You should probably still protect your password.
Continue reading “Call Of Duty Hasn’t Been Hacked, Says Activision”
Tag: Call of Duty
NM: Black Ops Cold War Alpha Isn’t Quite Free In Japan/Germany
You’ll need to do something extra.
Continue reading “NM: Black Ops Cold War Alpha Isn’t Quite Free In Japan/Germany”
Hotcakes: Nothing Says Sincere Like An Apology Under Duress
And people making cheats for emotionally stunted manbabies.
Continue reading “Hotcakes: Nothing Says Sincere Like An Apology Under Duress”
Streaming Buddies: Activision Blizzard Partners With Google Cloud
Google and Activision Blizzard today announced that the two companies will be joining forces to power new player experiences. Activision Blizzard will use Google Cloud services to power their game hosting infrastructures while Youtube will play exclusive host to live broadcasts of eSports and other events (excluding China). In other words, Youtube will be hosting Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone, and others.
Call of Duty’s inaugural league kicks off today (January 24) at 2p.m. PST where twelve teams will face off in Minnesota with Overwatch League following on February 8.
“We’ve worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience,” said Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud. “We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world.”
Activision boasts that the cloud will allow gamers to play their favorite titles with low latency and packet loss.
“This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world,” said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. “It’s our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube’s powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment.”
Source: Press Release
Tyler Barriss Convicted, Could Be Sentenced to 20+ Years
Los Angeles resident and soon-to-be long term prisoner Tyler Barriss has entered into a plea deal in federal court in Kansas and is facing a sentence of at least twenty years. Barriss previously pled guilty to his role in orchestrating a swatting incident which resulted in the death of a Wichita man at the hands of local police officers. In addition to this charge, Barriss also pled guilty to a hoax bomb threat in the District of Columbia and 46 counts of making false bomb threats against high schools, universities, shopping malls, and TV stations in more than a dozen states. Nobody was injured in those other cases.
In the Wichita case, authorities are still pressing charges against Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, two co-defendants whose feud over Call of Duty led to Viner requesting the swatting hoax from Barriss with Gaskill providing the fake address.
Sentencing is set for January 30. Barriss is 25, meaning he will be close to if not over 50 by the time his sentence has been fully served.
(Source: Justice.gov)
Federal Charges Filed Against Tyler Barriss And Accomplices In Witchita Swatting
Last December we reported on Tyler Barriss, a 25 year old who goes by the handle “Swautistic,” who was arrested after admitting that he called in the fake 911 call that ultimately lead to the death of 28 year old Andrew Thomas Finch. Barriss was arrested to be charged with calling in the hoax, and potentially for his part in the death of Andrew Finch. Last we left off, it didn’t appear that any punitive action would be taken against the two other individuals involved in the hoax, either the person who ‘hired’ Barriss to call the police or the Call of Duty player that gave Barriss the fake address.
Well this week a federal indictment was unsealed against Tyler Barriss as well as Casey Viner, 18 of North College Hill, Ohio, and Shane Gaskill, 19 of Witchita, Kansas. Barriss’ charges include making false/hoax reports to emergency services, cyberstalking, making interstate threats, making interstate threats to harm by fire, wire fraud and conspiracy to make false/hoax reports. Viner’s charges include wire fraud, conspiracy to make false/hoax reports, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice while Gaskill is being charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and wire fraud.
If convicted, all three defendants face severe jail time and financial damages, with Tyler Barriss facing multiple life sentences for making a hoax call to emergency services and cyberstalking both leading to the death of another.
(Source: Indictment)
Police Arrest 25 Year Old Tyler Barriss Over Deadly Swatting Prank
The Los Angeles Police Department has taken 25 year old Tyler Barriss into custody in connection with a deadly prank that culminated in the loss of a life earlier this week. Barriss, of Los Angeles, is being charged with a prank called “swatting,” in this case Barriss told the police that a man had been killed and his family held hostage.
Barriss had allegedly called in the false threat over a lost bet while playing Call of Duty. Finch was not involved in the game, the intended victim gave Barriss a fake address. The total sum of the wager was $2.
When 28 year old Andrew Thomas Finch answered the door, he was shot and killed by one police officer. The officer in question has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. Finch was the father of two, and his children were not in the house at the time of the incident.
Barriss was arrested two years ago after sending bomb threats to ABC Studios. Police may find prosecution an easy task as Barriss appeared in an interview with Youtube personality Keemstar which appears to be a full confession of him calling in the prank.
A Gofundme for Finch’s funeral bills has gained nearly eight thousand dollars as of this publishing.
(Source: KWCH12)
Charturday: How Call of Duty Fares on Steam
With the recent launch of Call of Duty: WW2, I thought I’d dedicate the first Charturday to looking into how the series has performed on Steam where the game has been decidedly less popular than its console cousins. Black Ops 3, for instance, performed poorly enough on PC that Activision introduced a multiplayer only starter pack for $15 to get people playing. Infinite Warfare and its packed-in Modern Warfare Remastered appear to have completely bombed on the system as well at least in terms of Call of Duty numbers, peaking at 15,000 and 1,300 respectively. Battleborn, by comparison, peaked at 12,000.
