Activision Blizzard Announces Guitar Hero 5, New Call of Duty 85
MTV's Multiplayer Blog reports on recent announcements from Activision Blizzard which confirm that sequels to several popular franchises are on the way. The games include a new Guitar Hero, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and a new Tony Hawk, which will use some kind of non-standard controller. "At the meeting, Activision Blizzard showcased new games that would make sense for in-game ads, including the vaguely titled "Guitar Hero 5," which included a screen shot of gameplay with a Burger King ad to the right of the note highway."
Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Awesome! Not only do I get crappy, mediocre sequels to successful franchises but I also get Burger King Ads!? Fuck! America is awesome!
Re:Game pricing with ads (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, how would the world survive if the team behind such original franchises as Warcraft II, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, Diablo II, and the upcoming Diablo III and Starcraft 2.1, Starcraft 2.2 and Starcraft 2.3 was ever reduced to chain-sequel-churning?
Re:I don't like this Activision Blizzard name (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's adequate grounds for not playing that game.
If the games have ads in, they will know how many people play them. If lots of people play them, they will make more games with ads in. If fewer people play them, they will abandon the idea.
That's all the more reason not to play the games! If they make money out of pirates, then an ad-infested game might end up being more profitable than one that respects its players. Then everyone would start putting ads in their games. Is that really the outcome you want?
Excuses - a rant (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned, having advertising rammed down your throats in a game that retails for $60 is adequate grounds for piracy. After all they're still going to make money off of you.
You know, I swear half of Slashdot keeps its fingers crossed for someone to do something objectionable with something they'd like to buy, just so they've got an "excuse" to pirate it. Every time someone does something that goes against the Slashdot groupthink - DRM, advertising, supporting the RIAA, saying they don't want people warezing their stuff, reporting statistics saying whatever they make has a high piracy rate - there's always a load of people who come out with "Well I guess that means I have to pirate it."
It's like a little kid faced with a huge cake, which he really, really wants, then he sees it has an expiration date of today. And he sees the date and sorta says, out loud, so nobody is in any doubt as to that he really doesn't want to, "Oh well, I guess I'll just HAVE to eat this delicious cake all by myself, because the cake-maker's actions have FORCED ME TO." Of course, we all know what the kid's original intention was, and the expiration date was just as convenient an excuse as possible. Same with this.
Examples:
"Ads? In my game?! NO THANKS! I'll pirate instead!"
"SecuROM? Really? I guess The Pirate Bay will be getting MY business!"
"Guitar Hero Eleventybillion doesn't have CCR's Fortunate Son? Warez time!"
"They're not releasing for Linux?! To Mininova?"
"They won't produce downloads in the obscure format and insanely high bitrate which I demand?! Well, I'll just download the MP3 instead! They should listen to their customers, i.e. me."
"RIAA doesn't care about quality! So I'm gonna download this album because it's probably going to be crap anyway." (Real argument - my response is that if you know it's shitty, why are you downloading it?!)
Urgh. You fool nobody. While I don't like piracy in general, I have more of a respect for people who come right out and say they just want the Hot New Shinies for free, rather than trying to look like Gandhi with some shitty little protest - a protest which conveniently allows them to get Hot New Shinies for free.
Rant over.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, thank god for capitalism and free markets.
You can always take your business elsewhere.