Tag: "featured"
Activision hints at ‘Call of Duty Elite’ prizes and awards with newest domain registrations
In the past few days, details have been surfacing about Activision’s Call of Duty Elite subscription service that is scheduled to go live in November 2011. The service will begin its closed beta test later this summer and promises to be innovative by letting you to connect, compete and improve your Call of Duty experience.
Though there have been grumblings over a paid subscription service, it looks like Activision has plans to offer incentives in the form of awards and prizes — based on the company’s newest domain registrations this week.
The gaming company registered two new domains on June 7, 2011.
Domain Name: callofdutyeliteawards.com
Domain Name: callofdutyeliteprizing.comCreated on…………..: 2011-06-07.
Expires on…………..: 2013-06-07.
Record last updated on..: 2011-06-07.
Domain servers in listed order:
ns3.activision.com
ns2.activision.com
ns5.activision.com
ns0.activision.com
Registrant:
Mary Tuck
Activision Publishing, Inc
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.
Santa Monica CA 90405
U.S. Marine Corps developing online video game called “Marine Ops: The Crucible”?
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: It looks like the U.S. Marine Corps, a component of the U.S. Department of the Navy, is throwing their hat into the video gaming ring. In late May, the Marine Corps applied for six different trademarks on “Marine Ops” and “Marine Ops: The Crucible”.
While other branches of the military like the Army have long been at the forefront of game development with its popular title America’s Army, it looks like the marines will be putting up a challenge to the soldiers.
The trademarks were all filed on May 25, 2011 with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov).
a look at the filings.
Word Mark MARINE OPS: THE CRUCIBLE
IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Streaming of audio, visual and audiovisual material via a global computer network
Word Mark MARINE OPS: THE CRUCIBLE
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer game programs; Computer game software; Downloadable video recordings featuring military topics; Interactive game programs; Interactive game software; Interactive video game programs; Motion picture films about military topics
Word Mark MARINE OPS: THE CRUCIBLE
IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Continuing public service programs in the field of military topics produced and distributed over television, satellite, film, audio, video, internet, and 3-D virtual reality media; Entertainment and education services in the nature of a series of short shows featuring military topics distributed to mobile handsets, which may include video, text, photos, illustrations or hypertext; Entertainment services, namely, providing online electronic games; Entertainment services, namely, providing online video games; Entertainment services, namely, providing temporary use of non-downloadable video games; Rental of pre-recorded videos that may be downloaded from an Internet web site
Word Mark MARINE OPS
IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Continuing public service programs in the field of military topics produced and distributed over television, satellite, film, audio, video, internet, and 3-D virtual reality media; Entertainment and education services in the nature of a series of short shows featuring topics relating to the military distributed to mobile handsets, which may include video, text, photos, illustrations or hypertext; Entertainment services, namely, providing online electronic games; Entertainment services, namely, providing online video games; Entertainment services, namely, providing temporary use of non-downloadable video games; Rental of pre-recorded videos that may be downloaded from an Internet web site
Word Mark MARINE OPS
IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Streaming of audio, visual and audiovisual material via a global computer network
Word Mark MARINE OPS
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer game programs; Computer game software; Interactive game programs; Interactive game software; Interactive video game programs
[Photo of Marines from 2005 urban simulation via Dept. of Defense]
Video: Kevin Butler PS3 Commercial SOCOM 4
In Kevin Butler’s latest commercial, the fake Vice President of Sony’s Playstation division gives tips on SOCOM 4 to Multiplayer Player Ty Jackson.
Want to own Activision? Gaming company regularly lets its generic domain names expire
My story last week about Activision failing to renew several of their “gameoftheyear” domain names like gameoftheyear.com, caught the eye of Activision’s social media guy, Dan Amrich. Dan followed up my story with a story of his own, titled, Fact Check: Activision & gameoftheyear.com.
What happened to those “gameoftheyear” domain names?
Here’s a quick update on the domain names mentioned in my last story.
gameoftheyear.com– The domain is no longer registered to Activision and is now registered to a “Joe Lee”.
thegameoftheyear.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a pendingDelete status, meaning, the domain expired and is no longer available for redemption. The registry is about to erase it. A domain name remains in this status for five days before it is deleted, according to GoDaddy.
computergameoftheyear.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a pendingDelete status.
pcgameoftheyear.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a pendingDelete status.
game-of-the-year.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a pendingDelete status.
Activision’s latest dropping domain names
As part of an ongoing effort to track gaming developments with Activision, I monitor changes to Activision’s domain names.
If you’ve wanted to own a piece of internet once belonging to Activision or one its companies, there’s plenty of opportunity to get a generic domain name that Activision has decided to let expire. Every week an Activision-owned URL expires, and this week is no different.
Keep in mind, while many of Activision’s internet addresses like gameoftheyear.com are generic, other terms may be trademarked. So I would not recommend trying to register a domain name like bournesessions.com (which recently expired).
