A group of people are threatening Activision with a lawsuit concerning the mismanagement of one of their properties. Does this even ruffle the feathers over there? Activision is currently entangled in a lawsuit/counter suit web with two people who fathered their billion dollar baby, Call of Duty. As reported by CVG, a group known as, Gamer’s voice, wrote an open letter to Treyarch/Activision concerning the multiplayer component of Black Ops on the Playstation 3.
Gamers banding together and speaking with a unified voice benefits everyone. Unity shows publishers that we aren’t a whiny bunch of brats that pound our fists when situations go awry. What is with the uproar toward Activision this time? Did anyone not play Modern Warfare 2 on the Playstation 3? Wasn’t MW2 plagued with massive amounts of errors and hackers? Yes it was, and players vented by hurling obscenities towards Activision.
So, let’s get to the root of the problem. This way please………..
1.) Black Ops Sold a staggering 8.3 million copies(WorldWide) on the Playstation 3! (VGCharts) Why did everyone and their mamma go buy a copy of the game, when the previous one had so many server problems. Come on…Really?
2.) If you’re going to write an open letter to Activision, don’t sound like a PS3 fanboy.
None of this apparently applies to the Xbox 360 version, which is clearly the lead platform for the title.
It is quite obvious that you have focused a majority of your QA on the Xbox 360 version with the assumption that the majority of people who play the game will do so on that system. Despite this, you have chosen to release it on multiple formats to maximize the revenue from sales of the game. By doing so evidence suggests that little attention was paid to the platforms with a smaller install base and hence a reduction in QA being employed for these versions.
There is little evidence to support this claim. Patches have been released for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 versions of the game. The game sold 8.3 million copies on the Playstation 3. Lead Platform arguments are ambiguous with those numbers. Also, Xbox Live is a paid subscription service. Microsoft has a financial obligation to stop hackers on their system, or risk losing the paid customer base. The Source of the problem could be the console. The security flaws of the PS3 seem to be the main culprit. Also, a major hack was just announced on the PS3, where hackers can alter any part of the system with relative ease.
3.) Write an Open letter, Not an Open threat
We therefore request that you offer by way of explanation to us why this has occurred and, more importantly, what are you going to do to recompense your customer base? You have one calendar month to respond to this letter. If no response is received or your retort fails to treat this issue with the gravity it deserves, we will be forced to take matters further.
This is a billion dollar company. If they are tied up in a multi-million dollar lawsuit with the game’s original creators. You get the point
The outrage is understandable. Customers bought a game and expected it to work. The issue is the multiplayer though. Activision isn’t beholden to provide a complete multiplayer experience. The product on the shelf is a single player campaign, with the added bonus of having multiplayer. A better way to make the Acti-Blizzard machine take notice, is to vote with you’re wallet, so when the next COD releases, the sales represent the disappointment consumers have with the product.
Awesome job Alfred.
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The thing is i love COD so much,and its hard for me to hate it no matter whatever little flaws the game has during each outing,and yes i am a playstation gamer and all the cod games i have owned/played is on the ps2 and ps3,personally modern warfare2 was the best close multiplatform experience,i could find zero issues on the ps3 in mw2,but black ops been a different game altogether,issues from bad connections,frame rate dips,frame misses,these three issues have been pretty annoying and none of these problems seem to be on the 360 console according to my friends.
Wish dear Treyarch just take a little more care and fix all these issues with their next game,cmon black ops is fast approaching 9million copies and going to beat modern warfare2 in total sales on the ps3 alone,thus they damn well know there is a huge COD fanbase on Sony’s console and not show any disparity in the quality!
…so i wasted a couple minutes to read a defense argument from the point of view of an X360 player….
For your understanding, I got Blops cause I was stupid enough of not checking WaW, if I knew the kind of trash I was going to get then I would have never bought Blops, is not up to QA compared to MW2, I mean even the damned story looks like a comedy on Blops and so on, ur second excuse it’s plain bs, MW2 is not entirely render useless by all the “issues” ppl points, unlike Blops I was able to play MW2 online since I got it, Blops is just BAD online even with the update, funny they can make a game like MW2 work in so many aspects and then make something like Blops to prove how bad things can be made, it’s called coding, it’s like when I go to play Halo just to find a bunch of paying laggers, yup a great experience online when u pay for Live…
And the last only points to a future repercussion, do u really think that Ps3 owners will go buying the next version of CoD after this mess?, that will for sure take a huge ton of $$$ from Activision, most of them will rent before buying and so Activision better get that in their check list of things before releasing the next game, that will be my take on any future game from Activision cause they just keep proving how much they value their customers by releasing crappy products and then use lame reasons to explain “what went wrong”
@HO – The point of the article was not to dismiss the problems that BLOPS is having on the playstation 3. Too get Activision’s attention, people have to vote with their dollars. I haven’t bought Black Ops yet for that reason. I don’t think the community should threaten Activision. What good is that going to do? I agree with you about Activision not caring about it’s customers. I don’t think they do at all. I think we both feel the same. Also, I own both systems. I don’t prefer one to the other. If I buy a multiplayer game, I’ll buy it for the system that most of my friends are playing it on. I’m definitely not a fanboy.
