Personally though, I question the "olde worde gothica of the American South" considering Matt is from Germany :-)

Thanks a lot for the scan and upload!! :) The article is much cooler than I expected! American South ... ?? MIGHT be :) COULD be But that's the good thing about not saying where it is - everyone will choose an area that he / she thinks might fit. I'm just wondering why they didn't ask if they can put it on the CD ... well, it'll help the LASSIE community.

Well its freeware so I guess they figured they'd be giving you free promotion... would've been polite to ask you but they're meeting deadlines! :D

Good grief!!! That's amazing! I went into the book store last night to check out PC gamer and was abysmally disappointed to see that magazines are NOT actually like car models, like Wes said. Where a car model comes out one year before it's date, it seems that PC Gamer magazines come out TWO months before theirs. It was very frustrating trying to find the November issue in October and not be able to find anything but the December publication! Anyway, even if I had found it, I wasn't expecting much. I was hoping to see a screen shot, but wasn't going to be surprised if it was just a brief mention of text. To see the layout fully realized with character cutouts and everything... WOW. Awesome, Matt! Cheers to you on this new great success!

The game may be freeware, but them putting it on a disc and distributing it is copyright violation. Add to that the fact that they're putting it on a disc that is sold with a magazine means they're using your game to generate profit (even if it's in a small way.)

That is a very good point.... While Matt is in Germany, and I'm not sure how it works there... There's still the fact that Lassie was used, which was made in the US and is subject to copy write laws.... of course not that it's even worth the lawer fees

Hey, it hasn't cost Matt anything, and has benefited him and Lassie with free advertising, which can only be a good thing... so whats the problem?

I'm not saying he needs to pursue the matter, but whether or not an illegal act benefits you does not make it justified. Matt isn't losing sales because his product is free. But the magazine gains sales because many people buy it for all the stuff that's on the disc. If Matt's product (and technically, Greg's as well) is being used to generate profit for another company, doesn't he deserve a share of said profit? It's a violation of copyright for them to make copies of it and distribute it, plain and simple. Matt will hopefully benefit from being on the disc, but he had no say in the matter on being included. They did it without asking. It may not have cost Matt anything, but imagine this scenario: say someone releases a game for free. The game is free, but you can only play or download it from a specific site. That site generates revenue from ads. If a magazine decides "hey, here's some freeware, lets' put it on our disc" then all those readers will have no reason to play the game at the original site. Yeah, the magazine created awareness and interest in the game, but if they had run an article about the game then it still would have created ineterest and would still require people go to the site. Including the free game on the disc costs potential revenue. We know this isn't how Matt released the game, but it's still HIS CHOICE whether or not someone else can publish it on a disc that is sold in stores and at magazine stands. Another example: There are a lot of webcomics that you can read online for free. Penny Arcade, just about any comic that appears in a newspaper, and so on. Just because anyone can view these for free does not mean that someone else can reprint them in a magazine or book or other compilation and hide behind a "but the creators released the material for free" excuse.

Fair enough I guess. The magazine's job was to review games, and its commendable that it reviews more obscure, amateur (but good quality) games such as this. Technically, you are just right, it could have done just as good a job without putting it on the disc (it gave a url), and should have asked Matt. And Matt is probably within his rights to complain to them... BUT, personally I don't know if I'd mind. The nice thing about freeware is because money isn't an issue then you don't get complications like this. Yes the magazine made a mistake in not contacting Matt, but I personally wouldnt want to make an issue of it for fear of discouraging them from publicising amateur games like this. If, in any way, Matt has lost out in this, then yes he should email them saying he would have appreciated a heads-up... but all in all I think the magazine did more good than it did bad. I'm guessing this is an issue to you John because you don't want the same to happen with Nearly Departed? Maybe there should be a note on the game site telling professional reviewers how you want your game to be handled? Personally, when I get round to making mine, and if its good enough to be reviewed by a magazine, then I think i'd be happy with just a heads-up. But its up to the creator I guess.

Very true.... it's just the point. If they were reviewing a commercial game, they would check with the developer before putting the demo on the disk. So the same should go for an independent/free game. If I were Matt I wouldn't bother complaining, it's just the fact that he could if he wanted to, just out of principle.

Another scenario of consequence, if the magazine were to make their own game, which came on the CD, using Lassie. That would violate Greg's "open source" (for lack of better term) of Lassie. This is almost the same idea, except they didn't make the game themselves.

Yes but which is worth more to Matt/Greg? The (probably neglible) royalties they are arguably due... or the recognition and publicity their names are getting, and the satisfaction of more people enjoying their work?

It already did happen to the Nearly Departed demo.

The second, which is why I said it isn't worth arguing.... just the point of such. Nearly Departed had the same thing happen to it?