It seems like every other day that a new contender for the military FPS throne steps into the ring. Electronic Arts screamed loudly from the rooftops that they had a “CoD killer” on their hands with Battlefield 3. Sales figures didn’t exactly echo their opinion: according to EA, Battlefield 3 sold 5 million units worldwide in the first five days of its release. Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million in the first twenty-four hours… in the US and UK alone. Yeah, total “CoD killer”.

Anyway, with EA failing to kick the world’s most lucrative entertainment franchise in the nuts, Activision is left to rule the military FPS genre. But wait! What’s this? A new company stepping into the ring to take on the king of military FPS games? Is that? It can’t be; that’s Dusty Welch.

Dusty Welch is an ex-Activision bigwig and was also senior VP for the publisher. He was at the reins when Guitar Hero started. Oh yes, he also created the Call of Duty franchise.

Read more ...

Pretty damn well considering the initial launch was a little shaky. The demand for the COD multiplayer enhancing service was so overwhelming that the servers just couldn’t cope with the load. They’re still not exactly coping, but things are improving and Activision has given those who have signed up for a year an additional month of membership as compensation.

Call f Duty Elite is kind of like a COD multiplayer Facebook service – I guess that’s one way of looking at it. A bog-standard edition is free for all, but if you want all the service has to offer then you have to pay for a subscription. A year’s subscription costs $50, which is more or less what you pay for the game as well.

Despite the initial moaning and groaning about not wanting to pay for a COD multiplayer enhancer, more than one million people have paid for a year’s subscription since Modern Warfare 3 launched on 08 November. Obviously those players who ordinarily pick up all of the multiplayer DLC score, because all future DLC is included in that price. There are currently more than four million players registered for Elite. It’s also worth noting that it took Netflix more than a year to reach the same amount of people on Xbox Live. Just goes to show the power Activision has over the gaming market – let’s hope they don’t decide to expand the Elite service further by charging for actual multiplayer in the future.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

In the weeks leading up to Modern Warfare 3’s release, you didn’t have to look hard to find seeds of discontent amongst the interweb citizens. Opinionated gamers were moaning about how the franchise was getting milked to death, how there was no innovation, how they were totally going to boycott the game because Battlefield 3 was better. Blah blah oh hey, look: Modern Warfare 3 still sold a bajillion copies.

Publisher Activision has announced that the third instalment in the Modern Warfare franchise has grossed $775 million in the first five days of its release. That’s $125 million more than Black Ops managed in the same amount of time. This officially makes Call of Duty the first entertainment franchise in history to break sales records for three consecutive years. In total, the Call of Duty games have raked in more than $6 billion in lifetime sales.

Sticking with crazy numbers, Microsoft confirmed that 3.3 million people logged in to Xbox Live on the release date to hit up Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer. Within twenty four hours of the game being out, Microsoft says more than 7 million individual hours of online play was racked up.

Yeah, the Modern Warfare franchise is such a dead duck; no idea why Activision continues to churn out the games.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Did you know that Activision’s latest entry (number forty-seven, I think… I’ve lost count) into the Call of Duty franchise is right around the corner? It is, and you can tell that because their marketing department has dialled their media bombardment all the way up to Ludicrous Speed. I know, it’s crazy – the Activision marketing department has never gone that fast before and nobody knows whether their offices can take it. Are these Space Balls references doing anything for you?

Anyway, here’s a live action trailer that uses the same marketing tagline “There’s a soldier in all of us”. Last time we saw that quote was when, this time last year? Man, it seems like forever.

Give it a watch, it’s really funny, which is probably due to the fact that it has Jonah Hill as “the n00b” in it. Hill receives a schooling in all things combat related from Hollywood’s current soldier badass Sam Worthington (you might not recognise him without all his blue fur).

Stop! Before we begin, let’s point out the obvious here so there are no tears: the video clip below is a SPOILER FOR MODERN WARFARE 3. So for obvious reasons, unless you couldn’t care less about the game’s single-player campaign, do not watch the clip.

To be fair, it shows about a minute of the campaign and doesn’t reveal plot twists or anything, so it’s not that big of a deal if you watch it. Bottom line, however, is that people are beginning to point to this scene as Modern Warfare 3’s “No Russian” equivalent. The difference, however, is that it’s a cutscene and you’re merely watching it, not driving it.

In the “No Russian” level from Modern Warfare 2, you were given the option to partake in a massacre at an airport, where you and a group of armed men gunned down innocent civilians. Clearly including controversial elements in the Modern Warfare games is now a prerequisite for the developers. Is this controversial? Is this a (brewing) storm in a teacup? I guess we’ll find out once Fox News pipes up.

Call of Duty distributor Megarom Interactive has confirmed that the premium version of online service Call of Duty ELITE will not be available locally, at least for now.

“Many of you have had the opportunity to be part of the ELITE beta and are already aware of the innovative and free features that ELITE will offer to Call of Duty players,” said Devon Stanton, PR & promotions manager at Megarom. “It’s important to note that all elements of the free service will be available to players in South Africa at launch, representing an incredibly valuable experience for fans and reflecting Activision’s ongoing commitment to the Call of Duty community.”

Read more ...

In a little under a month, fans of the Call of Duty series will have another reason to squeal like a giddy school girl when Modern Warfare 3 launches. The game’s single-player story trailer is out and it’s loaded with everything you’d expect it to be. That being said is looks like it’s going to have some pretty damn awesome action sequences and set pieces. There’s even an Inception-like, zero gravity gun fight worked in there.

Is it just me or do the opening, distorted music chords sound a lot like those from Battlefield 3? Maybe this heated rivalry between the two brands has got me hearing things I’m not supposed to be hearing.

“Your Lawyer has successfully completed the quest ModernWarfare3.com Dispute and has earned a total of 360XP. Your Lawyer is now level 36! Spend XP points in the Character Stats screen.”

Remember two months ago when all online traffic heading towards ModernWarfare3.com was redirected to EA’s page for Battlefield 3 instead? It was a glorious example of chronic internet trolling and pretty much the only example that Tarryn needs to point at to justify her column from this week.

Activision’s ninja lawyers took the matter to The National Arbitration Forum where all three arbitrators unanimously agreed that the URL’s owner, Anthony Abraham, was in the wrong. As such, ownership of the ModernWarfare3.com URL has been handed over to Activision. There are three pieces of criteria that need to be covered when it comes to URL ownership disputes, and in Activision’s case they won in all three areas.

Read more ...

Here it is: your official Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer reveal trailer (not that Modern Warfare multiplayer needs much revealing). It’s got guns! Explosions! Pop-up mines! People getting turned into Swiss cheese! And for some reason a lot of glass windows being shattered.

If this doesn’t hype you up for more Modern Warfare multiplayer insanity, then I think it’s safe to assume that you’re all CODed out. Judging by the amount of “Likes” versus “Dislikes” on YouTube, you wouldn’t be the only one.

Check it out bellow and decide for yourself. Personally, I think it’s a pretty awesome trailer. It has the correct slow-mo to killshot ratio that is ever so important in clips like these – I think.