If You Buy Modern Warfare 3 Early, Microsoft Warns Against Playing Online [UPDATED]

Right, punish the consumer for getting it early rather than the retailer that fucked up to begin with.

Well thats some BS right there Microsoft better not follow through on Activision wanting them to do anything. They got it legally no harm no foul. IF they pirated it ban them but o noes someone broke street date.

well at least they're not putting in a horrible web-based browser and forcing you to download a game from their service when you CLEARLY own the retail disc, right? I mean, who would do that?

Stepto is a bad Director for not checking before he tweeted. It's entirely possible people saw the all clear and are too busy playing Call of Duty to see his next tweet.

It's a mass-market product - the assumption can't be made that players are checking gaming sites for permission to play a game they have already been given permission to play by the Director of Policy and Enforcement.

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@iAmJohn said:

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@AxleFGK said:

@Minos said:

So, battlefield 3 then...

i hear its a good game....

...if you enjoy EA spyware and a janky Bad Company 2 like experience.

Sofacitysweetheart, do you like anything? I'm serious, it seems like every time I see you post, it's you talking shit about how much some game or some thing sucks.

I'm disappointed that you don't pay attention to absolutely everything I do.

I already have a booked-up stalking schedule; I can't be everywhere at once, man!

I think Activison is bluffing. Don't have an early copy to call them on it though.

@laserbolts: i think he is glad to be the first...

Heh, doesn't say anything about the PS3 version. guess it's safe to play, then.

@patrickklepek: Could you reach out to Sony and see if they're going to do the same thing with PSN accounts playing Modern Warfare 3 online early? Very curious to see if this is just a Microsoft thing.

iunno

@Katkillad said:

@believer258 said:

The smart thing to do, if you get it early, would be beat the single player three or four times and then invite three of your best buds over to play split screen.

Unless you're on PC. Then you just don't play it 'til launch.

I don't know how it works on PS3 but for 360 achievements are time stamped, if anything this would make you look more guilty.

Ooops. Didn't know that, even though I have a 360.

There still isn't anything stopping the creation of an alternate profile, though.

So both the stores I ordered from here in Denmark (actually had cancelled my order from Game, but their customer service did not reply to me in time) have shipped my order today, so it should show up tomorrow.

That's still to early innit? Ain't it supposed to come out on the 8th rather than the 5th?

Maybe my entire country broke street date....

EASY just dont buy it i wont buy from people like that its all corparate greed any how if you played the first mw you wont be missing out as there all the same now.

unfinished, buggy, need 20 patches its all greed "we need to get it out the door,but it aint finished,they dont know that we can Just keep patching" LOL

In case any of you are wondering how this even happens, there are mom and pop video game shops in a lot of places that get their stuff shipped way early and will simply sell you the game for cash and ring it up later on release day.

Nothing will happen if you play a legitimate copy of the game early, it's ridiculous to speculate otherwise. Only a relatively small number of people even read sites like these of visit forums where this stuff gets discussed. If you buy it in good faith and have no idea about any "pre-release" ban, which you would have to assume is the case. It would be utter madness to penalise the player!

Here's an idea, if they don't want people playing it on-line early, don't enable the multi-player servers!

Well, you could just go play any of the other CoD games that came out in the last few years for a near identical experience, without any risk to your account.

@MildMolasses: EA just shuts down servers for games that are at least 3 years or older because no one is playing them. The big ones they always shut down are sports games since they are annulaized so it doesn't make sense financially for them to keep them up and running if no one is using them.

This entire thing is stupid and Stepto backing on his initial words make him and Microsoft look like tools. Such a shame. Who knows, maybe they can decide to make games unauthorized post launch too at some point in the future, that would be swell.

lol

It took me a while to decode what the hell was "dblchk'd" supposed to mean.

"No, this isn’t a joke. No, this doesn’t make any sense. Yes, I’ve contacted Activision."

perfect

I saw this earlier today. Assuming it's not fake, it looks like it's just a temporary ban from playing MW3 online until the game is officially released.

@valrog said:

It took me a while to decode what the hell was "dblchk'd" supposed to mean.

Was this from Twitter? If it wasn't then it's pretty lazy of him to not just say the entire word with the vowels intact...

@Jimbo said:

@Humanity said:

I don't see how it's such an outrage. If the game has a specific release date then it's not unreasonable for them to ask people to wait for that date. Retailers aren't authorized to sell the game early and if they do then they're street date breaking which is not ok. So honestly I don't see how this doesn't make sense.

