411 Games Fact or Fiction 11.29.11 Call of Duty, BioWare, EA and More
Posted by Adam Larck on 11.29.2011
Will the bans on Modern Warfare 3 do anything to stop hacking? Is the teaser for BioWare's next game disappointing? Is it surprising that over a million people have paid for Call of Duty Elite? 411’s Armando Rodriguez and Justin Weinblatt debate these questions and more in this week’s 411 Fact or Fiction: Games!
Welcome back readers. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. I'm Adam Larck, and I picked up a few games for cheap on Black Friday, along with Saints Row: The Third as a birthday gift for myself. Even with three new games, I'm still putting a ton of time into Skyrim.
This week, we have Armando Rodriguez and Justin Weinblatt going head-to-head. Let's see how these two do. Time for banner!
1.) You're surprised over a million have paid for Call of Duty Elite, considering its launch was broken.
Justin Weinblatt - Fiction: Considering that Call of Duty map packs each sell millions of copies, nothing COD related surprises me anymore. Activision have their customers ass up and wallet open. As long as they're willing to pay for these ridiculous things, then Activision will happily take their money.
Armando Rodriguez - Fiction: There is a huge segment of the gaming population that is so hooked on CoD that they would buy ANYTHING related to the franchise. With the dedicated online community and the promise of Elite as the ultimate hub to showcase how good or awful you are at the game it's no wonder people paid for it. I still think it is too expensive for what it offers, but according to the rest of the world I know nothing!
Score: 1 for 1 - I'm not surprised given the diehard fans, but a bit disappointed, as this again shows companies they can release a broken product at launch and fans don't care.
2.) The 1,600+ bans for Modern Warfare 3 won't do a thing to stop the hacking.
Justin Weinblatt - Fiction: You're never going to stop hacking completely, but the more aggressive you are at fighting it, the less of a problem it will be. The massive coverage the banning has gotten won't stop the hardcore hackers, but it might give the more casual hackers a few moments of pause.
Armando Rodriguez - Fact: The bans happen for every major online release, be it CoD, Halo or Battlefield and people keep hacking. It seems these hackers have some sort of unlimited money tree that allows them to buy new consoles whenever they get banned or something. In the end, this will do nothing to stop hackers.
Score: 1 for 2 - If they could ever get the hacking problem under control, I would be amazed.
3.) Game companies shouldn't support the Stop Online Piracy Act until the government limits the amount that can be banned.
Justin Weinblatt - Fiction: Just looking at the top 4 pirated Wii games of 2010 we have around four and a half million downloaded Nintendo games. If a quarter of those pirates would have actually downloaded the game, that's about 50 million dollars in lost revenue. And that's just the top four games. Even sadder is that Red Steel 2 was downloaded more times than it was actually purchased in stores.
As an average citizen, I hope the bill fails. If I were the president of one of those companies? I'd support that sucker 100 percent. Their job is to protect their company's interests. The rest of society is a distant second.
Armando Rodriguez - Fact: This act goes against all of our constitutional rights and threatens to turn the USA into a controlled media country much like North Korea and China. Is that what we really want? This doesn't stop at games, this means they can ban any site they like and stop the spread of information that they feel is not "fair" to the government or the interests of the USA. Terrible law, terrible act and we better stop this now.
Score: 1 for 3 - It sounds like a good idea in theory to stop piracy, but the law is still way too vague to be of any use besides just controlling sites.
4.) The EA lawsuit regarding Battlefield 1943 will go nowhere (Note: questions went to the writers before EA corrected the problem itself).
Armando Rodriguez - Fact: It will go nowhere because EA already agreed to give Battlefield 1943 for free to Battlefield 3 users. In a way, it served its purpose I guess, but I bet it will be dismissed now.
Justin Weinblatt - Fiction: EA's already announced plans to give out vouchers for Battlefield 1943, so I guess this one has to be fiction.
Score: 1 for 4 - I'm surprised EA followed through on this honestly, but I guess they didn't want to face the backlash.
5.) The tease for BioWare's next game is disappointing.
Armando Rodriguez - Fact: It looks like another Battlefield/CoD clone and do we really need another one of those? I have my fingers crossed for some sort of current day setting, war-centered RPG, but I know it is highly unlikely. Maybe with a Mass Effect conversation system?
Justin Weinblatt - No Answer: All I know about the game is that there will be tanks and explosions. It's hard to form an opinion based on that little information. I know that a lot of people are already up in arms about Bioware abandoning their roots to make a war game, but let's chill out and wait for more info before we pass judgment
Score: 1 for 5 - I'm glad it looks like they're trying a new IP (or an IP EA already owns), but I would have loved to see a return from Jade Empire.