Here’s a look at the latest list:
swat.biz– Swat.biz was once the website (screenshot above) for SWAT, a first person shooter computer game published by Vivendi Universal Games. Vivendi Universal Games merged with Activision. Many of the domains that have been expired were acquired by Activision during the merger. The domain expired on March 26, 2011.
ninjasvspiratesgame.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a RedemptionPeriod status, meaning, the domain name expired, and the registry is waiting for 30 days as a precautionary measure before releasing it.
evenmorecontraptions.com– The domain is still registered to Activsion, but is in a RedemptionPeriod status.
sovietassault.com– Activision almost let this name expire, but instead decided to renew it just in time on April 3, 2011.
larrylovage.com– Another domain name Activision almost allowed to expire, but opted for renewal. Larry Lovage is the main character of the game Leisure Suit Larry.
Come back each week for more names.
After losing out on “Game of the Year” crown, Activision doesn’t renew domains: gameoftheyear.com [More]
What happens when you don’t win Game of the Year at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards?
Well, in the case of Activision, which saw its best selling game in U.S. history, Call of Duty: Black Ops, lose to Red Dead Redemption— the company has decided not to renew several of its domain names surrounding “Game of the Year”.
The list of names includes: gameoftheyear.com, thegameoftheyear.com, computergameoftheyear.com, pcgameoftheyear.com, and game-of-the-year.com.
Gameoftheyear.com, which was originally registered in 1999, expired on February 2, 2011. Now the domain name appears over on the Pending Deletes List provided by Pool.com, an online service that offers its’ customers access to a list of thousands of daily deleting domains. If a person is lucky enough to find a name they want in the Pending Deletes List, the person can obtain the domain before it becomes available for public registration.
Thegameoftheyear.com, according to Whois records, expired on February 18, 2011 and is still registered to Activision, but the status of the domain is set to ”Redemption Period”. According to GoDaddy, RedemptionPeriod means the domain name expired, and the registry is waiting for 30 days as a precautionary measure before releasing it.
Computergameoftheyear.com, pcgameoftheyear.com, and game-of-the-year.com are all in a Redemption Period status.
No love at the Spike Video Game Awards for Activision
Though Activision didn’t win “Game of the Year” in 2010 announced this past December, it did win in the “Best Shooter” category. And the company has won the distinction of “Game of the Year” by other blogs, magazines, and gaming sites — just not necessarily by Spike, which holds one of the biggest events each year.
However, the company just hasn’t had much luck winning a coveted Spike Video Game Award.
In 2009, Activision’s, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 lost out to Sony’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. In 2008, Activision wasn’t even a contender for Game of the Year. Grand Theft Auto IV, another game published by Rockstar Games took the crown. 2007 went to Bioshock and 2006′s title went to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Going all the way back to 2003, Activision has won in a number of different sub-categories, just not for “Game of the Year”.
UPDATE: Activision’s social media guy, Dan Amrich, who tweets using @oneofswords, has posted an insightful follow-up to this story.
Dan writes, “Truth is, there is no link between the expiration of these URLs and the Spike VGAs. What’s more, there’s barely a connection between these URLs and Activision. These URLs were registered by Vivendi/Sierra, and were used to promote the Game Of The Year editions of Half-Life in 1999 and Half-Life 2 in 2005.”
As I mentioned yesterday on this site’s sister domain blog, “…while one has nothing to do with the other necessarily, had Activision won “Game of the Year”, renewing the domain probably wouldn’t have been overlooked.” Either way, it was good to see an Activision rep do some outreach and respond to clear things up.
And for the record, Call of Duty: Black Ops should’ve totally taken the “Game of the Year” title in my opinion.
Official Homefront website goes live
Kaos studios has officially announched the new Homefront Website.
The website can be viewed at http://www.homefront-game.com/.
The Homefront site is chock full of videos, images, news, game info and much more.
Black Ops Zombies, Call of Duty franchise helped by ‘walking dead’ supporting cast
Creepy and addicting, Call of Duty has featured a strong supporting cast of zombies that begun with the 2008 release of Call of Duty: World at War.
Games like Call of Duty have become hugely popular, not just because of the realistic gameplay set in different war periods, but because of the zombie mode that players have come to love.
The fact is, the data doesn’t lie as provided by search popularity of zombies in Google’s search engine.
To give you an idea of just how popular zombies are in Black Ops, the exact phrase “black ops zombies” was searched globally over half a million times last month, according to Google Adwords, a search-based keyword tool that shows the number of actual queries made by people from around the globe. The phrase “black ops zombie” had nearly a quarter of a million exact searches, at 246,000 queries.
This week saw more excitement in the zombie-hunter community.
Zombie mode for Call of Duty Black Ops by Treyarch, got a healthy dose of fixes in Title Update 7 as reported by MTV’s gaming blog.
• Addressed an issue where the most recent match played in Zombies could overwrite the best match played on the leaderboard.
• Improved Zombies lobbies to prevent players from erroneously receiving the error “Unable to join game session” under certain circumstances.
• Addressed a number of community-discovered Zombies gameplay exploits.