If playing one day early is not such a big deal, then playing one day later shouldn't be either.

Because the player has never agreed to abide by any such release date - they have handed over money in return for a product and they have every right to expect it to work as advertised. If the publisher and retailer have managed to fuck up the distribution between themselves and sold somebody a product before they should have then that's their business.

Thats all well and good if we pretend that we live in a world where you have complete control over anything you buy. You never agreed to abide by not hacking and cheating at the game yet if you do so online you will probably get your account suspended. You can't realistically say "well the guy at 7-11 sold me the game early so this is on YOU fuck off I'm playing online!" thats not how the adult world works.

Anyway my point here is that we don't need to exaggerate all these headlines and completely vilify these companies. These are just people who are looking out for their product. I don't see why Patrick is so completely outraged and perplexed by this notion that they don't want you playing the game early. Perchance there is a day-one patch thats in the works that fixes an important bug in the game - people that play it early will experience the bug and get a detrimental experience, and then tell all their friends how this game is broken and they shouldn't buy it.

Is it just me or are we as consumers gonna get more and more screwed each year by the gaming industry? 
 
Then again I'm not buying the game anytime soon so oh well

I haven't paid for a call of duty game since mw2. After all the weird stuff at infinity ward after that I couldn't justify it to myself.

People are going to play it online?

Don't they know BF3 is out?

@Humanity: Hard to say. There's a lot of people that could buy the game without knowing what the release date is even supposed to be. Let's say a local retailer breaks street date and puts it up early. Joe McWarfare happens to come in, and pick up the game early, totally oblivious of what the actual release date is. If he gets his account nuked or whatever, he absolutely had no idea what the release date was supposed to be. It seems to be asking a lot to expect a consumer to go out and research a product they just purchased to make sure it's okay for them to use.

Not everyone necessarily follows gaming news, just because those of us here at GB do. The punishment should be on the retailer who sold the product early. Assuming that we're talking legit copies that were just purchased before release date.

@TheMasterDS said:

What about reviewers? Can they not play the multiplayer until launch?

my first thought.

@GaspoweR said:

@valrog said:

It took me a while to decode what the hell was "dblchk'd" supposed to mean.

Was this from Twitter? If it wasn't then it's pretty lazy of him to not just say the entire word with the vowels intact...

Maybe he was reaching the character limit? Either way I'd rather use two tweets up than resort to txt speech, though.

It was clear that nothing was going to happen no matter what that spokes person was forced to say earlier. MS won't ban anyone who bought a legal copy of a game. Blame the retailer instead (and only blame him if he signed some sort of embargo agreement).

Just an idle threat. And that's what it will be in the future, too.

@Humanity said:

@Jimbo said:

@Humanity said:

I don't see how it's such an outrage. If the game has a specific release date then it's not unreasonable for them to ask people to wait for that date. Retailers aren't authorized to sell the game early and if they do then they're street date breaking which is not ok. So honestly I don't see how this doesn't make sense.

If playing one day early is not such a big deal, then playing one day later shouldn't be either.

Because the player has never agreed to abide by any such release date - they have handed over money in return for a product and they have every right to expect it to work as advertised. If the publisher and retailer have managed to fuck up the distribution between themselves and sold somebody a product before they should have then that's their business.

Thats all well and good if we pretend that we live in a world where you have complete control over anything you buy. You never agreed to abide by not hacking and cheating at the game yet if you do so online you will probably get your account suspended. You can't realistically say "well the guy at 7-11 sold me the game early so this is on YOU fuck off I'm playing online!" thats not how the adult world works.

Anyway my point here is that we don't need to exaggerate all these headlines and completely vilify these companies. These are just people who are looking out for their product. I don't see why Patrick is so completely outraged and perplexed by this notion that they don't want you playing the game early. Perchance there is a day-one patch thats in the works that fixes an important bug in the game - people that play it early will experience the bug and get a detrimental experience, and then tell all their friends how this game is broken and they shouldn't buy it.

No, it's all well and good because -unlike hacking and cheating- the ability to play multiplayer is advertised on the packaging as being a part of the product you are buying. A product which -in this hypothetical scenario- has been sold at retail to a customer. If they have my money, I'd better fucking well have what I've paid for.

If they really don't want anybody playing their product before a certain date then the solution is to make damn sure that their product isn't being sold to the general public before that date. They should go make vague threats to their retail partners who are breaking the release date, not to the consumers, who aren't doing a single thing wrong in this scenario. I know gamers nowadays are used to bending over for the industry, but any publisher / platform operator that thinks they can wag their finger at paying customers like they're naughty school children deserves to be robustly told to fuck off. imo.