6.) You donate to any of the groups supporting the Child's Play charity.
Armando Rodriguez - Fiction: I WOULD donate, but unfortunately I didnt have a job for most of the year and recently started working regularly again. Maybe next year if I am blessed enough to have a job that lasts me for some time.
Justin Weinblatt - Fact: I download the Humble Indy Bundles that support those charities. Does that count?
Score: 1 for 6 - Yes it does Justin, because that's what I do as well.
Bonus Question) With the big game surge now over, what are you currently playing?
Armando Rodriguez - Skyrim is taking my time right now, but I still occasionally play Arkham City in my attempts to get 100% and I still have Uncharted 3 and Battlefield 3 on my tab. Plus, I have been playing the shit out of Civilization V now that I finally have a computer capable of running it. Man, so many games, so little time!
Justin Weinblatt - Just finished Arkham City, and I'm working on Zelda and Mario 3D Land. I have Rayman Origins sitting in its pretty box waiting to be played.
Adam Larck - Skyrim is my big game currently, but I'm also putting a lot of time into Saints Row: The Third as well. I'm also trying to go back and finish up Gears of War 3 and Arkham City, and am even checking out Battlefield 3. Finally, I'm contemplating finally taking the plunge on MineCraft, but think I have enough to tide me over for now.
The pair finish this week going 1-for-6. What do you think? Agree or disagree with their answers? Let us know. See you in seven!
The SOPA freaking scares me as a citizen. I can only hope and pray that it doesn't go through because if it does, the constitution will be effectively toilet paper.
Posted By: Guest#9352 (Guest) on November 28, 2011 at 11:14 PM
At first glance, BioWare's new game does look like another Battlefield/CoD clone, and it's really no surprise. BioWare's desire to cash in on the popularity of such games has already been made evident. Mass Effect 2 was "streamlined" to make it more appealing to shooters, and one of the new characters in ME3, James Vega, looks like a baby-faced, space marine version of Soap MacTavish. Hopefully this new game won't be as much a clone as it seems. We'll see.
Posted By: NoLifeKing66 (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 12:25 AM
"If a quarter of those pirates would have actually downloaded the game, that's about 50 million dollars in lost revenue."
That's horrific logic, and in a just society you would be castrated Justin. You can't apply the industry's magical "lost revenue" algorithm to piracy. They didn't lose anything.
seriously, i hope you go and take the time to sterilize yourself.
Posted By: Guest#7569 (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 01:53 AM
The BioWare game is going to be the new Command & Conquer. How anyone got CoD/Battlefield from that trailer is beyond me.
Posted By: Guest#5344 (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 07:24 AM
First off, i must say i love the fact or fiction articles on this site. I tend to read the games, movies/tv, and mma ones every week and sometimes read the music one as well. Very good idea, love the contrast of opinions on different matters.
Second, the whole Piracy Act. Piracy was a huge deal back in the early 90's. People making copies of new cd's or movies and selling them on the streets was bad. And gaming piracy is growing at a supposedly alarming rate. But first off, just because someone pirates a game, doesnt mean that the company doesnt make any money, for instance, i have three xbox 360's. One of them is modded, the others are not.my friends and i play duty religiously, and i do have a burned copy, but i also have two real copies. So money was definately made off of me.
Now the real thing that hurts gaming is used sales. When Gamestop sells a used game, the companies involved with making said gane are paid avsolutely nothing. Now we all know that Gamestop pushes used sales hard, so obviously this is an issue, i believe more so than piracy, at least with piracy, no one is making money off the game, used sales are just luke oiracy from a developers perspective. Someone gets the game without the developer or publisher making a cent. Thats why online passes were invented. Think about it. New game, pass included $60 plus tax $65. Used game $55 plus tax, $60, plus $10 online pass. $70. And of that $70: the game makers made $10. Gamestop made $55. How bout if that game gets traded in again? How many times does one game get traded in and resold? Piracy doesnt cost a developer anywhere near as much as used sales do. Then conaider that used sales arent factored in to the titles overall sales, thus making it look less successful cough*heavy rain*cough. Dont be suproirsed to see an increase in online pass prices to further damage used sales.
