is currently pursuing legal action against Engage (the people who came up with the ads) since they did not seek their permission to do this and commercial use of Counterstrike is against the terms of the EULA.