Also, Treyarch, the developers behind Call of Duty: Black Ops, released a short trailer providing a different look at Ascension, one of five new maps in First Strike. As written on the Treyarch blog, “And, for those dying to begin the next chapter in the suspenseful co-op Zombies saga, Ascension offers the largest map yet, introducing new weapons, transports, perks, and enemies.”
You can watch the trailer below.
Readers, have a tip on Call of Duty Black Ops zombies? Let us know.
Confirmed: Danger Close Games to develop “Medal of Honor” sequel
Greg Goodrich, exectuive producer of Medal of Honor, officially confirmed earlier this week that Danger Close, (dangerclosegames.com) is developing the sequel to the first-person shooter Medal of Honor, continuing the popular franchise. The latest release of Medal of Honor which started selling in stores in October 2010, has already sold 5 million copies worldwide.
“Yes, Danger Close is currently working on the next Medal of Honor.”, writes Greg on the Medal of Honor blog.
“Since our launch last October, we’ve studied, listened and absorbed much of your feedback and are very excited to be marching forward on the next title. We can’t wait to tell you more about it, so check back often to the website and the fan page on Facebook.”
News of Danger Close developing the next MoH title, confirms rumors that had been swirling around early last month, after Danger Close posted job openings. As I wrote about in January, Jonathan Leack, a writer for Playstation Lifestyle, noticed Danger Close studio has some job openings to work on an unannounced AAA first person shooter title, which some writers and bloggers have rumored to be the next title in the Medal of Honor series.
In case you haven’t seen or played Medal of Honor, here’s a look E3 Multiplayer trailer released last year.
Bulletstorm rating write-up by ESRB is Badass
“Specialty kills (i.e., Skillshots) represent the most intense instances of violence: enemies can be dismembered with explosives; impaled on spikes; and drilled into walls, resulting in body parts breaking into pieces. During the course of the game, players can consume alcohol and kill enemies in order to receive an Intoxicated Skillshot; the screen turns blurry during these sequences…”
And that’s only part of it.
There’s no denying that Bulletstorm is one of the most anticipated first-person shooters of 2011.
The rating summary of “Mature” could very well be one of the best rating summaries by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the non-profit self-regulatory body that independently assigns ratings to videogames.
The ESRB summary has made a number of headlines, some for news reasons, others mainly because of the seriously badass description.
Headlines have ranged from Bulletstorm ESRB Description Is Full Of Awesome over at MTV to Bulletstorm ESRB Rating is Comedy Gold by Escapist Magazine.
Here’s a look at the full ESRB summary, which in itself, is mature:
This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a space pirate who must escape a planet populated by mutant cannibals. Players use futuristic machine guns, shotguns, magnum revolvers, assault rifles, and chain guns to perform over-the-top kills that dismember and decapitate foes. Injured enemies emit large sprays of blood that stain the ground and surrounding walls. Specialty kills (i.e., Skillshots) represent the most intense instances of violence: enemies can be dismembered with explosives; impaled on spikes; and drilled into walls, resulting in body parts breaking into pieces. During the course of the game, players can consume alcohol and kill enemies in order to receive an Intoxicated Skillshot; the screen turns blurry during these sequences. The dialogue contains numerous jokes and comments that reference sexual acts, venereal diseases, and having sex with one’s mother (e.g., “Guess I know where the ol’ gal got that limp.”). The names of some Skillshots are infused with sexual innuendo (e.g., Gag Reflex, Rear Entry, Drilldo, Mile High Club); one Skillshot (i.e., Fire in the Hole) allows players to shoot at enemies’ exposed buttocks. Language such as “f**k,” “sh*t,” “p*ssy,” and “c*ck” can be heard in dialogue.
Epic Games and People Can Fly, the development studios behind the game, have been perfectly up front about the over-the-top shooter. If you haven’t watched any of the Bulletstorm trailers, you should.
Here’s a look at one of the game’s recent over-the-top trailers.
Bulletstorm, published by Electronic Arts, is currently scheduled for a February 22, 2011 release. More information can be found on Bulletstorm.com. On Twitter @Bulletstorm and on Facebook at Facebook.com/bulletstorm
Five predictions for next Call of Duty game title in 2011
While Call of Duty: Black Ops continues to dominate video game sales, speculation continues to grow over Call of Duty’s next game title after rumors surfaced that one possibility could be a Modern Warfare prequel centered around the character Ghost who first appeared in Modern Warfare 2.
But that’s not the only possible title.
Domain name registrations made by Activision early last year, generated a lot of buzz over potential games. Based on the names registered, possibilities for titles include: Call of Duty Future Warfare, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, Call of Duty Secret Warfare and Call of Duty Space Warfare.
As I wrote before, Chris Morris a writer with Gamasutra confirmed a “Future Warfare” or “Space Warfare” are likely more than just domain name registrations: “…industry sources say Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty will be set in the future and feature, for lack of a better term, space Marines, a very big step for a franchise that has historically based itself on realism.”
So my five predictions, in order of what I believe their likelihood to be are:
Call of Duty: Future Warfare
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Space Warfare
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Call of Duty: Secret Warfare
Do you have predictions for Call of Duty’s next blockbuster game title?
Please share them in the comments.
