[quote]You know, I think the petition/boycott should modify its strategy. Instead of canceling their pre-orders now, everyone should pre-order a retail box, then cancel the pre-orders en masse just a couple days before launch. Activision will then have not only a revenue issue, but also some inventory and shipping issues. ;)
Tell me how to do it that wan't hurt retailers and I am there. Is there a pre order system online?
Oh it would hurt the retailers, but that is part of the equation. Retailers that feel a pinch on the customer end are more likely to put some kind of pressure on suppliers. It's not as if they are without culpability of their own as well. On another forum a fellow posted that a friend who works at Gamestop was instructed by management to tell customers that dedicated servers
would be patched into the game after launch. Also, Amazon has executed another
review scrubbing to help preserve their sales. At the end of the day, I won't shed a tear if one of these big companies' has a bottom-line shift from black to red (unlikely anyway for a single-product boycott).
I don't think this was posted here before : Analysis: How Call Of Duty DLC Boosts Revenue, Publicity
If that isn't a crystal-clear explanation of why pubs want to impose the console business model on PC gaming then I don't know what is. Thnx for the link.
Hey, I hope the Establishment in Germany & Australia will acknowledge the fact that, if "violent" video games were really teaching us to be murderers, the death toll among publishers would increase dramatically after screwjobs like this...
Didn't you hear? Parents teaching their children to treat other people well has gone out of fashion. The exact same goal can be accomplished via government bans on art and entertainment. ;)
-edit-
Ok.
WOW. I'll just quote the quote since it's worth it:
MCV has some quotes Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling saying developers should more actively participate in the marketing of their games. "I don’t think any developer should not have control of how their game is presented or marketed or communicated. And they should take control of that a lot, lot more," he tells them. Though some PC gamers might disagree, he explains IW's hands-on approach is because of how well they understand their audience: "Not only do we know the game but we know the gamer. We know what to expect from them and what they expect from us. So it helps us guide design decisions and decisions overall, including with PR."
I suppose one could twist the interpretation of that statement to mean "we know exactly what they want and thus know exactly how to screw them", but I don't think he is making that claim.
So...genuinely disillusioned or insidiously arrogant?