call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2 posts

As expected, the countdown clock on the Findmakarov.com web site was for a project that was Call of Duty related. However it wasn't an official Activision marketing effort but a fan made live action short film that's based on the Modern Warfare off-shoot of the first person shooter franchise.

The footage is pretty remarkable, as it replicates scenes and characters from the Infinity Ward-developed games. However it's still not clear what the short is supposed to be for. Is it just a stand alone video or a trailer for something more? Hopefully we will learn more about this impressive effort soon.

While Valve has never revealed specific revenue and sales numbers for its Steam PC/Mac download service, a organization called Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment (FADE) claims in a press release today that the Steam service generated $970 million in revenue in 2010. The month of December 2010 alone saw $213 million in revenues for Steam, according to FADE's numbers.

While the press release didn't give specific sale unit number, it did say that Call of Duty: Black Ops was the number one best selling game on Steam in 2010 with $98.2 million in revenue. Assuming that number is accurate, that means the game sold about 1.6 million copies on Steam (at $59.99 a copy) in less than two months. The 2009 released shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came in second in revenue in 2010 with $39.4 million and Valve's own game Left 4 Dead 2 was third with $36 million. According to FADE's study, over 180 games on Steam had sales of at least $1 million in 2010.

Big Download contacted FADE to find out more about how it came up with its Steam revenue numbers. It's Director of Research & Analysis Benjamin Schlichter told us, "Our sales figures for Steam are estimated by incorporating a passive user survey of approximately 8 million registered Steam users. This allows us to track actual sales conversions by users, so we can offer insights into the Steam market." He declined to give more info about FADE's methodology, stating, "Our system is proprietary, which allows us to ensure our competitors can't offer the same volumes of information." We have emailed Valve to see if it wishes to comment on FADE's estimated revenue numbers on Steam. You can check out FADE's estimates of the top 10 best selling games on Steam in 2010 after the jump

Update: We have gotten a statement from Valve's Marketing Director Doug Lombardi who told us simply, "We do not release our detailed sales. We have never met with FADE."

Activision's biggest game franchise by far is the Call of Duty franchise and everyone expects a new game in the series to be released by November of 2011. Now a report from the Los Angeles Times claims that the next game in the shooter series will indeed be Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and that three development teams are working on it.

According to the report, which does not name its sources, the game's main developer Infinity Ward is getting help on the single player campaign from another in-house developer Sledgehammer Games. Infinity Ward apparently needed the help since much of the team left the studio in 2010 following the firing of the studio's founders by Activision. In addition, the article claims that another developer, Raven Software, is handling the multiplayer portions of Modern Warfare 3. The downside? A Call of Duty spin-off game from Sledgehammer Games is now on hold while the team helps Infinity Ward.

In related news, our sister site Joystiq has all of the new and gory details of the current legal battle between Activision and Infinity Ward's former heads Vince Zampella and Jason West. In short, the court has now officially added Electronic Arts as a defendant in Activision's lawsuit against the duo.

Owners of gaming PCs with Nvidia GeForce-based graphics cards can now grab the first beta graphics drivers of 2011. The GeForce.com web site now has the downloads to the new 266.35 beta drivers for the GeForce family of graphics chips. The beta drivers support the newly launched GeForce GTX 580 and GeForce GTX 570 graphics chips.

The new drivers boost performance for the 400 and 500 family of GeForce-based cards in a number of PC games including Battlefield Bad Company 2, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and many others. In addition the new drivers add ambient occlusion support for StarCraft 2, allowing for more realistic lighting and shadows in the Blizzard RTS game. You can check out examples of how ambient occlusion looks in the game at the GeForce.com web site.

Finally the new drivers have some changes and additions for Nvidia's 3D Vision feature. The drivers now support seeing some PC games in 3D in a game window as opposed to just full screen support. More 3D Vision-supported games have been added including Medal of Honor, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit and DC Universe Online.

[Via Blue's News]

It's "lawsuit day" today in gaming news as word has gotten out on a new lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard and the social networking game publisher Zynga. TechCrunch reports that the lawsuit was filed by Walker Digital, a so-called "invention company." In its lawsuit Walker Digital claims both publisher have infringed on one of Walker Digital's US patents, 6,425,828, that was first filed in 2002.

