Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has sold another chunk of his stock options, benefiting from the stock rise after the enormous sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 after one week.

Kotick, who netted about $20 million from selling options last week, sold another 1.68 million shares at around $11.61 to $11.72 a share. This was from the same pool of options that vested in 2000 for $1.035 a share. The resulting profit was around $17 million, according to a Gamasutra story.

In August, Kotick brought in another $25 million when he sold about 2 million shares.

GP: There was no indication whether Kotick blew his nose, or had a gold-encrusted bowel movement, but we'll keep watching just for loyal reader Darksaber.

Hot on the heels of trememdous first-day sales for the controversial sequel Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Activision's CEO and a member of the Activision board have exercised some lucrative stock options.

According to a Gameindustry.biz report, CEO Bobby Kotick made more than $20 million this week when he exercised options on close to 1.93 million shares of stock. The options, dated from April 18, 2000, allowed him to buy the shares for $1.03 and sell them for between $11.43 and $11.54.

Also this week, director Brian Kelly exercised options he received in 2004 and 2006 to clear about $10.5 million.

Funny stuff, but what else would you expect.

Looks like Infinity Ward provided some assistance as well.

Whether it was planned in advance or a reaction to all of the recent negative press, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 publisher Activision Blizzard has said it will donate $1 million tomorrow to set up the Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) to support other groups that help veterans find jobs. Veterans' Day is Wednesday.

According to a story in the Washington Post, the new foundation comes at a time when President Obama is scheduled to sign an executive order creating the Council on Veterans Employment. Several private and government-backed organizations are stepping forward to aid returning veterans with the challenges they face after their service.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said:

"The joblessness rate that [veterans] should have should be far less than the national average, not more. How do you expect people to actually join the military if when they leave the military they can't integrate back into the free market they're supposed to be protecting?"

The story said that CODE will make it's first donation of $125,000 to the Paralyzed Veterans of America "to open and vocational rehabilitation center."

"These are super-capable people," Kotick said. "To the extent that you can put them on track to develop more skills, the development potential that we've identified is extraordinary."

GP: The story stayed focused on the plight of veterans' finding jobs, but this writer wonders whether the endowment, announced so close to the release of MW2, is purely a public relations ploy to take the negative light off the controversy surrounding the terrorist sequence with civilians in the game. It's hard to look negatively on any gift that will aid veterans, but the name of the foundation as well as timing of endowment just seems more staged than magnanimous. 

Are you getting Modern Warfare’d out yet?

Spoilers below, so avoid reading if you are in a self-imposed Modern Warfare 2 blackout.

Outside of issuing a rather benign statement, since leaked video surfaced that showed gamers apparently playing a role in a terrorist attack Activision and developer Infinity Ward have been relatively quiet in regards to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Actually, quiet is a relative term, and fitting if you don’t include the ill-received F.A.G.S. video released, and then pulled, at the end of last week. Anyway, in response to a thread on the GetOffTheX website forums in which the leaked footage was being discussed, inside information on the title was shared from someone claiming to be a member of the Infinity Ward development team.

On the initial internal reaction to the action in the leaked level:

I work for IW. When I heard what they wanted to do I KNEW it would be a bad idea. They said that it needed to be done to get the right "feel" and that it was part of the story.

After some more give and take about the subject on the forums, the user came back and added:

I can't tell you how many people thought this level was a bad idea. The higher ups wanted to push it. Activision gave them the thumbs up and they went with it.

More on the player’s role in the terrorist scene in question, perhaps answering the question of what “skipping” means exactly:

You are under cover. You have joined a bad guy team and they are going to set up "the Russians" What you do is shoot stuff up but not the bad guys or people in the airport.

GP: This jibes with a higher-resolution video of the level in question that is currently on the MapModNews website. This version of the video actually shows a player shooting a civilian in the airport. The action immediately stops and a warning in German pops up on the screen, “Sie haben einen Zivilisten getroffen. Vorsicht beim Feuern!” Google translates this as “They have taken a civilian. Be careful when firing!” While certainly something is lost in the translation there, the fact that the level restarts when you shoot a civilian certainly implies that you are merely an observer in this mission.


Thanks Dan!

A VentureBeat story details how Activision Blizzard was able to track down a pirate selling Xbox 360 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 bundles on Craigslist, and how the cracking of that crime led to the arrest of another individual selling illegal copies of the game.

