modern-warfare-2 posts

In perhaps the least surprising news item for the past week, Valve's zombie co-op shooter sequel Left 4 Dead 2 climbed up to the top spot on Steam's top 10 sales list. The list, based on revenues, shows that despite the first game in the series being released just over a year ago there's still an audience for even more infected shooting action.

Infinity Ward's controversial military shooter Modern Warfare 2 secured the number two spot on Steam's sales list while the regular and special edition versions of BioWare's fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins made the third and fourth positions on the list, respectively:

1. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
2. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
3. Dragon Age Origins - BioWare/EA
4. Dragon Age Origins Digital Deluxe Edition - BioWare/EA
5. Borderlands - Gearbox Software/2K Games
6. Torchlight - Runic Games
7. Frontlines: Fuel of War - Kaos Studios/THQ
8. Crysis Maximum Edition - Crytek/EA
9. Overlord Complete Pack - Triumph Studios/Codemasters
10. Counter-Strike Source - Valve

Geeze . . . The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 can't catch a break. After all the controversy over no dedicated servers, the high price tag for the first person shooter and THAT SCENE in the game comes yet another talking point. This time it centers around Steam banning CD keys for the Infinity Ward-Activision game that have been identified as coming from "grey market" sources.

These sources are usually online web sites based in Asia that obtain CD keys for a discount through likely dubious means and then sell them for a profit to anyone. However, Activision and Steam do not consider them to be legitimate locations to buy the game. A post on Steam's message board by a Steam/Valve rep states, "In the future, you should only buy unopened retail boxed copies from legitimate retailers or purchase via legitimate digital download services." So if you see a site that offers up a CD key for the game for a "deal", be warned that Steam might reject it.

[Via Voodoo Extreme]

Tomorrow is the last race of the season for the NASCAR Nationwide Series and in the pack trying to win at the Homestead-Miami Speedway will be driver Joey Logano. His number 20 car will be outfitted with a special Modern Warfare 2-GameStop design that was made specifcially for this race.

Logano will be going for his sixth win in the Nationwide Series this year (which is one step below the main NASCAR Sprint series) during the Ford 300 race event. The race itself is being broadcast on ESPN2 at 4:30 pm Saturday. Too bad there's not a Left 4 Dead 2 race car to go against it.

[Via email press release]

It's been the talk of the internet ever since its presence was leaked online a few weeks before the game came out. But the now infamous "airport level" in Modern Warfare 2 has certainly generated a lot of debate both among gamers and the mainstream media over whether or not it is appropriate. Now the main scriptwriter for Infinity Ward's first person shooter claims the sequence was something they had to do.

GamePro.com's interview with Jesse Stern (who has a day job as a writer for the NCIS TV series) has him talking extensively about that airport level, where Russian terrorists mow down unarmed civilians. He states, "Every single person in testing opened fire on the crowd, which is human nature." He adds, "I hope that people don't just look at it as being this simplistic and brutal sequence. We've done our best to treat it with care and not to make it gratuitous."

Ultimately Stern feels that the sequence was worth putting into the final product, saying, "This is a triple-A game and the top grosser of all time with this huge budget behind it, yet we're still taking major chances wherever we can and the airport level was a risk we had to take. Sometimes you take huge risks and it really works. Sometimes it doesn't work at all. But if you don't take the chance, you're not going to make something new."

Even though the market share for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 is only a small percentage of the total sales for the first person shooter, the sheer number of units sold for the Infinity Ward-developed game in its first days could still be in the six figure range for the PC port. We've already taken a stab at what those numbers might be like. Now comes word from Infinity Ward itself that the PC version is indeed selling well.

In a post on the company's official message boards, community manager Robert Bowling states that while the PC port does have the smallest market share of all three versions of the game, that doesn't mean the PC version is not a big seller. He writes, "The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has actually outsold the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week. Making it the most successful PC version." Specific sales numbers were not mentioned. One wonders how many more copies would have been sold if Infinity Ward had opted to support dedicated servers.

The largest game retailer in the US, GameStop, reported its latest financial results today and they are mostly on the higher side. For its third fiscal quarter that ended on October 31, the retailer had $1.83 billion in revenues, up from $1.70 billion from the same period a year ago. Profits were $52.2 million, up from $46.7 million from the same period a year ago.

Of course those numbers don't include game sales from this month where some of the biggest releases of the year like Dragon Age Origins, Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 will surely increase sales even more at the retailer. Indeed GameStop states in its press release, " . . . we expect a solid fourth quarter in sales and earnings." We would think so, too.

The Call of Duty game franchise that began with Infinity Ward's first game in the shooter series in 2003 has established a pattern in its later releases. Infinity Ward works on the games that are released in the odd-numbered years (Call of Duty 2 in 2005, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009). Developer Treyarch has handled the games in even-numbered years (Call of Duty 3 in 2006 and Call of Duty: World at War in 2008).

Now comes word that publisher Activision is prepping a third development team to work on more Call of Duty titles. The rumor comes from the Los Angeles Times web site which does not identify which developer has been contracted to do these duties. The story also says that Activision is considering some kind of massively multiplayer Call of Duty game although it sounds like this is more of an idea than an actual project that's underway.

Yesterday reports hit the Internet that the infamous "airport scene" in Modern Warfare 2's PC version had been removed from the game via a patch for Russian audiences. Today the game's publisher Activision has confirmed that is indeed the case but said the decision was made on its own and not based on any reactions to the Russian government.

According to Eurogamer, Activision said that Russia does not have a formal ratings system for games. However they decided to pull the scene from the PC version of the first person shooter which depicts Russian terrorists mowing down civilians in a Moscow airport with the participation of the player character, "after seeking the advice of local counsel." The PC version is the only one that has been released in Russia. Previous reports that the console versions had been recalled were incorrect.

We suspected that the second that the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 was released somebody, somewhere, would try to create some kind of dedicated server hack for Infinity Ward's first person shooter. It looks like that someone has created some kind of way to get into the dev console and make such a hack possible.

Of course, they haven't created such a thing to prove the point that such servers are better than the peer-to-peer system that the game's IWNet uses. Rather they have done it to tweak with the game's settings for things like speed and jumping boosts, experience points increases and more. Oh, and they claim that their servers are listed as "ranked" on IWNet. As you can see from the above video, there's apparently lots of fun to be had in such a set up unless you are someone who's running the IWNet service trying to keep such a hack off their system.

[Via Destructoid]

So much for all the talk about boycotts against Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's PC port. The Infinity Ward-developed shooter is firmly on top of this week's latest top 10 best selling games (according to revenue) on the Steam download service. Steam is the only place (legally anyway) where one can download and purchase Modern Warfare 2. Other download services like Direct2Drive, Impulse and Gamersgate have decided not to make the game available because they have objected to the game's use of Steamworks's features that are required for the PC version.

Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead 2, due to be unlocked at midnight Eastern time tonight on Steam, took the number two sales spot this week. Dragon Age: Origins' regular edition and deluxe edition took the third and fourth spot while Borderlands continues to sell well in fifth position.

1. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
2. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
3. Dragon Age Origins - BioWare/EA
4. Dragon Age Origins Digital Deluxe Edition - BioWare/EA
5. Borderlands - Gearbox Software/2K Games
6. Overlord Complete Pack - Triumph Studios/Codemasters
7. Torchlight - Runic Games
8. Crysis Maximum Edition - Crytek/EA
9. Football Manager 2010 - Sega
10. Mass Effect - BioWare/EA