Over the last few months, Electronic Arts and Activision have been fighting a war of words over their respective shooters, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which are set for a showdown this holiday season.

A small sampling: EA CEO John Riccitiello said he wants Call of Duty to “rot from the core.” Activision’s publishing boss Eric Hirschberg responded by saying EA’s negativity was “bad for the industry.” Most recently, EA spokesman Jeff Brown fired back: “Welcome to the big leagues Eric — I know you’re new in the job but someone should have told you this is a competitive industry.”

The bad blood has been good publicity for both games, I think (although EA’s Battlefield 3 probably needs it more, hence the harsher attacks). But it makes me wonder, where have the good old game console rivalries gone?

Continue reading this story…

Back in February, Activision announced that it was stepping away from the Guitar Hero franchise. The publisher dissolved its Guitar Hero business unit and cancelled development on a game that was supposed to launch this year.

Now, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says that a comeback is in the making.

The publisher has formed a new studio to reinvent the Guitar Hero franchise, Kotick told Forbes. There’s no word on when the next Guitar Hero will launch, but it seems like the project is in its very early stages, with the new studio exploring “a variety of different prototypes,” Kotick said.

The general consensus on Guitar Hero games — and games where you wield fake plastic musical instruments in general — is that they saturated the market to the point that people stopped caring. Kotick’s take is slightly different, but it touches on a similar theme: Activision failed to innovate with the Guitar Hero franchise. And although the spin-off series DJ Hero was innovative and critically praised, Activision overestimated how many people really wanted to act out a video game DJ fantasy.

Activision tends to be a polarizing company, and Kotick a polarizing figure. But from the Forbes interview it’s clear that he has a strong grasp on what people want, and why Activision eventually failed to deliver with Guitar Hero. The publisher gets a lot of well-deserved flack for milking its franchises dry, but I have a feeling that whenever Guitar Hero returns, it’ll be something to watch.

Inevitably, Activision is creating a subscription service for its Call of Duty games, called Call of Duty: Elite. Also inevitably, some people are upset about that.

I fail to see the problem. Call of Duty: Elite is an added service, on top of the multiplayer action that Activision includes for free with its popular first-person shooters. It will let players create groups with other like-minded players . It will host tournaments, in which players can compete for real-world or in-game prizes. It will offer a stat-tracker for studying strategies. Users will be able to access Call of Duty: Elite through their web browsers and smartphones, and they’ll get a career record that tracks their progress from game to game.

Some of this stuff might cost money — Activision won’t specify which parts, or say how much premium membership will cost — and some will be free. Premium members will also get exclusive content and all-inclusive access to downloadable content that non-members must pay for.

Continue reading this story…

Activision gave the wrong impression when it announced in February that it would disband the Guitar Hero development team and stop working on a Guitar Hero game for 2011.

Most of the press (myself included) assumed that this meant Guitar Hero was finished, but now Activision is clearing the air. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Activision’s Dan Winters clarified that the series is on “hiatus.”

“We’re releasing products out of the vault – we’ll continue to sustain the channel, the brand won’t go away. We’re just not making a new one for next year, that’s all,” Winters said.

Continue reading this story…

Having milked the music game genre with endless iterations on Guitar Hero, Activision is bailing out.

Activision announced that it has dissolved its Guitar Hero business unit and cancelled development on a Guitar Hero game that was supposed to launch this year. The publisher blamed declining sales in the music genre as a whole.

DJ Hero may also be in jeopardy, with Eurogamer reporting severe layoffs at the franchise’s developer, Freestyle Games. DJ Hero 2, which launched in October 2010, was considered a flop.

Continue reading this story…

The good news: Sarien.net, a website that hosts free HTML5 ports of classic Sierra adventure games, will continue to operate with the blessing of Activision, which owns the rights to the games.

The bad news: The iPad adaptations of these games, which I wrote about in October, have been removed, along with any sequels to games that are part of a series.