Walker Digital claims that Activision Blizzard and Zynga are infringing on the patent which is for "a method and a system for a distributed electronic tournament system ..." Walker Digital says that a number of games released by both publishers, including Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1 and 2, World of Warcraft and others infringe on its patent. The company is seeking an unspecified amount for compensation and damages. So far Activision Blizzard and Zynga have yet to respond to the lawsuit.

Some countries call December 26 Boxing Day; others simply call it, "A day to rest up after eating all that Christmas dinner." Whatever you call it the Steam PC game download site has a new batch of price cuts that will last until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday. Today's deals are all repeats of one day price cuts from Steam in the past week.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - $5.10
Wings of Prey - $5.99
Dead Rising 2 - $19.99
F.E.A.R. 1/2 - $9.99
Super Meat Boy - $3.75
Borderlands - Save 50 percent off original game and DLC
Assassin's Creed II - $14.99
The Witcher - $4.99
Mass Effect 1/2 - Save 50 percent off both games
Darksiders - $9.99
Battlefield Bad Company 2 - $6.80
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - $29.99

Steam's big holiday sale continues today with a new batch of price cuts for PC games from now until 1 pm Eastern time Sunday. In addition to today's Steam deals, GamersGate ends its daily sales event with Men of War Red Tide for just $5.49. Also the streaming PC game service OnLive has put several games on sale for as much as 75 percent off from now until January 2.

The games on sale today on Steam today are as follows:

Batman Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition - $7.50
Splinter Cell series - Save 50 percent off all games in the series or save 60 percent off of Splinter Cell Conviction if you own Splinter Cell Double Agent.
Red Faction series - save 75 percent off all games in series.
X Superbox (all games in the X space sim series) - $19.99
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - $29.99
Dragon Age series - save 50 percent off all games in series
Monkey Island Special Edition 1/2 - $3.75
Altitude - $2.49
Shank - $7.49
Flatout series - save 90 percent off all games in series
Civilization V - $37.49
Tropico 3 Gold Edition - $6

The legal fight with publisher Activision and the fired co-founders of developer Infinity Ward has taken a new turn. According to new court documents posted by our sister site Joystiq, Activision has amended its own countersuit to include rival publisher Electronic Arts into its legal fight as a cross-defendant. Activision claims that EA "conspired" with Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella " to derail Activision's Call of Duty franchise, disrupt its Infinity Ward development studio, and inflict serious harm on the company."

In short, Activision claims that West and Zampella had secret meetings with EA CEO John Riccitiello as early as August 2009. It also claims that West and Zampella decided to "covertly copy certain materials". Activision is asking in the countersuit for $400 million in damages from EA, West and Zampella. After Activision fired the due from Infinity Ward in March, West and Zampella formed Respawn Entertainment and did get a publishing deal from EA. While they have yet to respond to this new countersuit, West and Zampella have claimed in the past Activision fired them rather than give the duo a large royalty check from the sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Update: The Los Angeles Times has posted EA's official response, saying, "This is a PR play filled with pettiness and deliberate misdirection."

While most of us just play multiplayer shooters and have to deal with normal cheating issues, some players want to take it to the next level. In this case the next level just got a 17 year old UK teenager arrested for allegedly causing a denial of service attack while playing an unnamed game in the Call of Duty series.

The BBC reports that the unnamed teenager from Manchester is accused of using a program called a "Phenom Booter" that keeps other players from playing the game while the user racks up more points. Activision Blizzard contacted the local police last September and tracked the program's IP address to the Manchester area. The teenager is now in police custody.

Call of Duty Black Ops has officially had the single biggest one-day launch of any game in history, according to its publisher Activision. The company announced today that according to its internal info the first person shooter from developer Treyarch generated a whopping $360 million in its first day of sales in the US and UK. That compares to "just" $310 million that was made in the first day of sales for 2009's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

According to today's press release, Call of Duty Black Ops sold a total of 5.6 million copies just in its first day of sales in the US and UK, compared to 4.7 million copies for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. It's likely that the PC version represents just a small percentage of those sales but with such high unit numbers its also likely that the game has sold hundreds of thousands of PC units.