Call of Duty 2012: And all who sail in her!

[Badnik Mechanic]

About a week ago, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick more or less confirmed that there would be a new call of duty for 2012.

Which you can read about here.

Also Activision has been busy lately trademarking a lot of Call of Duty: Black Op titles going all the way upto 8. Now... earlier this week a listing appeared on Amazon advertising Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

Amazon listings like this are not too uncommon, sometimes they'll list games which don't come out or don't come out for years to come, call it guess work if you like in a bid to lock in some pre-orders.

Normally if this happens the listing comes and goes, nobody actually involved with a potential game gets involved and any money put down gets refunded.

Which is what happened here, Amazon put up the listing... amazon takes down the listing.

But... this is where this story gets interesting,

A number of various websites started reporting that Amazon had Black Ops 2 up for sale, Activision however decided 'hmmm no we're not having that' so they sent out letters to various French news outlets and phone calls to companies including Jeuxvideo.com JVN.com & Gameblog.fr

The letter according to gameblog basically said "Remove this now" to which most places agreed... except for Gameblog.fr who declined to take down their story "as required by our ethics and respect for our readers" they kept it up.

Following this decision to keep their news article up. Activison contacted Gameblog.fr again and this time more or less effectively cut all ties with them.

This included, but was not limited too...

* Ban and exclusion from the Transformers: The fall of Cybertron, event that they were previously invited to which is due to be held next week.

* Exclusion from reciving any news from any current or future Activision games.

* All advertising support from Activsion was immediately pulled from Gameblog.fr and all future advertising campaigns which would have been run on gameblog.fr has also been cancelled by Activision.

Activision has basically sent a message out to the videogame media by doing this... that message is basically

"Unless you do as we say, you don't get news tips, you don't get our advertising money, you don't get invites to events, you don't get anything... do as we say... take down that news article... take down that story about us, we don't like it, take it down or else, you don't decide what you put on your website, we do!"

Gameblog.fr's article.

Joystiqs article on the subject... a very tentative one.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Hogfather

[Nintendoga]

Can't blame them, I'd be pissed too if a game I was making was pre-announced and the promoter wouldn't take it down. They sound like assholes in the message, but I guess they are doing the right thing.

Also, that pretty much confirms Call of Duty 9 as Black Ops 2.

People will bitch, people will whine, game gets released, reviewers love it, Fans will love it, Others will hate it, sells over 10 million, and becomes popular until next year when COD 10 is announced. Rinse, Cycle, and Repeat.

We need a Call of Duty cycle pic.

[Velotix von Skruviktorrius]

The point here is that Activision have directly put their cards on the table and their true colours.

Regardless of the reasons why, they have directly told a third-party independent journalism site what they can and cannot report.

It sets a bad precedent if they just sit there and take it.

[Detective Shadzter]

I'm glad to hear it's a sequel to Black Ops and I'm looking forward to seeing it in action, but I don't approve of Activision blacklisting GameBlog for simply reporting about a retailer listing that possibly leaked the title of this year's Call of Duty game.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I'm glad to hear it's a sequel to Black Ops and look forward to seeing it in action, but I don't approve of Activision blacklisting GameBlog for simply reporting about a retailer listing that possibly leaked the title of this year's Call of Duty game.

The thing is, it's not that uncommon a few developers have done it to several news outlets, I know Bioware has done it to a number of websites, one of them was for a negative review of Sonic Chronicles of all things! I can't remember which site it was but Bioware refused to send them press kits in the future for 'not playing ball.'

[Voyant]

If they are really making a a COD 9...they have some serious work to do. Modern Warfare 3 is the Sonic 4 of the COD series. In not just the gamers, but even a large portion of casual disliked it...it might have sold well but people were pissed at what they got.

And with Battlefield 3 in play now with excellent service and constant content updates...they got A LOT of retooling to do..

Edited February 17, 2012 by Voy-Boy

[Detective Shadzter]

I could understand if the Amazon listing contained leaked assets, like images, but the title? I don't see anything wrong with a website reporting about a retailer listing that featured a title. Retailer listings for unannounced games have appeared many times before and half of the time they're incorrect and the games don't exist. Anyone remember the new Sonic Spinball game for Wii that was listed on a retailer website?

[Ekaje]

Do you have a link to a story about that, because I find it hilarious that Bioware did that over a game they obviously didn't care about.

On the main topic, this is a really terrible practice, but I'm not that surprised that it happens.

[Sami]

The optimal thing would be for every news site to protest by doing the same thing and effectively kill Activision's advertising.

What's going to happen is nothing.

Fuck.

[Nix]

The thing is, it's not that uncommon a few developers have done it to several news outlets, I know Bioware has done it to a number of websites, one of them was for a negative review of Sonic Chronicles of all things! I can't remember which site it was but Bioware refused to send them press kits in the future for 'not playing ball.'

I thought that was over Jade Empire, and the reviewer mentioned what happened in his Sonic Chronicles review.

