Montreal transit upset subway station used in violent video game

There is a little thing called optics, and it is causing all sorts of headaches for a Montreal video game developer.

Diego Liatis ran into trouble with the city’s public transit agency, which threatened him with a $50,000 fine for designing a level for a first-person shooter game in the likeness of a Montreal subway station.

CBC News reports that the Société de transport de Montreal (STM) issued a cease and desist letter after Liatis approached them about building a replica of the Berri-UQÀM station for the video game.

Liatis created the map of the for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, an online combat game in which players join two teams — terrorists and counter-terrorists — and do battle in various locations.

The game allows users to create custom levels, which often results in the use of actual maps. As Popular Science points out, a map of a Budapest subway station already exists.

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Still, that has not eased the concerns of the STM, which has not commented other than to confirm they issued a legal notice about the use of “its brand without permission.”

Here is a preview of the level, posted online:

Of course, anyone who believes STM’s concern is copyright infringement is being intentionally obtuse. More obviously, it is concerned about how it will appear to have swarms of gun-toting terrorists shooting holes in the city’s distinctive blue subway cars.

Montreal is likely more sensitive to this than most places in Canada. Just last year, remember, four people were arrested in connection to a series of smoke bomb attacks on the, you guessed it, Montreal subway system.

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The attack crippled the city’s transit system for an entire day and led many to fear they had been targeted by terrorists.

The city has also recently been at the centre of the province’s massive student riots, in which protesters and security personnel clashed in several instances.

So, does this video game hit a little too close to home? For STM, clearly the answer is yes.

Plus, when you are one of the coolest subway systems in the world, you’ve got to protect your reputation.