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

If you have been waiting patiently to pre-order your copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops via digital download, your wait is now over. The Steam PC game site is now accepting pre-orders for the downloadable PC port of developer Treyarch's upcoming next game in the best selling shooter series.

The $59.99 game from publisher Activision will be made available for Steam users on November 9 and as we reported earlier the game will have Steamworks support for features like auto-updating, Steam Cloud save games and more. Last year's Steam exclusive release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 was a huge success for Valve's download service. The game has been in the top 10 of Valve's best selling games since it was first released nearly a year ago.

We are not the first folks to complain about the high price of the two downloadable map packs for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Let's face it; $15 for a new new maps each is pretty steep. However, publisher Activision has decided to give PC gamers a price break for the next week on the two map packs.

From now until October 11, owners of the PC port of the mega-popular first person shooter will be able to purchase and download the two map packs via Steam for just $7.49 each, a 50 percent price drive. The Stimulus Pack and the Resurgance Pack each contain five maps which are a mix of all new levels and revamped ones from the first Modern Warfare game.

It should have been the best of times for developer Infinity Ward. In 2009 the team released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which went on to sell over 20 million copies. However earlier this year the game's publisher Activision fired the developer's co-founders and saw many of Infinity Ward's team members leave. Other current and former team members have filed lawsuits against Activision.

In a new interview at the Develop web site, Activision's VP Dave Stohl stated that the company wants Infinity Ward to come back from all of these issues, saying, "We're supporting Infinity Ward in that rebuilding process, and I use the term 'support' because as much as possible we don't want to tamper with that group of people." He also states that while recruiting new team members for the developer hasn't been a problem he adds, " ... finding the right people that will fit in well with the culture, they're the most important factors for us." Stohl says that in the final analysis, the developer will come back from these issues, saying, "Ultimately, Infinity Ward will rise from the ashes."

Activision is looking at another massive sales success for its next game in the Call of Duty shooter series. IndustryGamers reports that Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has heard from retail sources that pre-order sales for Call of Duty: Black Ops, due out this fall, are already outpacing the sales of last year's mega-hit Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Even with that head start Wilson says that for a variety of reasons, Call of Duty: Black Ops won't sell as well as Modern Warfare. While that game sold a whopping 16 million copies in the fourth quarter of 2009, Wilson predicts that Call of Duty: Black Ops will "only" reach the 12 million mark for the same time period in 2010.

The legal battle between publisher Activision and a group of current and former members of news.bigdownload.com/tag/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2 developer Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2Infinity Ward moved into a new phase on Friday. Kotaku reports that the lawsuit filed by the Infinity Ward group got an amendment on Friday where the group claimed that Activision withheld a majority of the bonus due to the development team after the completion of Modern Warfare 2.

The lawsuit also claims Activision conducted "secret interrogations" of Infinity Ward members and generally created a "police state-like atmosphere" at the developer. Kotaku reports that a hearing will be held on August 5 to hear a request to merge the Infinity Ward employee lawsuit with the one filed by the developer's founders Jason West and Vince Zampella who were fired by Activision last March. The actual trial date for the lawsuit is now scheduled for May 23.

Developer Treyarch is going to make a lot of PC multiplayer gamers happy today. According to the new issue of the UK-based PC Zone (and posted at Computer and Video Games), the developer of the upcoming shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops will support dedicated servers for the PC multiplayer portion of the game.

In fact Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia states, "I think dedicated servers are excellent. I don't see any reason not to see them unless... well, I just don't see any reason not to." It's sister developer Infinity Ward certainly found ways to rationalize their move in 2009 to eliminate dedicate server support for the PC port Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It was a decision that caused a massive firestorm of internet hatred towards Infinity Ward although in the end it didn't affect seem to affect sales of the game. However Lamia states that for their game, "We do work very hard to reconcile the desire to manipulate and modify those dedicated servers with offering them the persistent experience and benefits that the console system provides."

So what was the real reason behind the current "issues" (to put it mildly) between Activision and the now ex-founders of Infinity Ward? Famed video game financial analyst Michael Pachter believes he might have the answer. Gamasutra reports that Pachter, in a recent note, stated that the publisher is looking to turn the Call of Duty shooter franchise into a multiplayer subscription game within the next two years.

Pachter believes that Activision's plans may not have pleased Jason West and Vince Zampella, the co-founders of Infinity Ward and the creators of the Call of Duty franchise, He states, "We think that the company is on the path to subscriptions, and that West and Zampella did not wish to work on that kind of game, leading to their termination."

Unless you have been under a rock you know that there's been a mass exodus of team members from Infinity Ward since the firing of West and Zampella. Pachter admits, "We think that this situation has escalated well beyond what the company intended." However he says the reaction to this news by the outside world has been overblown, stating, "We think that over the next two years, Activision will introduce a subscription game, and think that annual Call of Duty revenues and profits will likely rise rather than decline."

With the mass defections of employees at Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward showing no signs of stopping, it may be just a matter of time before the first person shooter team is shut down. That's the belief of Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey. According to IndustryGamers.com, Hickey says that the Infinity Ward team's days are numbers.

In a note to investors, Hickey states, "We expect Infinity Ward studio will be essentially closed after their next map pack release, with development work on Modern Warfare 3 spread between two studios not historically tied to the franchise." Publisher Activision already has two dev teams, Treyarch and the new Sledgehammer Games, working on games in the Call of Duty franchise. If he's right we suspect that other internal Activision teams such as Raven Software could get the nod to work on Modern Warfare 3.

If you though the current court fight between Activision and the now ex-founders of Infinity Ward could get any more complicated, you were wrong. The Los Angeles Times web site is now reporting that 21 former and 18 current (yes, current) employees of the Modern Warfare 2 developer have filed their own lawsuit against Activision, claiming the publisher owes the members of the development team $118 million in bonus money based on the massive sales of the first person shooter.

According to their lawsuit, "Activision engaged in this inappropriate course of conduct in an attempt to force employees of Infinity Ward to continue to work at a job that many of them did not want just so Activision could force them to complete the development, production and delivery of Modern Warfare 3." Activision has responded to the lawsuit, saying it it without merit and adding, "Activision retains the discretion to determine the amount and the schedule of bonus payments for [Modern Warfare 2] and has acted consistent with its rights and the law at all times." The article states that this new lawsuit could be combined with the suit that's already been filed against Activision by the developer's co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella.

It's pretty much a broken record at this point but the word out on the interwebs is that even more Infinity Ward team members have decided to leave the Modern Warfare 2 developer G4TV reports that last Friday eight more developers left the team and were followed by three more on Monday.

While many have not revealed their future plans, at least two of the most recent departures have decided to join Respawn Entertainment, the newly launched game developer founded by the two fired co-founders. With so many team members leaving Infinity Ward, you have to wonder what publisher Activision might be doing to recruit highly skilled replacements.