The game in question, of course, doesn’t come out until November 10, prompting the publisher to call in IPCybercrime, a Dallas-based private investigation firm that specializes in online crimes. Turns out, employees at a retail outlet had stolen a crate of the bundles from a store.

However, the thieves had already sold a bundle to a software cracker that was able to figure out how to make illegal dupes of MW2. In what was probably not a coincidence, copies of the game started to make their way onto online torrent and peer-to-peer websites soon after.

Using an email address from a forum post, investigators were able to link a Facebook account to the poster and then, in turn, link an address to the Facebook account. Following a buy/bust sting involving a physical copy of MW2, police were able to pin the crime on 18-year old Christian Del Amo of Miami (pictured).

IPCybercrime’s owner, Rob Holmes, said Del AMo was in position to sell “thousands” of the illegal copies.

The forced integration of the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with Valve’s Steamworks platform has turned off other digital game distribution services.

IGN-owned Direct2Drive has opted not to offer MW2 on its service reports Gamasutra, calling the forced use of Steam a “Trojan Horse.” The company will offer $5 off other Activision games as compensation. From a statement on Direct2Drive’s website:

At Direct2Drive, we believe strongly that when you buy a game from us, you shouldn't be forced to install and run a 3rd party software client to be able to play the game you purchased.

Meanwhile, VoodooExtreme received confirmation from both Stardock and GamersGate that neither of those two services will sell MW2 either. Stardock elaborated to VE on the reasoning for not selling MW2 through their Impulse service:

We share some of the same concerns as Direct2Drive over the bundling of the Steam client with the game. The most obvious issue is the forced inclusion of a competitor's store that blocks us from carrying the game.

Our issues with the game are solely with the Steamworks bundling. We enjoy a great relationship with Activision and would love to sell the title, but not with Steam.

GP: A commenter on the Gamasutra story noted that Direct2Drive offers other games that require a Steam install, such as Zeno Clash. Of course that game will not move nearly the amount of copies MW2 will, so it appears in this case that IGN/Direct2Drive is just being selective in its stand against Steam.

Hot on the heals of the release of Activision's Band Hero, the group No Doubt has filed suit against the game publisher for turning them into a "virtual karaoke circus act."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the suit alleges No Doubt's contract with Activision only allowed the band's likeness to be used in three of its own songs, but in reality the band can be made to sing up to 62 different songs through the game's Character Manipulation feature.

According to the band's manager:

“The band [members] are bitterly disappointed that their name and likeness was taken and used without their permission,” manager Jim Guerinot said today. “They agreed to play three No Doubt songs as a band.... Activision then went and put them in 62 other songs and broke the band up [and] never even asked.”

To which Activision replied:

“Activision believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band members in the game and that this lawsuit is without merit.”

The LAT article quotes a lot of back and forth between the band's manager and Activision's official statement. It will be interesting to see how the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, will pan out.

This isn't the first time Activision's "Hero" franchise of music games has faced controversy. In September, Courtney Love complained of the use of Kurt Cobain's likeness in Guitar Hero 5. While Activision said it had approval from Love to use Cobain's likeness, she later said she never approved the avatar.

The seemingly constant storm clouds surrounding the upcoming Activision-published and Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 have not done much, if anything, to negatively influence pre-sales of the title.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter thinks the title can reap global sales of in excess of $500 million in its first week of release reports Industry Gamers. Pachter also believes that the game could sell over 10.0 million units in this year’s fourth quarter.

Across the pond, MCVUK talks about the Modern Warfare 2 selling 1.7 million units in its first week at retail in the UK, citing pre-order numbers for the game at around 500,000 already. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV currently holds the UK mark for unit sales in a week, with 926,000, a number that MW2 could obliterate. Factor in the rising price (suggested retail prices at least) of videogames in the UK and MW2 setting a record for gross dollars culled at launch seems almost a given.

In light of all the controversy surrounding the game, Destructoid posted a pair of opinion pieces, one stating why the author would support MW2 and the other stating why he wouldn’t.

From the “support” side, discussing "the scene" leaked to the Internet, Jim Sterling states, “Whether you approve of the scene, find it disturbing, love it or just don't care, I believe that this is a scene that needs to happen, and was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Brad Rice takes the “can’t support” side, arguing, “The way that the plot is likely being handled comes across with a lot of the wrong messages, and shows a poor method of thinking when it comes to the sensitivity of the issue.”

