infinity-ward posts

Activision's decision to charge for the PC versions of the Modern Warfare 2 map packs may have made fans of the shooter game upset but that hasn't stopped them from purchasing the packs. The latest top 10 sales list from the Steam service shows that the $15 Resurgance Map Pack was the number one best selling game on Steam in the last week (based on revenue).

The rest of the list is a mix of recent games and titles that are still feeling the effects of Steam's recent summer sales event. The full list is below

1. Modern Warfare 2 Resurgace Map Pack - Infinity Ward/Activision
2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
3. APB (All Points Bulletin) - Realtime Worlds/EA
4. Monkey Island 2 Special Edition - LucasArts
5. THQ Complete Pack - THQ
6. Civilization IV Complete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
7. Bioshock 2 - 2K Marin/2K Games
8. Just Cause 2 - Avalanche Studios/Square Enix
9. Mass Effect 2 - BioWare/EA
10. Killing Floor - Tripwire Interactive

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.

Ever since it started in the early 2000s, Infinty Ward's team members have worked on one game at a time during its life and all of them are based on the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare franchises. However things have changed at the developer as its owners Activision Blizzard fired Infinity Ward's co-founders. Soon afterward a number of other team members left to join those co-founders and launch a new company Respawn Entertainment.

However the remaining team at Infinity Ward has been hiring others and now, in a chat with VG247.com, Activision EVP Dave Stohl hints that the team may be working on non-Call of Duty games in the future. He states, " ,,, I think we're rebuilding a studio that can go off and build great new franchises in the future."

Fans may hate it that they have to pay money for a five level multiplayer map pack for Modern Warfare 2 but the first such Stimulus Package map pack for Infinity Ward's mega selling shooter was a huge seller on Steam for the PC version of the game. Now Steam has launched pre-orders for the second and final Modern Warfare 2 map pack.

The pack will be released on July 5 and if you pre-order you can knock off 10 percent of the pack's normal $15 price tag. As we have noted before the Resurgence Map Pack will contain three all new levels plus two others that have been adapted from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Even with its $15 price tag the launch of the PC version of Modern Warfare 2''s Stimulus Package of multiplayer maps continues to sell well via Steam. Now come word from developer Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling (via his handy Twitter page) that the second and final map pack for the hit first person shooter will be released soon for the PC.

The Resurgence Pack will become available for PC owners via Steam on July 6 and its likely to cost $15 as well. As we have reported before the map pack contains five multiplayer levels. Two of them (Vacant and Strike) are remakes from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare while the other three (Fuel, Trailer Pack and Carnival) are all new maps.

We thought it might be a long while before we heard anything concrete from the new developer Respawn Entertainment. But the new studio formed by ex-Infinity Ward founders Jason West and Vince Zampella maybe making their first big game announcement next week at E3 2010.

A Facebook page with both men's names declares, "big time announcement at E3 next week. stay tuned, kiddies!" If the Facebook page is legit, it's likely any announcement will come during Electronic Arts' press conference that's scheduled for Monday afternoon at 5 pm Eastern time. EA is publishing Respawn Entertainment's first game title under their third party EA Partners brand.

[Via VG247.com]

One of the better elements of Modern Warfare 2 is the game's up tempo action movie-like soundtrack This week publisher Activision announced that the soundtrack to developer Infinity Ward's hit first person shooter is now available for purchase online via iTunes.

The $9.99 17 track release contains the main music composed by Lorne Balfe as well as the game's main music theme which was composed by Academy Award winning music composer Hanz Zimmer. Activision states this will be the first of many of its game soundtracks that it will release thanks to a new agreement with music publisher Fontana.

Publisher Activision is determined to expand its massively successful Call of Duty franchise and one of the ways the company is doing that is putting a third developer in charge of making a game in the series. Adding to Infinity Ward and Treyarch is the newly launched Sledgehammer Games division. However it was previously announced that the Call of Duty game Sledgehammer was making would be an "action-adventure" title.

Now it looks like that may be premature. A job listing on Gamasutra specifically states that Sledgehammer Games is recruiting people to work on its "Call of Duty FPS development team." Unless they plan to put in some adventure game elements it doesn't sound like this new title will deviate very far from the normal Call of Duty game.

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."