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CoD Black Ops writer Anthony: National security a matter of marketing
Call of Duty: Black Ops series writer and director Dave Anthony addressed U.S. military defense as part of a recent presentation for political think tank The Atlantic Council, claiming that public opinion regarding national security can be manipulated using methods similar to video game marketing. "When we have a new product that has elements that we're not sure how people will respond to, what do we do as a corporation?" he asked, in reference to Activision's pre-release strategy for Black Ops and Black Ops 2. "We market it, and we market it as much as we can - so that whether people like it or not, we do all the things we can to essentially brainwash people into liking it before it actually comes out. When you have decided to make these changes, you have a marketing campaign to introduce them before it is forced upon you. "I'd like to see the government doing this too, because the government is becoming more and more unpopular and I have a lot of sympathy for it. It is an enormously tough job they have. I would like to see more effort into how we communicate with the people and educate the people into what we are doing and why."
PSN Spring Fever franchise deals include Call of Duty, GTA
If the seven games debuting on PSN this month at discounted rates don't spice up Sony's Spring Fever sale enough for your liking, the sale will also include sales on four different franchises. Games and DLC in the Call of Duty, Need for Speed, BioShock and Grand Theft Auto series are on sale at varying points in March for all PSN users. The sale spans five games in the Need for Speed series, each down to $9.99 ($5 for PS Plus subscribers) tomorrow through March 10. Those games include Need for Speed: Most Wanted on both PS3 and Vita, Hot Pursuit on PS3, The Run on PS3 and Carbon on PSP and Vita. The Call of Duty series continues on March 11 through March 17 and features a variety of game and DLC bundles for Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Both Black Ops games can be purchased together for $69.99 ($62.99 on PS Plus) as well as all three Modern Warfare games for $64.99 ($58.49 for PS Plus members). Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series rolls in next on March 18 with sales lasting through March 24. The sale knocks GTA 5 down to $39.99, GTA 4 to $5.99 ($4.79 on PS Plus) as well as a handful of other PS3 and PSP games in the series ranging from $5.99 each ($4.79 for PS Plus) to $2.99 each ($2.39 on PS Plus). Lastly, the first two games in the BioShock series will also be $9.99 ($5 for PS Plus members) March 25 through March 31. Those games are joined by BioShock Infinite's Burial at Sea Episode 1 DLC for $10.40 ($7.34 on PS Plus) as well as Columbia's Finest Pack and Clash in the Clouds for $3.49 each ($2.44 on PS Plus). [Image: Rockstar Games]
Glu Mobile closes Brazil office; Washington and California studios hit with layoffs
Glu Mobile, the developers behind mobile versions of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty: Black Ops, has announced that it is closing its San Paulo, Brazil office and laying off employees in Kirkland, Washington, and San Francisco, California.A statement from the company says that it needs to hold its research and development investments flat over the next year, and to do that, changes are being made. Twenty-five percent of the Kirkland office and 5% of the San Francisco office are being let go today as part of the restructuring process.Glu's plan is to add "the necessary monetization and server-side research-and-development resources" to the company's existing titles, and "focus on increasing average revenue per daily active user company-wide." More monetization and more revenue per daily active user should help turn the company's financial future around, though game quality often suffers when those two elements are focused on. Joystiq hopes affected employees land on their feet soon.
'Bark Ops' parody puts Nibbles in combat
We're not going to say the above video offers a more realistic representation of dogs in combat than the actual canine killstreak achievement in Call of Duty: Black Ops, but with all those grenades flying, we'd expect to see a ton more of these "Sgt. Nibbles" scenarios.
Black Ops takes down Mac on September 27
Call of Duty: Black Ops is set to invade Mac on September 27 through Steam and a host of other digital retailers, port wizard Aspyr announced.Black Ops will run $50, including the First Strike Content Pack. The Rezurrection Content Pack will hit digital shelves at the same time, sold separately for $15, and Escalation and Annihilation will be available later on as a bundle.The Steam version will not include SteamPlay. Black Ops will be available via the Mac App Store "shortly after" the September 27 launch.
All MW3 and Black Ops maps half off for Independence Day
Activision is hosting a half-off sale on all Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops map packs, running July 3-9. A portion of the sales will benefit the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit organization that helps veterans with job placement and training.Take the burgers out of the freezer and get ready to snag the complete map collections right here.
Call of Duty: Black Ops makes a run at Mac this fall
While Treyarch is hard at work on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 for this year, its previous game is getting ready to hit the Mac.A Mac port of the hugely popular FPS is currently underway at Texas-based Aspyr Media. You may recall Aspyr's previous efforts porting Windows games to Apple's platform, including 2007's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. System specs for Black Ops aren't known right now, but we can't imagine they'll be much different from Modern Warfare's requirements.