The lack of dedicated servers for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 upset computer gamers enough to start a petition, which has reached almost 180,000 signatures at the time of this post, up from 96,000 when we first covered the story two weeks ago. Unfortunately for PC gamers—as evidenced on a pretty nifty Amazon pre-order page detailing MW2 pre-orders (thanks Kotaku)—the PC version accounts for a small amount of sales versus its console brethren.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hits retail in the U.S. next Tuesday, November 10. Are you getting it? Did any of this controversy impact your decision?

Update: Via USA Today comes word that MW2 has officially broken the record for pre-orders at GameStop. Tony Bartel, EVP for Merchandising and Marketing told the paper, “As of today, the number of pre-order reservations we've taken for the game is the highest for any title we've ever sold in our 6,200 store network."

|Image Via TopatoCo|

Activision Publishing Inc. has linked up with Dr. Cheryl Olson in a bid to enable parents and teachers to “optimize” children’s videogame experience.

Dr. Olson, no stranger to this site, is co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games.

The partnership will result in a series of seven videos posted on Activision’s Ratings Are Not a Game website. The first two are already up:  Using Videogames to Teach Problem Solving and Planning and How Can I Tell if a Game is Appropriate for My Child and How Do I Set Play Limits.

Dr. Olson stated, “These videos give practical research-based advice on how to help your kids--and your family--get more out of video games, and how to watch for and limit electronic game play.”

In related news, Dr. Olson’s husband and co-author of Grand Theft Childhood, Dr. Lawrence Kutner, has been appointed Executive Director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation.

As China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture continue to flex their muscles over control of the country’s game industry, World of Warcraft gamers and operators are feeling the brunt of the infighting between the two entities.

Reuters reports that GAPP has stripped NetEase of the ability to operate The Burning Crusade, the latest version of WOW. GAPP cited a “gross violation” of regulations and ordered NetEase to stop charging users to play the game and to cease taking new subscriptions.

NetEase has since responded, saying that they “believe that they are in full compliance with applicable PRC laws and are currently seeking clarification from the relevant governmental authorities.”

Roth Capital Partners analyst Adam Krejcik said of NetEase, “These guys are essentially stuck in the middle of this power struggle.”

Until September of this year, GAPP was responsible for approving all game content within China. The Ministry of Culture assumed some of these duties, but GAPP appears unwilling to give up its authority, leading to the current infighting. WOW was launched in China on September 19 with Ministry of Culture approval, but no GAPP approval, which is now coming back to haunt NetEase.

Analysts estimate that Chinese WOW activity contributes 5 or 6 cents a year per share to Activision’s earnings.


Thanks Greenfenri

The missteps following Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continue as a video posted online Friday night raised the ire of both journalists and fans of the series.

Starring Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, the video was designed to highlight the problem of grenade spam within the Call of Duty series, but an unfortunate acronym pushed the video from funny to offensive reports Destructoid. The mock public service announcement was provided by an organization called Fight Against Grenade Spam (F.A.G.S.) and had Hamels proclaiming that random grenades “are for pussies.”

Game Informer’s Philip Kollar Tweeted that video was “stupid and makes me reconsider my purchase more than any other controversy surrounding the game thus far,” while freelance writer Mitch Dyer wrote that “The problem is that it was so poorly handled/executed that it looks derogatory.”

Infinity Ward Community Manager Robert Bowling responded on Twitter that “the core gag is great, the end is a bit too far from the intent of the joke & can appreciate the concerns,” and pulled the video.

Update: Several copies of the video are still on YouTube for those who haven't seen it.

Is Activision taking a little liberty with their explanation of a leaked controversial scene from its upcoming title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?

In a response issued earlier this week, Activision stated that gamers had the option of “skipping” over the controversial scene in question, which had players taking part in a terrorist act. The publisher’s statement doesn’t exactly jibe with a description of the game as presented in the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s rating information page for the title.

Spoiler ahead! Avoid if you’re trying to maintain a media blackout on MW2.

The ESRB’s description of the terrorist scene:

The most intense depiction of violence occurs during a "No Russian" mission where players take on the role of an undercover Ranger: Several civilians are gunned down at an airport as players are given a choice to participate in the killings (e.g., players can shoot a wounded civilian that is crawling on the ground), or walk by and observe without opening fire.