Man, I'm glad I chose neither when it came to Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3.

@Jimbo said:

@Humanity said:

@Jimbo said:

@Humanity said:

I don't see how it's such an outrage. If the game has a specific release date then it's not unreasonable for them to ask people to wait for that date. Retailers aren't authorized to sell the game early and if they do then they're street date breaking which is not ok. So honestly I don't see how this doesn't make sense.

If playing one day early is not such a big deal, then playing one day later shouldn't be either.

Because the player has never agreed to abide by any such release date - they have handed over money in return for a product and they have every right to expect it to work as advertised. If the publisher and retailer have managed to fuck up the distribution between themselves and sold somebody a product before they should have then that's their business.

Thats all well and good if we pretend that we live in a world where you have complete control over anything you buy. You never agreed to abide by not hacking and cheating at the game yet if you do so online you will probably get your account suspended. You can't realistically say "well the guy at 7-11 sold me the game early so this is on YOU fuck off I'm playing online!" thats not how the adult world works.

Anyway my point here is that we don't need to exaggerate all these headlines and completely vilify these companies. These are just people who are looking out for their product. I don't see why Patrick is so completely outraged and perplexed by this notion that they don't want you playing the game early. Perchance there is a day-one patch thats in the works that fixes an important bug in the game - people that play it early will experience the bug and get a detrimental experience, and then tell all their friends how this game is broken and they shouldn't buy it.

No, it's all well and good because -unlike hacking and cheating- the ability to play multiplayer is advertised on the packaging as being a part of the product you are buying. A product which -in this hypothetical scenario- has been sold at retail to a customer. If they have my money, I'd better fucking well have what I've paid for.

If they really don't want anybody playing their product before a certain date then the solution is to make damn sure that their product isn't being sold to the general public before that date. They should go make vague threats to their retail partners who are breaking the release date, not to the consumers, who aren't doing a single thing wrong in this scenario. I know gamers nowadays are used to bending over for the industry, but any publisher / platform operator that thinks they can wag their finger at paying customers like they're naughty school children deserves to be robustly told to fuck off. imo.

Couldn't have said it better if I tried.

Look, the problem is this. The people that sold the game entered into a contract with Activision to sale the game at a certain time, and not before. Hence a street date. They broke that contract by selling the game early, for whatever reason. Should you, the buying public be punished for this? Of course not. You didn't make the company break the street date, you merely prospered from it. They should not be punishing people for playing early, because they bought a game from a shady retailer.

Activision has the right, as a company, to be upset about this, but their issue should not be with the consumer, but with the retailer in this case. As this is not an issue that the consumer can stop. Now, should they be taking advantage of it, probably not. But then again, who amongst us isn't going to take the opportunity if they have it? Come on now.

@Mystyr_E said:

well at least they're not putting in a horrible web-based browser and forcing you to download a game from their service when you CLEARLY own the retail disc, right? I mean, who would do that?

I agree about the Battlelog thing, but it's not actually a download that happens when you install from disk. Yeah, it clearly looks like a download, but DICE (or EA) were too lazy to make an installation script apparently, so they used the download progress bar in place of a real install one. I know this because I had the same "WTF, Really?" happen to me while installing the other day. It explains this all on their site. Why they couldn't atleast make it look like it was installing and not downloading? I have no idea.

@bransonhuggins said:

Look, the problem is this. The people that sold the game entered into a contract with Activision to sale the game at a certain time, and not before. Hence a street date. They broke that contract by selling the game early, for whatever reason. Should you, the buying public be punished for this? Of course not. You didn't make the company break the street date, you merely prospered from it. They should not be punishing people for playing early, because they bought a game from a shady retailer.

Activision has the right, as a company, to be upset about this, but their issue should not be with the consumer, but with the retailer in this case. As this is not an issue that the consumer can stop. Now, should they be taking advantage of it, probably not. But then again, who amongst us isn't going to take the opportunity if they have it? Come on now.

That's pretty much what I have to say about all of this. A broken street date should mean the retailer gets punished, not the person who bought it. It's not up to the consumer to be keeping track of when a game is supposed to be officially released. If someone sees a hotly anticipated game they wanted on store shelves, they're going to buy it.

But at least conflict seems to have been avoided this time.

It's silly, but at the same time, why do people care? Just wait for Nov. 8th like everyone else, it's a damn game, not heart surgery.