@prashanth – thank you for making great points. It really did make me think. I know I probably come across as being super snarky, but I understand your dismay with the multiplayer issues
i think the writer is an idiot honestly the issues were there be4 the ps3 was even hacked alright you sound like a spokesperson for activition in this article, u simply try to find a scapegoat. These problems have been around sincle release day, 2 patches that were supposed to fix the problem made it worse, the least activision could do is FIX THE PROBLEM. dont blame the psn network either, psn in my opinion is better then XBL in most cases, and yes i own BOTH systems dont call me a fan boy i bought blackops for the ps3 and then 360 when the ps3 version turned out to be lag fest of bugs and laggyness. And ill tell you why everyone bought black ops, cuz MW2 was good, its issues were fixed within 2 months and it ran perfectly afterwards, so dont compare this to MW2, MW2 had some hacks but no major issues that made the game unplayable. Black ops is literally unplayable, 20 min to find a game, and then the lag hits and i dont lag in anyother multiplayer game (i play BFBC2 everyday) so its not my ps3, psn, or my internet, and i can barely even move the entire match. idc if they dont give me back my money but at least fix it for everyone out there that dosnt have another option to play it like i do.
The article still raises a good point. Rather than trying to threaten Activision and tell them they don’t employ enough testers (ahem, or perhaps they should just listen to the ones they’ve already got a bit more…) simply don’t buy the game. If you don’t like a film, not buying it is a good way to let the makers know they made a piece of crap and they need to improve next time. If you keep buying COD games and then writing “open letters” to Activision, they will laugh at you. On the way to the bank.
I bought Black Ops for the 360 and I regret it. I remember playing WAW and realising what a crap game it was. I didn’t bother buying it when it came out. Looking back, I honestly don’t know why I thought that would change with Black Ops. From now on I will try before I buy with any COD game except ones made by Treyarch which I just won’t buy period.
Great Points Phil. Thank you
After 15 days of torturing myself playing bo on my ps3 i sold the copy and got it for my 360. Man, how pissed off i was!!! I couldn’t believe that Treyass could screw ps3 community on such a large scale. to compare it on ps3 and 360 it’s impossible. They deserve not to be sued,but to loose their jobs and give back every penny they took from us. And remember this : THEY WILL NEVER FIX COD-BLACK OPS FOR PS3! The game will never run like it’s running on ps3 cause one simple reason:THEY DONT KNOW HOW TO FIX IT! and one more thing :they took our money and didn’t deliver. It’s like you wanna buy a car and salesman say ” take the car now,pay for it,but drive for a month or two without brakes ,we’ll fix it soon ,dont worry”
I have friends that play it on the PS3. They never talk about any problems. Respectfully, BLOPS is the only game they play. I was going to buy it for PS3, but after hearing about all of this. I’ll wait.
The issue with the PS3′s Black Ops is that the game added in some new graphical effects and shaders that have decreased performance immensely, and the lack of a frequent 60 fps performance makes people feel nostalgic for it’s predecessor, MW2. The “lag” issues and “disconnect” issues are all issues we’ve had in any popular multiplayer game–CoD:MW2 included. The “lag” issues have namely to do with visual features, and if Treyarch could somehow manage to fix that through a patch (which would, in that sense, be quite large), then maybe the problems will disappear.
Though, I much doubt they will at this point, as their department and 3 new companies with the remainder of IW are all teaming up to finish the release of Modern Warfare 3 for this year. And even if they were to do it, the performance changes would be minor, as Treyarch is not a good company in simplification–I remember splitscreen in CoD:W@W Nazi Zombies… ugh… 2 screens the size of a 17″ on a 60″ plasma. Wtf.
It’s not just multiplayer, the whole game is messed up! Frame rates, lag, crap hit detection, EXTREME HARD FREEZING, etc. This game is broken, fix it or no more Call of Duty for me, as well as thousands of others, we’re tired of this crap! FIX IT BETREYARCH!
I apologize in advance that this comment is rather long.
I can understand the UK’s frustration if bugs on their system are not getting fixed while other systems are…but this letter sounds like one big angry fanboy cry for attention. The letter bases itself that Activision and Treyarch are intentionally ignoring the PS3 and PC consoles based on smaller percentage of market as compared to the 360. I am sure that Microsoft purchasing exclusive license rights to DLC (where DLC comes to the Xbox system first and then other platforms later) does not help the feeling of being ignored…but these facts do not prove negligence on the company’s part.