Posted By: StopThePiracyAct (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 07:49 AM
Yes, used sales affect the game industry greatly, but if you go to your local Half-Price Books, local CD store, (if you have one) Movie Trading Co, and more stores like that the Music industry and Movie industry go through the same thing with used sales. Every electronic industry has them, and Gamestop just happens to make a lot of money because just like in every electronic industry, many people don't want to pay 60 dollars for a game. You can buy 3 new DVD's, 2 Blu-Ray's, and possibly even 6 CD's for the price of one game. Gamestop makes a lot of money because they make expensive games affordable for normal people. Piracy hurts every industry, look at the way it's killed the music industry that's only being saved because of places like I-Tunes and Rhapsody. Movies every week get pirated and that keeps people from going to theater because they can just find someone that already has this new movie on DVD. They have regulated Redbox and Netflix stream to being not very important and if they get new movies it's a month after their release in stores. Forcing you to either pay a lot of money at blockbuster, or buying the DVD if you want to see the movie when it first comes out in stores, or go buy a theater ticket. And the movie industry may have hurt itself by regulating Redbox. Trust me, the game industry would suffer greatly if Gamestop wasn't around. Think about all those games that wouldn't get played because people can't buy every game that comes out. But they can go to their local Gamestop and spend time in their looking for something to play they may never even think about touching because it's not expensive.
Piracy affects games just as much as used sales do, just because pirates buy the game or buy a system doesn't mean that what they are doing is ok, most people can't mod their consoles to play burned games, and you shouldn't be able to do that either.
Posted By: Sean Garmer (Registered) on November 29, 2011 at 09:24 AM
Piracy affects games just as much as used sales do, just because pirates buy the game or buy a system doesn't mean that what they are doing is ok, most people can't mod their consoles to play burned games, and you shouldn't be able to do that either.
Posted By: Sean Garmer (Registered) on November 29, 2011 at 09:24 AM
In the 1970's, the introduction of the audio cassette was deemed as the end of music. That was 40 years ago.
In the 1980's, Jack Valenti went before Congress to try and have the Video Cassette Recorder removed from shelves, because it would lead to the end of television as we know it.
Both music and television have survived, the movie industry is breaking financial records year after year, and video game sales from launch to a year down the road for any given title equals triple the development and publishing cost.
The right of the American and, in my case, the Canadian people to information is NOT worth the cost to freedom that bills like these offer in return.
The numbers that some people spew out against piracy are the numbers that the industries want you to believe.
Just look at any table showing the highest grossing games of the last decade.
The first thing one must learn, as a rational human being in this day and age, is to never believe what a corporation tells you.
Ever.
Posted By: Darth Mortis (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 10:46 AM
"I'm not surprised given the diehard fans, but a bit disappointed, as this again shows companies they can release a broken product at launch and fans don't care."
Dude, come on. Didn't gamestop report over 750,000 Elite sales? I'm guessing most of those were bought before the reported problems with Elite.
Posted By: huh? (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 11:32 AM
I fail to see how $15 for a map pack I get many hours out of playing the maps on vs. $15 for a game extension that adds three hours of story means the map pack is a ripoff and the story extension isn't.
Posted By: Jared B. (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 12:43 PM
Also the article acts like Elite is going to have problems FOREVER. Most people are buying Elite since it's $50 and 4 DLC map packs are $60 so actually it makes good sense if you know you will buy all the DLC. I spent 45 dollars on the first three map packs on Black Ops and won Rezurrection from a giveaway by Turtle Beach, but really, I would've probably just given them $50 up front to have the Elite service on top of those maps. Believe it or not, for those of us with jobs $50 doesn't break the bank.
Posted By: Jared B. (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 01:02 PM
That's horrific logic, and in a just society you would be castrated Justin. You can't apply the industry's magical "lost revenue" algorithm to piracy. They didn't lose anything.
seriously, i hope you go and take the time to sterilize yourself.
Posted By: Guest#7569 (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 01:53 AM
And what's your logic?
If you created a game and discovered that more people downloaded it for free instead of paying for it, driving you to bankruptcy, you wouldn't want to see pirates dealt with?
I understand that those people probably weren't going to pay for it anyway, but that isn't a free pass to steal.
Posted By: Dynomite (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 03:24 PM
So out of the millions of people playing call of duty, none of you three "critics" play the game?
It certainly appears that your site could use a little more diversity. It's sad it to think that you have nobody working on this site that represents those millions of people...
Posted By: Guest#2056 (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 05:13 PM
"
Also the article acts like Elite is going to have problems FOREVER. Most people are buying Elite since it's $50 and 4 DLC map packs are $60 so actually it makes good sense if you know you will buy all the DLC. I spent 45 dollars on the first three map packs on Black Ops and won Rezurrection from a giveaway by Turtle Beach, but really, I would've probably just given them $50 up front to have the Elite service on top of those maps. Believe it or not, for those of us with jobs $50 doesn't break the bank."
