411 Games Fact or Fiction 07.19.11: PopCap, Modern Warfare 3 and More

Posted by Adam Larck on 07.19.2011

Is Infinity Ward doing the smart thing by having exploiters work on patching glitches in Modern Warfare 3? Was PopCap a great buy for EA? Will the lawsuit over the Nintendo 3DS' display be dropped? 411’s Trace Aber and Jeremy Thomas debate these questions and more in this week’s 411 Fact or Fiction: Games!

Welcome back to another week of 411 Games Fact or Fiction. I'm Adam Larck, and I've been blowing things up in Ms. Splosion Man. Other than that, I've been trying to go through my library and finish up some games.

This week, we have Jeremy Thomas and Trace Aber going head-to-head. Let's see how these two do. Time for banner!





1.) EA acquiring PopCap is a great move to help try and put EA over Activision.

Trace Aber - Fiction: I think EA acquiring PopCap was a great move overall for EA, but I'm not sure if this helps them in their battle against Activision. Don't get me wrong, I loved Bejeweled, Plants Vs Zombies and Peggle (I've put more hours into Peggle than I care to admit), but I don't think these games are enough to overtake Activision, even if they are wildly popular.

Jeremy Thomas - Fact: I think it's a great move to help try, but I don't think it'll do the job. Activision is a pretty hefty monster right now and while EA is doing some good stuff, it's gonna take more than Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle and Bejeweled to put them over the top. I think it's a good step by EA in the battle and it will help them in the war against Activision so it is FACT, but they will need to do a little bit more to surpass their rivals.

Score: 0 for 1 - If they can pair this purchase with a great showing by Battlefield 3, we may see EA gain a lot of ground this year.



2.) It surprises you that Zynga didn't get PopCap for $1 billion, according to reports.

Trace Aber - Fiction: From what I understand PopCap wanted better benefits over money, and that's what EA offered. Besides, it's not like $650 million is chump change anyways. Despite them being known for casual games, I think PopCap would rather be associated with a brand like EA than Zynga anyways.

Jeremy Thomas - Fiction: It doesn't surprise me one bit. If I were the owners of PopCap and had built my company up from the ground and I had my option between a behemoth like EA offering $650 million (and up to $1.3 billion based on benefits) or a company like Zynga, who are no more established than my company offering $1 billion, I'd go with EA too. First off, I have no doubt that PopCap's investors are confident in their company's ability to reach the milestones needed to hit the top level of the payout. Aside from that, it's a simple matter that if you have a stake invested in PopCap you want to see it continue on and do well. Zynga's great with Facebook games, but when you're talking about games outside the social media platform…that's a whole different monster. PopCap made the right choice here and no, I'm not surprised that Zynga got turned down.

Score: 1 for 2 - I'm not surprised, I just want to know how long the Zynga offer had been on the table before EA made their offer.



3.) Infinity Ward will be able to get most of the glitches out of Modern Warfare 3 by using glitchers to test for them.

Trace Aber - Fact: I don't know how modern glitches work (though I have a decent understanding of SNES/Genesis era glitches), but I don't see why this wouldn't work out. Obviously they won't catch every glitch in the system, but these guys seem to love glitching as a lifestyle. They should know how to catch the major ones. Though, now that I think about it, maybe they'll discover some but not report them because, hey, they'll still want to glitch.

Jeremy Thomas - Fact: The key word here is "most." I think that glitchers will get a wide majority of the glitches out but I am enough of a cynic to think they'll leave a few obscure holes for them to exploit. The good news is that IW isn't stupid enough to only rely on glitchers and exploiters. They'll have the glitchers do the heavy work and then they'll go through with a fine tooth comb and patch up what they can find in what's left. Listen, glitchers are people who cheat and utilize the software in ways it isn't intended to be used in to get an advantage. That being the case, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be put under a lot of suspicion. I'm positive that IW knows this, and they'll have things in place to keep the glitchers from leaving their own little holes peppered through the game, and I think they'll be fine.