In my mind, an option for “skipping” the scene would mean avoiding/not seeing all the action within that specific chapter, which, to be honest, if implemented, could interfere with or ruin the storyline of the game. Observing, as used by the ESRB, implies that the player is still fully immersed in the action, just not pressing the “fire” button on a controller or mouse.

Semantics? Perhaps, but it appears Activision’s explanation is a little misleading. We have a request for clarification on the matter in to Activision and will update this post if/when they respond.

Thanks Andrew!

The leaked Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 footage has raised the hackles of a few parties in Australia.

The footage, which showed gamers playing the part of a terrorist and taking part in a massacre of civilians at an airport, prompted the Australian Council on Children and the Media to call for a re-review the game’s MA15+ rating.

The group’s President, Jane Roberts, told Australia’s The Age:

The consequences of terrorism are just abhorrent in our community and yet here we are with a product that's meant to be passed off as a leisure time activity, actually promoting what most world leaders speak out publicly against. We understand that it's a game but ... we're not far off when you look at the images that you could actually put it on a Channel Nine news report and you'd think maybe that is real.

South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, who is usually described as the main reason the country does not have an R18+ rating for videogames, offered that, “Expecting game designers to be responsible by not glorifying terrorism will always lead to disappointment."

Electronic Frontiers Australia lobbyist Nicholas Suzor was a bit more rational, saying the topic highlighted even further the need for an adult rating in Australia:

Films often show the villain's perspective and, by doing that, they get across the character's story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories

Suzor added:

We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don't at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults.

An Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) spokesperson said the Board could not review its own decisions.

Activision has since said that the scene in question is skippable by players.

Thanks Ryan and Dante

Responding to footage leaked online yesterday from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which showed the apparent ability for gamers to take part in a terrorist attack, Activision verified that the content was legitimate and explained that players will have the opportunity to skip over the scene in question.

VG247 has the full statement:

Players have the option of skipping over the scene. At the beginning of the game, there are two ‘checkpoints’ where the player is advised that some people may find an upcoming segment disturbing. These checkpoints can’t be disabled.

Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.

About the events taking place in the scene itself, Activision explained:

The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player’s mission to stop them.

Game play from the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which appears to cast players in the role of a terrorist, has caused a maelstrom on the Internet.

While Activision has been extremely active in trying to get the footage off of the Web, clips still appear on a variety of websites.

Warning: if you were planning to play the game without knowing anything about it, these videos definitely contain spoilers, so watch at your own risk.
 
CNN’s iReport still has a 3.00 minute plus video up, showing a group of characters, dressed in civilian clothes with body armor over top, emerging from an elevator into an airport and wantonly gunning down a group of (what appears to be) civilians. Another disturbing image shows a non-player character attempting to drag another injured NPC to safety, only to have them both gunned down by the player. The group of terrorists then systematically marches through the building killing and finishing off any people still left in their path.

OnlineGamingEurope has much the same footage, but with a little differing overlap, showing the group of terrorists emerging from the airport and killing people on the tarmac in the shadow of an airplane.

Comparing officially issued screenshots with the leaked footage, along with other visual cues, GameSpot verified, to the best of their knowledge, that the footage is from the actual game. Activision’s full-scale attempts to take down the videos appear to back up GameSpot’s claims.

GameSpot further compared the rampage shown in the video to the killings that took place in Mumbai, India last year.  The gaming site speculates that the terrorist mission might be one of an undercover nature for the player, who must contribute or blow his cover.

What’s different about this bubbling controversy is that even some gaming websites are questioning whether or not this takes things too far. OnlineGamingEurope wrote that they found the footage “hard to stomach.” GameSpot added that, “The brutal nature of the airport massacre and the ever-sensitive subject of terrorism might prove a toxic mix, publicity-wise, if the mainstream media decides to pounce on it.” The Escapist asks, “Tell me that this doesn't have "moral outrage" written all over it.”

IndustryGamers was a bit more reflective:

It'd be easy for Infinity Ward to simply have a non-interactive cut scene depicting parts of this terrorist action, but by putting players into the middle of it, it makes the actions much more real and the consequences more tangible; it's hard not to get a lump in your throat as innocents are being shot down in your gunsights.