They are fucked regardless.

Yeah if you guys play this game a day early were going to do something to your account but all you guys hacking in Black Ops..... You're cool!

What the hell does Activision care if a fan gets the game a bit early? I mean seriously, what harm can he do enjoying the multiplayer with a few friends? I don't understand why they would put themselves in a bad light with super-fans that manage to get the game a day or so early. Crazy.

Just spin and fear tactics from Activision. They didn't like MS explicitly sanctioning pre-release access. Activision doesn't consider your license valid until the street-date. Playing the game before release (even offline), even having paid the full retail price, is identical to piracy.

@iAmJohn said:

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@iAmJohn said:

@sofacitysweetheart said:

@AxleFGK said:

@Minos said:

So, battlefield 3 then...

i hear its a good game....

...if you enjoy EA spyware and a janky Bad Company 2 like experience.

Sofacitysweetheart, do you like anything? I'm serious, it seems like every time I see you post, it's you talking shit about how much some game or some thing sucks.

I'm disappointed that you don't pay attention to absolutely everything I do.

I already have a booked-up stalking schedule; I can't be everywhere at once, man!

Soooo, anyone up for Trackmania!!! LOL...

@subyman said:

What the hell does Activision care if a fan gets the game a bit early? I mean seriously, what harm can he do enjoying the multiplayer with a few friends? I don't understand why they would put themselves in a bad light with super-fans that manage to get the game a day or so early. Crazy.

Well, given the persistent progression system, Acti probably doesn't want Kmart players having a lead in weapon/perk unlocks.

Personally, my guess will be that stats will be reset to zero on those who choose to go early. MS isn't going to ban legit players off Live.

@AndrewB said:

@bransonhuggins said:

Look, the problem is this. The people that sold the game entered into a contract with Activision to sale the game at a certain time, and not before. Hence a street date. They broke that contract by selling the game early, for whatever reason. Should you, the buying public be punished for this? Of course not. You didn't make the company break the street date, you merely prospered from it. They should not be punishing people for playing early, because they bought a game from a shady retailer.

Activision has the right, as a company, to be upset about this, but their issue should not be with the consumer, but with the retailer in this case. As this is not an issue that the consumer can stop. Now, should they be taking advantage of it, probably not. But then again, who amongst us isn't going to take the opportunity if they have it? Come on now.

That's pretty much what I have to say about all of this. A broken street date should mean the retailer gets punished, not the person who bought it. It's not up to the consumer to be keeping track of when a game is supposed to be officially released. If someone sees a hotly anticipated game they wanted on store shelves, they're going to buy it.

But at least conflict seems to have been avoided this time.

Yeah, I'm going to guess that Kmart isn't going to get as many copies of Black Ops 2 next year.

Here's the thing: they want everyone to wait, just like a kid waits to unwrap the presents on Christmas. For those kids who get to open their gifts at the stroke of midnight, they want them to was to show the presents off to their friends, because they're still asleep.

Same thing happened for Halo 3 and MW2 as far as I remember. I think Microsoft is to blame here. They´re just trying a little too hard to find guys with pirated copys (which they can´t properly identify most of the time).

Yeah, they´re gonna refer to Activision, but it´s really their stupid "enforcement" team that can´t tell the modders from the regular people.

Edit: All the people still refering to the goddamn stupid EA fuelled forum wars between BF3 and MW3: get the fuck out of here. If anything your "battle" is already over on 360. Even MW2 had more players last week than BF3 had. Not that this fact should bother any sane human being, but I bet it bothers you guys.

@Addfwyn said:

@Humanity: Hard to say. There's a lot of people that could buy the game without knowing what the release date is even supposed to be. Let's say a local retailer breaks street date and puts it up early. Joe McWarfare happens to come in, and pick up the game early, totally oblivious of what the actual release date is. If he gets his account nuked or whatever, he absolutely had no idea what the release date was supposed to be. It seems to be asking a lot to expect a consumer to go out and research a product they just purchased to make sure it's okay for them to use.

Not everyone necessarily follows gaming news, just because those of us here at GB do. The punishment should be on the retailer who sold the product early. Assuming that we're talking legit copies that were just purchased before release date.

I can completely agree with that. I've neglected to think of the moms and dads and people who just heard of the game now and went out and got it. I mostly appreciate the rational point of view rather than the knee jerk reaction of raging about consumer rights.

@Mystyr_E:

Steam(works)? Oh right, no browser, my bad!