Score: 2 for 3 - It's an interesting strategy to try and get glitches out, but I'll have to see how it plays out for Infinity Ward.

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4.) It's nice to see Modern Warfare 3 getting a color blind assist option.

Jeremy Thomas - Fact: Being that I live with someone who has visual impairment, I love seeing any sort of improved accessibility options made available for games and other forms of entertainment. There are a lot of potential game players who have visual or aural impairment and IW is wise to try and court any extra potential players. This is a smart move by the game makers and I would love to see more companies do things like this.

Trace Aber - Fact: Absolutely. Everyone should have a level playing field when playing online, and I don't imagine incorporating the assist option was that difficult. Win-win for everybody.

Score: 3 for 4 - It's always good to see when companies go the extra step for gamers.



5.) Tomita Technologies lawsuit against Nintendo for the 3DS display will be dropped.

Jeremy Thomas - Fact: This is a semantic argument, but I think it will be settled which results in the suit ultimately being dropped. Nintendo's not going to risk this one going poorly for them when they have a potential cash cow in the 3DS, so their lawyers will talk to Tomita's lawyers and something will be worked out. This isn't even a case of whether Tomita or Nintendo is in the right; it's simply a fact that things are vague enough that no one will want to roll the dice.

Trace Aber - Fact: Either dropped or settled out of court. Everytime a story breaks out like this I get really interested in the possibilities, only to late find out that nothing really came out of it. I mean, I don't wish ill on any company, but interesting news is interesting. But, yeah, nothing will come of this that will have any significant impact.

Score: 4 for 5 - I'm not even sure if Nintendo will have to settle. This suit may get thrown out before it gets rolling.



6.) Physical retail sales will continue to be the majority of game sales for at least a few more years.

Jeremy Thomas - Fact: You just have to look at the music industry, which is the precedence-maker in terms of physical media vs. digital, to see that physical media has several years left. A recent report came out that while downloads are getting all the attention, people are still buying the physical discs. It's the same for the video game industry. Personally, I tend toward downloads over physical media but I'm also not in the majority. Cloud-based media is going to make large gains for digital sales, because it eliminates one of the primary fears of people going digital—that a hard drive crash will cause them to lose everything. But the majority people are still not ready to make that leap and probably won't for a few more years.

Trace Aber - Fact: Unless all bandwidth caps are lifted and the prices become more reasonable for console sales, I don't see this happening for another five to six years. PC pretty much has it down right, but consoles are dragging their feet in the mud when it comes to reasonable prices. There's always going to be the problem of bandwidth caps until companies quit being assholes, but that's a whole other debate.

Score: 5 for 6 - Cell phone games and DLC may start taking more of a chunk of sales, but disc-based games will be the mainstay for awhile still.



Bonus Question) PopCap's content will suffer by not being an independent company.

Jeremy Thomas - Fiction: I'm not of the opinion that independent automatically means worse. Sure, not being answerable to a mega-corporation means that you have creative freedom, but creative freedom can produce crap games just as much as it can produce great games. I think that being part of a greater whole will ultimately benefit PopCap's content more than it will hurt it; they may have a couple games that could have become great fall by the wayside, but they'll have a lot of crap games culled at the nascent stage as well. Let's face it; PopCap has some great stuff but anyone who played PopCap games way back when will remember that they used to have a lot of other games which were just terrible. We won't be seeing nearly as many of those with someone else keeping their eyes on the situation.

Trace Aber - Fact: I hope not. I do expect some subtle changes, perhaps in presentation or overall package, but I don't think it will be drastic. There will, of course, be a handful of people who will complain anyways, thinking any change made in their games is because EA is evil and everything. Ahh, the internet.

Adam Larck - Fiction: I really don't think their content will suffer. Some extra features may get added or moved around, but I think they'll be allowed as much time as they need to finish what they want. EA knows PopCap can move casual games huge, so why rush it. As long as they get money, EA will keep away from their content and let PopCap do what's best.

The pair finish this week going 5-for-6. What do you think? Agree or disagree with their answers? Let us know. See you in seven!