GP: The context of the footage is still unknown, and while it could even be a dream sequence or flashback, players do man the guns and pull the trigger. What makes the footage so striking is the level of visuals in Modern Warfare 2, as even in blurry online footage the action looks almost real, taking this a level beyond the cartoonish violence of games such as Grand Theft Auto.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in, we saw it too!

Poking, prodding and massaging NPD U.S. videogame sales data, Gamasutra has arrived at the conclusion that the average owner of a console version of Call of Duty: World at War spent $9 on downloadable content.

DLC packs were released in March, June and August of this year with a price of $10 apiece. 6.5 million packs had been sold as of August, with the author rounding up to 7.0 million in order to make sales current. Based on estimates of an analyst, it was estimated that 65% of the 7.0 million DLC sales were within the U.S., meaning an approximate $45.0 million in additional revenue for Activision Blizzard stateside.

The average price paid for World at War was $56.00, adding in the total spent on DLC brings the total average price spent to $65.00, increasing revenue per software unit by 15% (with reduced overhead), ensuring that DLC is not going away anytime soon:

With Modern Warfare 2 expected to best World at War's 11 million units in sales, it seems certain that consumers will again be tempted with paid DLC throughout 2010 as Activision Blizzard attempts to maximize its revenue per sale.

A handful of game companies and retailers are listed within Newsweek’s Green Rankings list, which rates the Top 500 environmental companies in America.

While the list, with 500 entries, is hardly exclusive, each entrant was awarded an overall hard numeric score. The company that fared the best overall? Hewlett-Packard with a Green Score of 100, followed by Dell in second with a 98.87.

In the gaming (and related) business sector, Microsoft came in at #31 with a score of 83.79, followed by retailers Wal-Mart (#59) with a score of 80.38 and Best Buy (#61) with a score of 80.33. GameStop clocked in at #228, with a score of 71.37, with Electronic Arts (#381) and Activision Blizzard (#416) following. EA and Activision Blizzard had scores of 65.58 and 63.80 respectively.

Image via otherpower.com

Activision’s latest entry in the Call of Duty series has received an 18 rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).

MCVUK notes that all the previous entries in the series were rated wither BBFC 15 or PEGI 16+. The only statement made in the BBFC’s rating memo was that the game “contains strong bloody violence.”

In related news, it appears the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 will no longer be the beneficiary of dedicated servers. A EuroGamer story states that developer Infinity Ward will roll out a new proprietary service, called IWNet, which will focus on matchmaking.

This news served to irritate PC-based fans of the series, who immediately started an online petition demanding dedicated servers. At the time of this post, there were more than 96,000 signatures on the petition.

Update:  A 13-page thread on the Infinity Ward forums details the cancellation of many pre-orders for the game by those upset over the lack of dedicated server option for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2.

A sampling of comments:

I also cancelled my preorder. I've got better things to spend my money on than that. A great Singleplayer? that's no comfort to me. -.-

I work at EB games in a shopping center here in Australia. We got hit with an onslaught today, 193 total preoders for Modern warfare 2 on PC, today alone we lost 78!

Four of my co-workers went to GameStop at lunch yesterday to cancel their pre-orders. They said the guy working told them that there had been a slow but steady stream of people coming in to cancel pre-orders throughout the morning.

And, just to be fair:

I walked into my local game store and... ...went ahead and paid for MW2 in full after putting $5 down on it a couple of months ago. You people that are canceling are going to miss out on a great game.

Update 2: Infinity Ward developer Robert Bowling has taken to his blog in an attempt to further explain/clarify some aspects of the online experience PC users will face.


Image via Cheezburger.com

The cringe-inducing video featuring Kurt Cobain’s Guitar Hero 5 avatar performing songs from the likes of Bon Jovi, Bush and Public Enemy has been taken off of YouTube due to a copyright claim from Activision.

The user who posted the video has had his account disabled as well reports Kotaku. corporalgregg3 wrote,  “Yeah, my last account was permanently disabled due to (I think) Activision. Right before my account was shut down, the Kurt Cobain vid was removed due to copyright claim by Activision Games Inc.”

Cobain’s widow Courtney Love had threatened to “sue the shit” out of Activision over his use in the game before Activision responded with a claim to have a signed document from Love for just such use. Unfortunately (fortunately?) Love’s main means of communicating, her Twitter account, has been deactivated.