PSN throws down some Ultimate Editions, slaps a sale on them
The PlayStation Network Ultimate Editions bundle games with all their existing DLC packs, and nine of these titles will be on sale today, May 29, through June 4. The Ultimate Editions are 30 percent off for normal PSN users, and 50 percent off for Plus members.Titles on sale, bundled and ready to roll, include Red Dead Redemption for $28 ($20 for Plus members), L.A. Noire and BioShock 2 for the same price, Mortal Kombat for $35 ($25 for Plus members) and Black Ops for $66 ($48 for Plus members). Check out the Ultimate sale list on the PlayStation Blog.
'Activision doesn't blacklist journalists,' working on resolution with Gameblog
Earlier this week, France's Gameblog posted a screenshot of Amazon France's premature listing for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, a story that we and other gaming sites picked up immediately. We later found further support for the claim in a Treyarch employee's resume.A new Call of Duty title -- or a second Black Ops -- wasn't particularly surprising, but apparently Activision wanted to keep the news quiet, and it called the site to take down the story, Gameblog wrote in a follow-up post. Gameblog said the reporter refused and that Activision took a strangely extreme route, "blacklisting" the site, uninviting it from events, declining to send it any more review titles and removing all advertisement.Activision has now publicly responded to Gameblog's claim: "Activision doesn't blacklist journalists. We believe this was a misunderstanding and are working towards a resolution." That sounds like a more reasonable response than the all-out journalistic warfare Gameblog reported; then again, this is all about a Call of Duty title, so maybe "warfare" was the angle they were comfortable with at first.
Modern Warfare 3 holiday numbers indicate franchise sales decline in UK
While the Call of Duty franchise has enjoyed year-over-year growth in terms of worldwide sales, numbers released this week for the UK tell a different story for that particular region. According to the UK's Entertainment Retailers Association, Modern Warfare 3 moved 2,814,298 units between launch on November 8 and December 31, 2011, while Call of Duty's 2010 entry, Black Ops, sold 3,266,298 across the same holiday sales period in the previous year. That's a decline of 452,000 units from Treyarch-developed Black Ops in 2010 to Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games-developed Modern Warfare 3 in 2011, though the latter was the fastest entertainment property in history to reach $1 billion in sales. As MCV points out, FIFA sales were also in decline in the UK, with nearly 200K fewer copies sold during 2011 than in 2010. All that said, let's not lose any sleep over the declines -- both CoD and FIFA's 2011 entries sold in the many millions in just the UK, let alone worldwide.
Report: Activision scoops up blackops2.com
Activision, by proxy, has bought BlackOps2.com. Fusible did the detective work on this, which posits Activision bought up Black Ops domains last year -- up to Black Ops 6 -- through brand protection company MarkMonitor. Black Ops 2 domains were missing from the previous list, but it appears that's being rectified. Now, none of this guarantees that Black Ops 2 is on the way as this year's Call of Duty, but it does mean that MarkMonitor is under orders to protect the brand for the future. Call of Duty: Black Ops had a record-breaking debut of $650 million in sales during its first week at retail in 2010, which it held for one year until Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 crushed that with $775 million.
Black Ops most popular game on XBL in 2011, Pinball FX2 tops Arcade
You're not going to believe what the most popular games on Xbox Live were in 2011. OK, maybe you'll believe it. According to Microsoft's count of worldwide unique users for the year, Call of Duty: Black Ops topped the list of retail titles, followed by Modern Warfares 3 and 2, Halo Reach, and Battlefield 3. On the Arcade side, the top seller was Pinball FX 2, followed by Full House Poker, Castle Crashers (which came out in 2008), Fruit Ninja Kinect, and From Dust. Beyond Good & Evil HD hit #20 on the list, which seems good, but too close for comfort, for those of us hoping it would be a strong indicator of interest in the sequel. You can find full top twenty lists for retail, arcade, and XBLIG, along with Games for Windows Live and Windows Phone (Surprise! Angry Birds!) at Major Nelson's blog.
Gary Oldman spits out a few Reznov lines on Conan, in a bowtie
Gary Oldman is a respected actor with decades of awards and critically acclaimed roles on his resume -- but we don't care about all that. Oldman was the voice of Viktor Reznov in Call of Duty: Black Ops, and he told Conan O'Brien all about that magical, extremely loud experience.