World War 2, on the other hand, seems to have attracted a lot of support. Its peak statistics haven’t risen to the levels of Treyarch success, that being Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 3, but they are decidedly higher than both Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered several times over. Regardless, if you were looking to pick up Call of Duty and were afraid of it being dead on PC right out of launch, well consider those fears put to rest for the time being.
Call of Duty Gets Slammed In Steam Ratings In Open Beta
The Call of Duty World War 2 beta is officially live on PC, and Steam players are not happy. Just hours into the beta being available, the game is already sinking in reviews with 30% (of more than five thousand reviews) as of this writing having a positive outlook on the title. While there are plenty of reviews that are simply trolling or missing context, the general contention among the crowd of haters relates to performance issues, matchmaking problems, and the game just generally being “another Call of Duty.”
A thread has popped up on the forums asking players for bug reports regarding performance issues. It appears that the developers are paying attention, and are not happy with the early review scores, noting:
NOTE: Please don’t review the game without actually giving it a try, it’s unfair to the developers when you rate a game beacuse of an issue that could very well be your own.
The latest Call of Duty title is going to have to work hard to bring PC users back after Infinite Warfare virtually bombed on the system in 2016. Steam charts show that Infinite Warfare peaked at 15,312 on launch, barely three thousand more than Battleborn. Its accompanying title, Modern Warfare Remastered, peaked at just under 1,400 on launch. Both titles carry a “mostly negative” rating with less than 40% positive reviews, and Modern Warfare Remastered has dropped below a full Battlefield server in terms of peak concurrent users. Raven Software, who worked on the PC version of Infinite Warfare, is also working on the PC version of WW2. Steam Spy suggests that less than half a million people own Infinite Warfare on Steam.
[Column] Black Ops III And Genius Marketing
Call of Duty is one of those franchises that never sees coverage here at MMO Fallout, for obvious reasons. With that in mind, I need to take a moment out of our regularly scheduled programming to discuss the marketing genius behind the Black Ops III multiplayer starter pack, and to also explain why this concept needs to become a semi-regular promotion and also make its way to consoles. Activision is taking its marketing with a one-two punch that should, if all goes well, give a nice boost to sales on the PC.
First, what am I talking about. Nearly ten days ago, Activision introduced the Black Ops III Multiplayer Starter Pack for a paltry $15 on Steam. The pack is exactly what it sounds like, access to multiplayer with some restrictions. No campaign, no zombies, and you can’t prestige, play custom games, access mod support, no Dead Ops Arcade, or Nightmare mode. Tit for tat, this is as barebones as it gets: Ranked multiplayer. If you decide to upgrade to the full game, your $15 is taken off of the total price.
The package makes absolute sense on PC, where Activision has to contend with a tidal wave of established competition that is either free to play or damn near close. In order to make real headway on PC, Activision must rely on the Steam platform where established titles like Counter Strike: GO dominate the genre and the charts. It also makes sense if the company wishes to remain viable on the platform as a whole. At launch, Black Ops III averaged 24 thousand concurrent players on PC. Two months later, in January, that number had dropped to 14 thousand.
And help this game needs, since outside of Team Deathmatch and Domination, the game modes on PC are virtually abandoned at non-peak hours. Even on weekends, and after the release of the starter pack, it isn’t out of the ordinary to see multiple game modes stuck at 0%, with no one playing or willing to join to spark some traffic.
So by reducing the price of entry to $15, Activision brings in all kinds of players who would have otherwise not purchased the game, as you can see by the glut of players in the match above that only own the game because of the pack. Even if 90% of these players eventually quit without buying anything else, they still contributed $15 more per person than they would have had the pack not existed. In all likelihood, Activision views the pack as an easy point of entry: Those who would have waited for a heavy Steam sale to buy the game will likely stick around and even purchase the full game upgrade, while those who had just enough interest to toss in for the starter pack are salvaged customers.
The increase in population also gives incentive and boosts the likelihood that existing players will continue playing, and hopefully buy the season pass and customization pack if they haven’t already.
But, not to let this campaign die, Activision is ending the promotion with the second part of their one-two punch, a free weekend. Think of the free weekend as a boost to the stepping stone that is the multiplayer pack. Free weekends are like a sample station at the grocery store. They attract people who have no interest in buying the full product and, through the power of free stuff, hope to change their minds. So you play a few rounds of Black Ops, have a bit of fun, and oh hey the game is on sale for $40. Too much? Why not just keep playing the multiplayer for $15 and decide if you want to upgrade later? Cool.
So by that logic, the starter pack acts as something of a negotiating tool, with the full game upgrade splitting the cost and making the whole package look cheaper by comparison. Sure, you’re still paying the sale price of $40 total, but you put down $15 and start playing over the weekend, and then the sale is coming to an end but you can still upgrade to the full game for $24. Twenty four bucks for zombies, campaign, and everything else you’re missing? What a deal! At least, that’s the intended thought process of the promotion.
The promotion, and the availability of the starter pack, are gone come this week, so I have to say I am very interested to see where Activision goes with this type of package. There has been speculation for years now of Call of Duty cutting up its game modes into separate but cheaper packages, and there is no doubt that the numbers from this short lived campaign are going to be run through a gauntlet and have a heavy influence on the franchise’s future marketing.
Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.
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