That was the outcome of a back-and-forth between Activision and Sarien.net owner Martin Kool. When Activision got wind of Kool’s operation, the publisher’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter. Then, they offered to authorize Sarien.net as an official publisher of the first game in every Sierra adventure game series. For sequels, Kool will refer players to Steam or other venues where the games are sold as complete series.

Continue reading this story…

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Call of Duty: Black Ops’ staggering sales, which outperformed every other game in the series on its first day and set records for the entertainment industry.

Activision’s claim of 5.6 million copies sold shouldn’t be a suprise, I suppose; last year, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 set entertainment records, with 4.7 million sales in the first day. Still, I didn’t expect Black Ops to come out on top. Treyarch, the studio that developed Black Ops and 2008′s Call of Duty: World at War, was living in the shadow of Infinity Ward, which developed both Modern Warfare games. Also, video game sales as a whole are on the decline this year, suggesting less fertile ground for a yearly refresh.

So why did Black Ops prevail? Simple: Call of Duty is the blockbuster first-person shooter that no other developer is making.

Continue reading this story…

By several accounts, Call of Duty: Black Ops looks pretty awesome in 3D.

The raves are already in from journalists at USA Today, Kotaku, UGO, and Joystiq, all of whom sampled Call of Duty’s 3D effects at a preview event, and gave their approval despite a few complaints of mild discomfort. Activision announced today that the game, which arrives November 9 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, will include a 3D option for all platforms.

Enthusiasm from the press will certainly help to push interest in 3D televisions, but Call of Duty: Black Ops isn’t as gifted a 3D salesman as the film Avatar. Unlike movies, video games don’t have a theater for selling the experience.

Continue reading this story…

Activision-Blizzard Chief Executive Bobby Kotick has a novel idea, which he shared at a recent entertainment industry conference: Scrape up the cinematic interludes from video games, string them together, and sell them back to video game fans as standalone movies.

Kotick believes his company could charge $20 or $30 for the entirety of a game’s non-interactive content, according to Gamasutra. This isn’t something he expects to happen in the near future, but with improvements in computer animation, cutscenes-as-movies could become a reality within five years, Kotick said.

What a terrible idea.

Continue reading this story…

Every time an Activision executive talks about charging money to play Call of Duty games online, there’s a chorus of gamers who say the publisher’s digging its own grave. I don’t think Activision is that stupid, but I also don’t think the publisher’s detractors have fully considered how Call of Duty players might be lured to pay extra.

Subscription-based Call of Duty seems like question of “when,” not “if.” Activision-Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick told the Wall Street Journal in June that he’d like to have CoD subscriptions “tomorrow,” if he could snap his fingers and make a change. Chief Financial Officer Thomas Tippl confirmed last November that the company’s looking at more ways to monetize multiplayer. Most recently, a forum member at Xbox 360 Junkies posted video of an inactive “memberships” section while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live.

Certainly, you could interpret this as evidence that Activision will at some point cut off free, online multiplayer and demand monthly payments from the millions of people hooked on the game. But I think what’s really coming into view is a freemium service, one where the average player can still enjoy Call of Duty for free, while those who wish to pay can enjoy extra features and benefits.

Continue reading this story…

Two of the biggest names in video games, Activision and Bungie, announced an exclusive 10-year development deal today, stunning Halo fans and leaving Microsoft’s golden video game franchise at a crossroads.

The deal will maintain Bungie’s status as an independent game developer, but it will give Activision exclusive rights to publish a new gaming franchise on multiple platforms. Bungie manager Brian Jerrard told VG247 that almost the entire studio will concentrate on this new IP, and that Halo: Reach “is definitely Bungie’s final Halo game.”