Posted By: Jared B. (Guest) on November 29, 2011 at 01:02 PM
I've been preaching about the price of DLC since World at War. $15 is NOT a bad price. The people that continue to bitch about it and "boycott" still run out and get it. How $15 is way too much money, but if you have a fuckin' JOB, then what's $15? Sure, most of the fatasses have to sacrifice ONE trip to McDonalds for a month, it's ok. Get off your ass and mow some lawns, or just do what most of the kiddie gamers do, ask their mom.
Posted By: CryptoBiz (Registered) on November 29, 2011 at 07:53 PM
@Crypto Biz/JaredB-
By that same logic, I might as well buy horse armor for 2 bucks right? I mean hey its two bucks, and I have a job, so why not? Yeah 15 dollars isn't that much money, but then again, neither is 20. Thirty dollars isn't that much either. In fact, I'm doing OK. I can pay 50 dollars for a map pack and still pay the rent. Where do you draw the line?
I dunno about you, but even though I have a job I still have a finite amount of money to spend on video games. If I bought every game I wanted this past month (Rayman Origins, Battlefield 3, MW3, Sonic Generations, Super Mario 3D Land, Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Mario Kart 7, Arkham City, Saints Row 3, Skyrim, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3) I'm looking at around $450 dollars. Throw COD Elite in there, and I'm at about $500. I can't buy everything, so sacrifices have to be made. So, should I pay 50 dollars for an overpriced stat tracking system which comes with some overpriced maps down the line, or should I use that 50 dollars towards games like Skyrim, Zelda, and Arkham City which are packed with content? Easy call to me.
@Dynomite- To think that every piece of software downloaded represents a lost sale is silly, but thinking that game companies don't lose any revenue based on games sales is even sillier. Some portion of those people would have downloaded the game. How many is anybody's guess.
@Guest- We're always looking for new writers so you can always go for it.
@Stop The Piracy Act-
Used gaming is certainly an issue, but the difference is in volume. If one person trades in a game to Gamestop it may mean one less new sale. But, one uploaded copy could be downloaded an unlimited amount of times.
As for the idea that pirates still by stuff, sometimes yes sometimes no. Take me for instance. I used to buy a couple of CDs a month. Since p2p systems arrived, I've purchased a grand total of 2 CDs (never said I was a saint). Would I have purchased every album that I downloaded? No. Would I have downloaded some of them? Yes.
@Darth- The numbers I pulled up were from a private torrent tracking company. Nintendo would probably not want to mention piracy at all.
The difference between VCRs and the internet is the sheer volume of it all. How many bootleg tapes can be made in a day? How many copies of MW3 can be downloaded in a day? We've never really seen any medium quite like the internet before.
Using game sales to show that piracy is not hurting the industry is a vast oversimplification. The gaming industry is relatively young and is still expanding at a phenomenal rate. Of course, the rate of growth is going to eclipse the rate of piracy. But, that doesn't mean that piracy is not having an impact on the industry.
Posted By: Justin Weinblatt (Registered) on November 30, 2011 at 01:28 AM
It's a strawman to compare the very usable maps to the very useless horse armor. And COD Elite seems to make more sense than buying all those games at once. You're only going to get time for so many games, so it makes sense to buy the ones you want to play the most now and wait for price drops on the other. Most of the games you listed will retail for half or even less than their current MSRP within 3 or 4 months. There is no way you will work through all those games in that time, especially if you have a job.
Posted By: Jared B. (Guest) on November 30, 2011 at 04:13 PM
It's a strawman to compare the very usable maps to the very useless horse armor. And COD Elite seems to make more sense than buying all those games at once. You're only going to get time for so many games, so it makes sense to buy the ones you want to play the most now and wait for price drops on the other. Most of the games you listed will retail for half or even less than their current MSRP within 3 or 4 months. There is no way you will work through all those games in that time, especially if you have a job.
Posted By: Jared B. (Guest) on November 30, 2011 at 04:13 PM
My point is that it's not all about price, it's about value. Just because you could afford something doesn't mean you should buy it if you could get more value elsewhere. Granted, the map packs are a better value than horse value, but you could still get a lot more for 15 bucks.
I'm not going to buy every game right away (neither the time nor the money), but that doesn't change things too much. If anything, that makes the value of a map pack even more poor. By the time the map packs come out I'd probably be able to pick up Rayman or Sonic for about 30 bucks.
Any way you slice it, I don't think that 15 dollars for a map pack is a good deal. Think about it this way. If Activision is able to offer 4 map packs, some more DLC, and membership to the Elite service for a year for only 50 bucks... it just goes to show that they're highballing you on the maps.
Posted By: Justin Weinblatt (Registered) on November 30, 2011 at 06:32 PM
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