Why I'm NOT Playing Modern Warfare 2

The above comic from the very talented guys at Penny Arcade pretty much sums up why I think Activision is the lowest of the low when it comes to publishing companies. Therefore, as someone who considers himself as someone who looks down upon the douchebaggery of companies, I've decided that anything Activision publishes has no place on my shelf. Now before you roll your eyes or post comments stating “Oh blah blah go ahead and whine, your money doesn't mean diddley squat to Activision, and I'm playing a great game right now with Modern Warfare 2.” I'm not so pretentious to think that my money DOES mean anything to Activision. Their opening day was highly impressive and it's only going to get better as the week goes on, but rest assured it will be at least one unit less than what they could have gotten. It's the principle of the thing, and that's why until I can get Modern Warfare 2 in a used condition and ensure none of my money goes to that company, I'll have to miss out on what is probably one of the greater games to release this year. Also I'm tired of sending messages to all of you sending me game invites!

A usual retort to this thinking is “Well, all the publishing companies are buttheads, you're a huge supporter of Left 4 Dead, and EA is just as bad!” That's absolutely false in my opinion. True, EA used to be the big bad wolf. They'd buy up small development companies, shut them down, failed to support their games, and ruined many great franchises. I'm a guy who's all for steps in the right direction though, and EA has taken leaps. Hell, even John Carmack thinks so. Just look at the games EA has recently been publishing; Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, Battlefield Bad Company, Burnout Paradise, heck even look at the continued weekly support for their Rock Band franchise. Bad Company and Burnout Paradise are two excellent examples of taking a franchise in a new direction, where Activision's idea of “new direction” is to allow Xbox 360 avatar support in the latest Guitar Hero game. Again, the above comic says it perfectly, they'll take the intellectual properties they have and just run them into the ground. I absolutely loved Guitar Hero 2, I mean who didn't? Now I can't even tell you how many they have. And true, EA is notorious for providing very low incremental upgrades to sports games year in and year out, but ya know what? They remain very high-selling games, and while it's true that the Guitar Hero games are at least meeting their quota, the latest Rock Band installment outsold Guitar Hero 5 in the month of September.

It's funny looking at Activision now and seeing how they've turned into the EA of a couple years ago. After acquiring Sierra and all of it's developing IPs, they shut down production on a number of titles that have since been released (Ghostbusters and Brütal Legend to name a few). When Tim Schafer went to EA to publish his game, Activision sued them. And note when I say sued “them”, I mean Double Fine. No, Activision didn't even want to touch EA, because they knew they didn't have a shot in hell. It's absolutely deplorable to me for Activision to go after Double Fine like this. Not only is Double Fine and Tim Schafer known for creating great (if criminally undersold) games. And it doesn't take a whole lot of insight to see that the reason Activision dropped Brütal Legend is because the game doesn't lend itself to be (in the words of Bobby Kotick) “exploited.” This is Activision being the school yard bully beating up and stealing Tim Schafer's lunch money, and it's even more pathetic at this level (and no, I didn't get beat up an inordinate number of times in school, it was a very fair amount :-D).

The real shame of all of this is that I'm positive that Infinity Ward did a bang-up job with Modern Warfare 2 (notice that at the original request of the developer, I'll refer to it without the Call of Duty moniker). The Spec Ops co-operative mode looks sweet, the multiplayer, while not always my cup of tea, definitely looks worth the price of admission, and the campaign, regardless of the fact that it most likely has the same tired Call of Duty formula, looks chock-full of “holy crap” moments. Personally I can't wait to try it out, but until I can get it used, I refuse to give my money to Activision.