That alone doesn’t mean the end of Halo, which transformed first-person shooters with innovations that are now industry standard — small things like regenerating health and big ideas like an automatic matchmaking system for online play. Microsoft owns the Halo IP, and that won’t change. Given the rabid enthusiasm Halo fans exude (we had over 1,000 responses to our Halo: Reach beta code giveaway), Microsoft will probably continue to create new Halo games in-house.

But in my eyes, Halo has always been about Bungie. They endlessly tinker with Halo’s multiplayer to keep things fresh and to refine the game based on how people are playing. The studio has cultivated a culture of fandom with an active forum and weekly updates on everything they do, and they keep a staff of community managers who are as obsessed with the series as its players.

Bungie is an independent studio, which means all of those resources and efforts will be going towards the new IP, except for a small group of employees who will support Halo: Reach after launch. If Microsoft intends to keep Halo alive with the same spirit it enjoys today, the company has some big shoes to fill.

Some really strange things happened this week between Call of Duty publisher Activision and Infinity Ward, the studio that created the franchise and developed last year’s blockbuster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Long story short: The studio’s two heads, Jason West and Vince Zampella were abruptly fired for “breaches of contract and insubordination,” according to an SEC filing. Shortly thereafter, Activision announced that one of its internal studios, Sledgehammer Games, would be making a Call of Duty game for 2011. Infinity Ward developed the last two Call of Duty games released in odd-numbered years.

It makes for high drama, but it’s mostly inside baseball. Things just got interesting, however, with the announcement of a lawsuit from West and Zampella against Activision. In addition to seeking compensation for royalties Activision allegedly owes, the former Infinity Ward heads are looking for control over “Modern Warfare-branded games,” reports G4′s Patrick Klepek.

If West and Zampella prevail, think of the implications. Activision’s already releasing Call of Duty games annually, alternating between studios to keep things fresh. Modern Warfare, as its own franchise, could theoretically become its own franchise and sit next to Call of Duty on store shelves. You could get three games with the same DNA in a two-year span (and somehow I don’t think gamers will get tired of this).

The funny thing is, last year I wildly predicted that a full Modern Warfare spinoff was conceivable. Of course I had no idea it might happen through messy internal politics and lawsuits.

The following story has a spoiler on the upcoming first-person shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It’s also a bit of a rant. But even if you avert your eyes now, the game itself will ruin the surprise for you anyway. I’ll explain:

Yesterday, some footage of Modern Warfare 2′s opening scene leaked onto the Internet. You can watch it at GameDat by clicking the video that says “modern warfare 2 leaked gameplay w/sound,” but I’ll tell you now that it sees the player playing as the enemy, experiencing their evil by gunning down scores of innocent civilians at an airport. The nature of the scene is a conversation for another day, maybe once the game’s out and I’ve had a chance to experience it. Briefly, I’ll say that I enjoy seeing video games push the envelope by making people uncomfortable.

What’s really grinding my gears today is how publisher Activision and developer Infinity Ward will handle this sensitive material in the game. Activision says players will get a warning message before the segments occur, along with the ability to opt out and skip ahead.

Who exactly is Activision trying to shelter here? Kids? If they’re playing the game unsupervised — which they shouldn’t be, per the game’s “Mature” rating — I don’t see why they’d be compelled to skip the scene. Extraordinarily squeamish adults? Oh please.

I’m reminded of the “viewer discretion is advised” messages you get before a TV show with explicit material airs, except those warnings occur at the outset of a show, so people know to change channels or make the kids go upstairs. Activision and Infinity Ward, to my knowledge, aren’t putting a warning on the box (aside from the aforementioned “Mature” rating that would’ve been there anyway). Instead, they’re essentially tapping you on the shoulder as you play and yelling, “Watch out! This scene’s going to stir your emotions!”

If you don’t think that’s silly and self-defeating, ask yourself if you’d want that to happen to you during a movie.

Cooler heads prevailed today, as mega game publisher Activision and settled a lawsuit that could’ve halted one of this year’s most promising games, the AP reports.