Google Zeitgeist puts Battlefield 3 in top ten rising searches, Black Ops tops gaming chart
Google published its annual "Zeitgeist" report of the most popular searches and topics in 2011 this past week and for the first time ever, a game was included in the top ten fastest rising search terms of the year. Yes, as you've probably already guessed, it was "Gem Keeper." Wait, no, it was "Battlefield 3." EA's big shooter stirred up some interest, apparently, landing it right in between "Casey Anthony" and the "iPhone 5" in biggest gains in search popularity of the year. When it comes to video games in North America, however, there's another title on top of the heap: "Black Ops" was the most searched-for term in the category, with "Call of Duty" coming soon after that. "Battlefield 3" didn't even make the list in the category numbers, so its overall search volume was actually lower than the Activision series. Don't count "Halo Reach" or "Super Mario" out either -- they show up at the third and fourth spots on the list in the gaming category. And Google even shows us what 2011 searchers are most interested to play next year: "Diablo 3" and "Mass Effect 3" sit at the bottom of the list already for the most searched-for terms in gaming.
Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops dominate last week's Xbox Live activity
We had a hunch -- okay, it was less a hunch and more an obvious thing to think, but here we are: Modern Warfare 3 has dominated Xbox Live activity on the week of November 21. When not chowing down on turkey and karate-chopping fools at Walmart over waffle makers, it seems most Xbox 360 players answered the call. The second most-played game for the week was another Call of Duty game: Black Ops. It bested Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12, which took the remainder of the top five games played respectively. On the XBLA side, Pinball FX2, Super Meat Boy and Marvel vs Capcom 2 took top honors, thanks to Microsoft's "Fan Appreciation" sale.
Activision releasing Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies December 1
Activision's been relatively quiet on iOS, especially when compared to other big game publishers like EA. But the company has always had a hit with its original Call of Duty Zombies app, and now it's looking to replicate that success with a new version, based on the Zombies Mode in last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops. The new game is set to arrive on the App Store December 1, and just like the old version, it will bring Call of Duty's zombies mode to life in full 3D. The game will be US$6.99 (the same price, it might be noted, as the also-releasing Infinity Blade 2), and will come with just one map (more on the way), as well as a whole other game in the form of Dead Ops Arcade, a dual stick shooter that was found as an easter egg in Call of Duty: Black Ops. The game also offers up multiplayer support and even voice chat for up to four players. This app will undoubtedly be a hit this holiday season -- obviously the App Store is a very different place since the last CoD: Zombies app came around, but the name recognition alone will likely sell plenty of copies. We'll check the game out when it arrives.
Call of Duty: Black Ops has moved 20 million map packs to date
Call of Duty: Black Ops has sold 20 million map packs to date. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg noted the latest figure during yesterday's conference call, where the publisher announced strong revenues for the quarter. "For the first nine months of the year, Black Ops has remained the number one title in the U.S. and Europe, generating more revenue than any new major console release," Hirshberg stated. "The revenues generated from map packs alone would make it the third largest console title of the year." Black Ops received four map packs after launch, which Hirshberg said, "Further demonstrates that there is continued consumer interest in the content even 11 months after the launch, making playing Call of Duty truly a year-round activity for millions of our fans." Activision announced 18 million Black Ops map packs were sold back in September, before the final sales push of the Rezurrection pack completed.
Ubisoft reveals 15M copies sold of Black Ops (that's right)
On this Call of Duty day, we look back at the success of Black Ops, a game so outrageously popular that its sales figures show up in other companies' earnings reports. Really! In an investor presentation today, Ubisoft posted the top ten games in the US from January of 2010 through September of 2011, according to NPD data. And that's how we learned that Call of Duty: Black Ops sold 14,983,459 units in the US through September. Of course, the point Ubisoft was trying to make was that Just Dance 2 was the second-best selling game in the US (at 5,245,480 copies), but we found that the second-most interesting number on the list.
Guy chokes a kid after being made fun of in Black Ops, we're ... upset
We read in horror today the story of Mark Bradford, a 46-year-old, jobless father of three from Plymouth, Devon (UK). After being killed and then taunted by a 13-year-old opponent in Call of Duty: Black Ops, Bradford tracked down his teenage opponent (in real life) and proceeded to mercilessly choke him. The attack was luckily thwarted by the teen's mother and Bradford later admitted to one count of assault. It's a grim story, and simply inexcusable. A grown man attacking a child like this turns our stomachs and should turn the stomach of any responsible, caring human. This is the end of our post on the matter, and it in no way continues after the break.
Black Ops: Rezurrection's Zombie Labs enter Phase 2
First the scientists working in the Call of Duty: Black Ops: Rezurrection labs disgusted us with their blood lust. Now, they've gone so far with their undead re-deadening that they've actually turned us pro-zombie. Join us in our cause and avoid the DLC at all costs when it arrives on Sept. 22.
