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Just wanted to comment on this one point for now.
Additionally, VALVe's ability to get an advertising campaign going is solely reliant upon this community of independent server ops, and there would be no revenue base without these server ops paying to host VALVe's game. It is perhaps excusable for VALVe to not pay these admins if VALVe is not directly earning a returning revenue stream from their actions, but now that they are, the situation has changed.
You can make the "it's client-side" argument, but the client side does nothing at all without the server-side being provided. CZ effectively proved that the community that wants to play CS by themselves against bots is very small indeed. Willingly or not, the server ops are providing the advertising delivery by facilitating clients to play in the first place, thus the client-side/server-side debate is really just a creative way of VALVe trying to shirk their financial responsibility to server ops.
Of course, I say "financial responsibility" in an ethics sense, not in a legal sense, and we know which route VALVe takes with such things.
The question also came up that asks why server ops shouldn't deserve a cut. Beyond the reason that Mr. Newell provided, I'd just like to point out that if you have a dedicated server, the ads don't affect anything. All ads are done client side and have no impact on the server.If the ads don't affect anything, then how come I never play on my old CS1.6 favorite servers anymore? A number of servers out there that provide a good, quality experience and solid community have options available to help with their server costs via paypal, in exchange for limited admin or reserved slots or whatever. Am I going to pay for a reserved slot in a server where I no longer wish to play due to the game experience being raped by in-your-face advertising?
Additionally, VALVe's ability to get an advertising campaign going is solely reliant upon this community of independent server ops, and there would be no revenue base without these server ops paying to host VALVe's game. It is perhaps excusable for VALVe to not pay these admins if VALVe is not directly earning a returning revenue stream from their actions, but now that they are, the situation has changed.
You can make the "it's client-side" argument, but the client side does nothing at all without the server-side being provided. CZ effectively proved that the community that wants to play CS by themselves against bots is very small indeed. Willingly or not, the server ops are providing the advertising delivery by facilitating clients to play in the first place, thus the client-side/server-side debate is really just a creative way of VALVe trying to shirk their financial responsibility to server ops.
Of course, I say "financial responsibility" in an ethics sense, not in a legal sense, and we know which route VALVe takes with such things.
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