According to a report on Gameblog.fr, Amazon’s French site listed Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 briefly this week. The listing was quickly pulled down, with a listing for the more generic Call of Duty 9 put up in its place — even though the announcement of a Black Ops 2 would surprise absolutely nobody.
The really interesting point to this story is that Gameblog is now asserting that Activision has been in contact with them and demanded that they remove the story about the revoked listing. Gameblog has refused to do so, although other sites who picked it up quickly have apparently taken their stories down.
Gameblog further seems to be alleging that Activision has uninvited them from a Transformers event they were scheduled to attend next week, declined to provide any further review code and backed out of existing advertising deals — as well as cease any negotiation for future ad deals.
Obviously, Activision’s side of the story has not been heard but it is certainly true that other french sites have removed the story, it’s not unreasonable to presume that was at the request of Activision. Google’s caching shows that Jeuxvideo and JVN both used to have the story, then didn’t.
My personal thoughts on this matter are that it would be silly (and incredibly heavy handed) if Activision had collected their various PR and Ad buying departments together in some sort of blacklisting of Gameblog over something so widely expected. It also raises the question of why they would do this to a smaller European site like Gameblog but when Kotaku leaked the entire plot and many intricate details of the gameplay of Modern Warfare 3, they suffered apparently no repercussions.
Source: Gameblog
The Lone Steven
So, they will punish a site for daring to confirm what we know but leaking the entire plot months before release is fine. Nice to see you’ve got your priorities right Acti.
Surely, they could have used it to their advantage and confirm it as COD pretty much advertises itself nowadays.
BIGAL-1992
Let’s be honest, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should be surprised about this story.
colmshan1990
Bang goes any TSA-Acti relationship?
Good to see you’re still reporting the story- very petty behaviour from Activision on display there. Unless an NDA to talk about the game exists, of course (and Gameblog knew about it).
Death_In_Flamez
Wouldn’t expect as much from Activision. Money grabbing b******s promote good games, but COD really does not need any hiding from people. We know it’s coming so stop being so childish over a leak…
HoboCastro
I’m getting annoyed with leaks. It tends to happen with first party titles more often than anything else. The leaks for GoW4 have killed the grand unveiling. I don’t see why third party leaks are dismissed even if it is an annual title.
I would much rather I had found out by Acti releasing a trailer out of the blue.
HoboCastro
I’m not defending Activision’s alleged ensuing actions. If correct, they are a bit childish but I can see why they are annoyed
hazelam
but for something like this that’s pretty much a forgone conclusion?
this is likely to protect some exclusive deal with game informer.
remember the borderlands 2 thing?
it’s funny how gamestop is the enemy until they do some exclusive deal with them or their magazine, then they’re great.
HoboCastro
I find that unlikely. Activision don’t need to really on guaranteeing magazine circulation or preferential scores to sell CoD.
I think has more to do with the hundreds of thousands they spend on glitz and parties to announce these games.
The times I’ve seen other press conferences and the announcements have been muted because of leaks is becoming increasingly abundant.
hazelam
i don’t think they care about the magazine’s circulation, just what they get for providing that magazine with the exclusive.
gazzagb
Hmm. Either this is Gameblog wanting a bit of attention, or Acti wanting it. No such thing as bad press, Acti are hated already by a lot of gamers and they know it, doubt they care if they get a few more game journos and gamers decide not to like them either.
Will be interesting if Acti respond to this.
Origami Killer
There’s something about Activision always wanting to make a scene of themselves. Tw@ts
CdmanJak
>_> the same game 8? ill give it a miss
fattyuk
Yeah mate just like resident evil or final fantasy defo gotta give them a miss oO or sonic or mario… oh yeah defo gotta give them a miss oO
Awayze
I hate Activision. They have the worst developers out there. They don’t support their games and have monkeys making their games which in 2012 aren’t even HD.
MW- Not supported for more than 5 minutes. Hacked.
MW2 – Hacked again. Unsupported
Black Ops – Horrible on PS3 and PC
MW3 – Screwed PS3 users over. 4 months and PS3 Elite users have received zilch!
With all the money they make from the COD franchise, you’d except them to make IW and Treyarch support PS3 players. I for one hope COD dies before next gen and I would like to see Activision suffer.
BIGAL-1992
Now hang on a minute, just because you don’t like activision doesn’t mean every developer under their ownership are terrible. More to the point, I thought you were a real call of duty fan a few months ago.
Awayze
None of their developers make a game in HD and I can’t think of a another IP other than COD that actually sells.
I am a COD fan, MW and MW2 only. No game will ever be as fun as MW2 for me. Downhill since then.
gaffers101
Are Activision going to snub PSM3 magazine too? Page 40 of issue 150, The Rumour Matrix article has the following:
“Black Ops 2
An internet domain registration company used by Activision has claimed the address blackops2.com, but that doesn’t mean a sequel to Treyarch’s game is guaranteed; they also have registrations for modernwarfare1-6.com, and blackops1-6.com too.”
Surely this is pretty obvious information.