Google Street View Shooting Game Takes a Bullet

While it might have been a clever use of Google's Street View (part of Google maps), Google isn't patting the developer of a first-person shooter game that used the 3D panoramic imagery from the service captured by Google. Instead they have put a bullet right between the eyes of "Google Shoot View." The game was created by Dutch digital ad agency Pool Worldwide said that it created the game to promote its unique marketing services. While it did allow you to explore neighborhoods, and fire an assault rifle superimposed over the Street View's 3D imagery, the game did little else.

Pool Worldwide Creative director Erwin Kleinjan told Business Insider that Google took away their rights to use the Street View application protocol interface. Google gives permission to third parties to incorporate Street View into their own products. Google told the firm that they had violated of the terms of service.

"We received an email that apparently it was infringing on their terms of use, so we put the rest of the site down," he said.

The game lived a short life from Friday through late Monday evening.

"At peak moments there were like 3,000 visitors per minute. It also crashed our web server," claimed Kleinjan.

Whatever your opinion, it's hard to deny the Dutch ad agency has gotten some publicity from its game - the question is was it the kind of publicity they wanted?

Business Insider