I am sure that not every PS3 owner has experienced problems and that a small percentage of the overall population of PS3 owners are actually experiencing these bugs. And even for the ones that have experienced this problem it most likely has not been every time. My friend, who plays CoD:BO on the PS3, has said he has had some connection issues, but it’s usually once out of every 15-20 games (and during high levels of server load). And haven’t they released a few patches already attempting to fix some of the issues (thus negating the point that the companies are doing nothing to fix the PS3/PC issues)?
And to say that issues aren’t happening on the 360 is just ignorance in my opinion. The 360 has seen its fair share of bugs, glitches, and issues since the release of the game (as well as post release). There have been patches but not everything has been fixed. People have to remember that the platforms operate on different software which requires different patches or fixes…so they just can’t release a patch for the 360 and port it onto the PS3.
I will concede the point that it is possible that there is a smaller support staff for the PS3 than the 360 team. This would cause slower turnouts for fixes and patches. I am sure this does not seem fair…but it’s not illegal. When you purchase the game you are making a “As Is” purchase. There are even disclaimers that say that online multiplayer experience is subject to change. Activision could theoretically never release a patch again. There could be a potential lawsuit if the multiplayer was totally broken that nobody could play it at all, but issues like lag or hit detection are harder to take to court.
As for the threats…the letter is obviously a threat…but the terms used are not uncommon for letters of this kind. Specifically, the “must reply in X amount of time” is especially common when companies try to force any information out or invoke a response. While they can be a warning before a lawsuit is filed, they are more often bluffs.
Not to play devil’s advocate, but perhaps we don’t know how much contact has been attempted before this letter. They mention the forums and a lack of response there. It’s possible PS3 users have contacted support several times but have not had any answers. They may have very well believed this was the final resort and had to do something to get their attention. However, the writers of this letter really should reflect on what they’re saying and the tone they are saying it with.
Finally, before we blame anyone for anything maybe we should look at the gamer in the mirror? Activision believes they can release a game every year and sell millions of it despite the level of quality put into the game. We as gamers do nothing to prove them wrong. Every year we run to the store on release day and pump millions of dollars into these games. This allows Activision to validate their reason to push developers into releasing a game prematurely so they can get the sales. How many of us were outraged by how the Infinity Ward creators were treated post MW2 launch and how many vowed to never support Activision again? Empty threats when sale figures are so high. If we want games to stop being so riddled with bugs we should vote with our wallets and maybe not buy games as soon as they come out.
WOW!!!! GREAT Write up tigerseye! You said everything SO WELL!!!!
it is NOT JUST THE ONLINE, IT IS THE ONE PLAYER TOO!!! THE GAME FUCKING CHUGS AND LAGS RIGHT FROM WHEN I START THE GAME UP!!!!!!!!
HELLO!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU EVEN HAVE THE PS3 GAME??? It isn’t just “lag” either… it was the way the game was DEVELOPED… the game glitches and freezes constantly, AND YOU CAN HEAR THE PS3 STRUGGLING TO READ THE DISK AND TO MAKE SENSE OF THE SHITTY PROGRAMMING TREYARCH DID ON THE PS3!!! WAKE UP ALREADY!!!!!
i gotta say something. all u ps3 players coming on here and making some of the comments u made and names u are calling are what makes the ps3 users look like such fan boys! i really am ashamed to be a ps3 players with sum of the thigns that’ve been said here. lil respect so hard?
@PS3 Playa – it’s hard to think that in 2011 we still have this weird fanboy internet Rage. It’s sad, and exactly why Activision is laughing all the way to the bank. If the game has so many problems, I understand the anger. But, this “You’re an F-ing Idiot” response, is sad. I like my PS3 over my 360. Maybe I should have stated that before i wrote the article. thanks @PS3 Playa for speaking the truth
DOES MY COMMENT MAKE MORE SENSE BECAUSE ITS IN CAPITAL LETTERS AND MULTIPLE QUESTION MARKS??????? I THINK IM GOING TO START WRITING LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME…… ITS KIND OF FUN….. IM A LITTLE LATE TO THE WHOLE CAPS AND PUNCTUATION THING I THINK!!1!!1!!!!1!!! OR MAYBE IM JUST OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW IT LOOKS REALLY STUPID!!!!1!!1!!!!
Bottom line is what Alfred said, if you dont like the game, dont buy the next one. When they see that their sales on the PS3 drop from 8 mil to 1 mil, they will respond. Dont just blindly buy the next one “hoping” its better. Wait a couple weeks and see what kind of issues they are having and then make an informed decision.
Classic. Or should I say CLASSIC!!!!11!!!1!1!!
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