Edited February 18, 2012 by Pinkie Pie

[Johnny Boy]

Hmm, well I did like the first black ops. I'm just gonna have to wait and see how things will play out with the sequel.

[Yong]

Wait, you mean to tell me that Activision is making a new Call of Duty this year!? *shock* Well I can't blame them for wanting to keep it a surprise. Activision must really love us gamers.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I thought that was over Jade Empire, and the reviewer mentioned what happened in his Sonic Chronicles review.

I can't honestly remember, it was months if not years ago.

[SuperStingray]

Whatever happened to that "Future Warfare" idea they were playing with?

[Autosaver]

Whatever happened to that "Future Warfare" idea they were playing with?

Silly you, that one comes AFTER Black Ops 2.

[Legendary Emerald]

Tried to Modern Warfare 3 free weekend. It's pretty fun. So I bought Modern Warfare 2 on Amazon for 5 bucks and activated it on Steam.

Not going to give any more money to these guys than they deserve for DLC.

[The future]

They are even worse than EA nowadays.

[SuperStingray]

Not going to give any more money to these guys than they deserve for DLC.

They deserve negative money for how they handled the DLC. I'm being serious; a multiplayer game's appeal comes largely from its community and by charging even a cent for a map, you're effectively splitting it. I'm not trying to be entitled here- frankly, I'm satisfied with the maps that come in the box. But microtransactions that conflict with the design of the game destroy the value of the concept altogether.

I haven't played MW3, so I don't know how CoD Elite affects all this, but I sincerely doubt it's much of an improvement.

[Legendary Emerald]

They deserve negative money for how they handled the DLC. I'm being serious; a multiplayer game's appeal comes largely from its community and by charging even a cent for a map, you're effectively splitting it. I'm not trying to be entitled here- frankly, I'm satisfied with the maps that come in the box. But microtransactions that conflict with the design of the game destroy the value of the concept altogether.

I haven't played MW3, so I don't know how CoD Elite affects all this, but I sincerely doubt it's much of an improvement.

Actually, what I was trying to say was that every CoD game since Modern Warfare has just been extremely expensive DLC.

[SuperStingray]

Actually, what I was trying to say was that every CoD game since Modern Warfare has just been extremely expensive DLC.

That certainly doesn't help.

[Tailer]

I just look forward the day when all the rotten publisher(or people as whole) dies or the formula, the way of thinking dies... Really tired that everything is centered on money and status.

[SuperStingray]

You can call Activision evil all you want, but so long as Call of Duty continues to fly off the shelves, they're not going to change one iota. Their whole idea is that they can usurp and exploit a property until it's not longer marketable. Just look at Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It's neither ethical nor elegant, but it works, and really well at that, and to Activision, that's really all that matters.

Edited February 18, 2012 by SuperStingray

[Badnik Mechanic]

You can call Activision evil all you want, but so long as Call of Duty continues to fly off the shelves,[...] that's really all that matters.

Just bully and threaten various websites to do as it says otherwise it won't get news tips or advertising revenue eh?

The issue here isn't so much 'is Call of Duty shit/past it's sell by date' as it's 'is Activison behaving in a manner that could be described as unethical?'

Companies will sometimes ask a website to take down a story or if it's leaked out ask for who the source was as it can cause the company in question problems when it comes to profit protection. But... if the news site refuses usually the next step is a cease and desist order if theres some potential damage/profit loss to the company. This is sorta similar to what Sega did when Sonic unleashed got leaked out, they had a deal with... what was it, Nintendo Power?

But to cut all ties sends a message not only to the site in question, but to every other outlet, that being 'don't mess with us if you want nice things' however it's also sending out a message of 'you don't decide what you report on, we do.' Thats the problem here,

Amazon put up the listing, and Activision wanted ALL TRACE of the reporting removed, not just screenshots of the image, they didn't want anyone talking about it. I don't know any videogame company who has outrightly tried to ban all reporting of a story.

[Yong]

Amazon put up the listing, and Activision wanted ALL TRACE of the reporting removed, not just screenshots of the image, they didn't want anyone talking about it. I don't know any videogame company who has outrightly tried to ban all reporting of a story.

To be fair though, game companies have set embargos on when the press can release new info on upcoming games many times before, especially if they invite the press to an event. Of course this comes with the beforehand "agreement" that the press agrees to follow the rules if they want said invite. The French site however was under no such agreement or contract as far as we know, and had full freedom to report on the supposed leak. So I agree, Activision just has to deal with it and move on.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Yong

[Badnik Mechanic]

Activision: We don't blacklist journalists.

Everyone else: But you just did!

Activision: OH SHIT! Urm... you mean... you all noticed that!? Urm... Oh! Lolz, it was all a misunderstanding...

Activison now claiming they don't blacklist jornalists and are working to 'resolve' the situation. So there we have it, Activison are resolving a situation... that they claim doesn't exist becuase they don't blacklist people even though they've admitted they had... well thats certainly cleared things up.