In June, Activision sued game developer Double Fine to stop the release of Brütal Legend, a metal-inspired action-adventure game starring the voice of Jack Black and directed by Tim Schafer, designer of The Secret of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. Activision filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles on June 4, just as Brütal Legend was receiving accolades down the road at E3.

At issue was the $15 million Activision claims it invested in the game before merging with World of Warcraft maker Blizzard Entertainment and subsequently dropping the project. After the merger, Electronic Arts took over as publisher, but Activision said that it still held rights to the game and that Double Fine didn’t deliver it on time.

Before the lawsuit, EA expressed doubt that there’d be a court battle. “That would be like a husband abandoning his family and then suing after his wife meets a better looking guy,” the company told Variety in a statement.

Activision did sue, but when it came time for the publisher to argue today why the game shouldn’t be released, Activision instead told the court that the lawsuit was settled. Attorneys didn’t return the AP’s calls, so I don’t think we’ll ever learn the settlement details.

This is great news. I’m no metal fan, but I still appreciated Brütal Legend’s wry humor during the lengthy playable demo at E3. Combine that with its 3D/cartoon art style, puzzle-solving, driving and button-mashing, and Brütal Legend at least looks like a break from the usual generic shooters and beat-em-ups. I’m looking forward to playing it in October.

If you like playing video games, and tend to snoop around a lot in the dark, Activision’s got a proposition for you.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s Prestige Edition was revealed today, and it includes night vision goggles — not replica goggles that look good on your mantle, but fully-functioning, paint-everything-green night vision specs.

Mum’s the word on pricing for the package, which also includes typical collector’s edition fare such as a book of concept art. Most Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 console games cost $60, with collector’s editions often costing $80 or higher. The inclusion of night vision goggles in Modern Warfare 2′s Prestige Edition will likely drive the price way up.

Limited edition video game packages never appealed to me, as someone who tries to be frugal about gaming. When a special bundle costs more than $100, that’s money you could’ve spent on an oldie but goodie in the bargain bin. I’d rather have that than a Master Chief helmet on my mantle, but I understand the value in showing your gamer cred.

Still, night vision goggles? Those don’t even look good on display — despite the included head sculpture — unless your living room features a mannequin in military garb.

So my challenge is this: If anyone here is considering the Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Pack, please justify your purchase. I genuinely want to know what use for night vision goggles you have in mind. Only then can I understand where video game fandom ends and total ridiculousness begins.

In a perfect world, Activision’s next war-based first-person shooter would be called “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2: The Sequel: The Game.” Then, we could laugh even more heartily at the contrived nature of this video game title.

Instead, the once-proud Modern Warfare 2 is being renamed to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a change that stresses the game’s roots in the wildly popular Call of Duty franchise. For reference, the game’s predecessor was dubbed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, so it’s just a numerical switcheroo.

Activision hasn’t said this flat-out, but it seems to me like a branding issue, and that seems more obvious considering an apparent loss of name awareness that occured. Besides, when you’ve got a name brand that’s six titles strong and gaining new audiences every year — not counting expansion packs and console ports, but counting last year’s Call of Duty: World at War — why mess with it? Call of Duty’s got the mainstream appeal that few first-person shooters enjoy, thanks to its recognizable real-world settings and popcorn action.

But changing the upcoming sequel’s name carries baggage. Instead of spinning Modern Warfare into its own successful franchise, it remains shackled to an existing, and rather old, series. In addition, this makes it harder for Activision to grow both series independently.

I’m wading into wacky prediction territory here, but don’t believe there can’t be a holiday season with Modern Warfare and Call of Duty games selling side-by-side. The upcoming glut of “Hero” music games — DJ Hero, Band Hero and Guitar Hero: Van Halen are all coming this year — shows Activision’s willingness to exploit successful franchises. Call of Duty games could be next, and while part of that will entail making Modern Warfare different enough to stand alone as a game, it all starts with the name.