Activision has been given far too much credit for their disingenuous reasons for nixing what may seem like two small features. It's not solely dedicated servers, but also mod support. DLC in the PC is far different from how it exists in consoles due to XBL and PSN's closed, proprietary nature. Those who play online on consoles have been exposed to this environment for years and have accepted and adjusted. Such a scenario isn't the case for multiplayer on the PC though, and Activision wishes to change that. Their attack is three-pronged:

1) By disabling dedicated servers, servers solely meant for those with pirated copies are effectively eliminated, unless there's serious reverse engineering like how private World of Warcraft come about. No online multiplayer for pirated copies, which arguably is the biggest appeal and the strongest point of COD games.

2) Activision knows that by centralizing the multiplayer through matchmaking, they maintain the power to pull the plug on it's multiplayer when it becomes financially feasible to only have servers running for the newest games and force stalwart MW2 players to purchase the latest game.

3) By eliminating mod support, that practically eliminates the prospect of any community made DLC and thus leave MW2's longevity and support at the discretion of Activision and whatever amount of content they wish to make at whatever price.

This is Activision consolidating their control and maximizing profits in every conceivable way at the expense of us. The first reason is understandable. After all, even Activision, the faceless conglomerate is a business that has every right to defend their product, but disabling dedicated servers has consequences too: gaming clans/groups no longer can have a communal server, and latency/server capacity is left in the hands of a company who'll have to service potentially millions of other players.

The latter two reasons are aggressive acts against the interest and benefit of its consumers. It may be within their discretion, but that doesn't mean i'll agree with since I benefit nothing from their profiteering, and in fact as a person who primarily plays on a PC, I am disappointed and a little worried of the implications of Activision's monopolization of the online multiplayer experience for MW2, and presumably their other games.

The outcry following the announcements has little to do with fundamentalism on the part of the PC community, but rather their insistence on the control of the content they pay to use. No one's shedding a tear about pirates being locked out of multiplayer. Consumers and businesses have different interests, and unless you have a business or exist in the middle as a stockholder, you gain nothing by letting business roll over you. We'll never see the fruits of Activision's profits, and apparently neither do its developers and employees if the reports of their exploitation is any indicator.

So apparently you can't do anything without offending someone nowadays. For every genuinely tasteless theme and comments, there's stuff like this. I'd like to introduce you to today's Blogocube superstar, Melissa McEwan.

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-write-letters.html

Here's a choice quote from that blog post:

"Anyway, congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery."

and here's the lovely Ms. McEwan:



You can say McEWan again.

I'll refrain from comment, not because I can't find a way to voice my opinion on this without offending fat people.....and Germans, Gypsies, the Amish, and Jews, but because that'd require too much thought. So i'll let you decide how to interpret it on the comments section, and i'll leave you with this little gem, inspired by this little debacle.

In honor of MGS4's release and the fact that portable handhelds for the most part are shoddily constructed pieces of shit...I figured it's time to rid myself of my out-of-warranty DS and PSP and...just get new ones. I also picked up Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops since I just recently beat MGS3 and didn't feel like saying goodbye to all the characters just yet. Now I realize i've also just formed the gayest collective of words ever assembled in the history of the English language.



For those playing the home game, about 80 percent of what I earn goes to funding my fiend like obsession with video games, the other 20 being evenly split between hookers, hamburgers, and trying to keep my girlfriend from breaking up with me. I invite you to look further down the blog to see my setup and rather disturbing collection of gizmos and either be really impressed or really sorry for me

Quick Impressions:

1) God of War PSP bundle: It's a very 1980's shade of red, and it looks quite good in daylight. Madonna wouldn't mind being caught dead with it, and neither would I. God of War is a fun little game, I didn't care much for Superbad the first time I saw it but after spending yesterday evening watching through it again, I realized how much of a prancing ninny I was for not laughing at the abundance of crude jokes. It's actually a good value, especially for the $171.20 I paid for it.

2) Cobalt Blue DS: I don't know what it is, but the back of it feels REALLY nice, it's like a sort of sandpaper-ish feel to it. It's felt so good i've put it in places I can't mention on network television. You should all have DS' so you don't need me to tell you what you already know, unless you don't have one and are having a depraved childhood or miserable existence.

3) Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops:

Notice how I didn't write out an impression for MGS:PO? That's how much God and I hate you.

Now i'm off to continue MGS4 and not write a review for it afterwards since everyone and their third cousin twice removed has one for a CBlog already.

Before I start off, i'd like to congratulate the Virgin store for having a spectacular waiting
experience. They really took care of us throughout the day, with free drinks and constant
updates as to how the queue would go. They also had security on hand to make sure no
one would end up getting mugged, shot, or raped whilst in line, when other stores would
normally just give us pre-emptive buttplugs and tell us to get off their lawns.

I got there at 10.30 A.M , after grudging through hordes of "normal" people who looked at
me funny for walking around with a lawn chair and a backpack. I came early expecting to
be pretty much the only sap there and to my surprise, I ran into another horde of that
same species, only with more acne and inexplicable funk. While I figured i'd be there by
my lonesome, I actually run into a bunch of cool people, and the best part was that they
weren't even the Sony Fanbots i've come to known to exist, so we laughed and reminisced
about games, and tricked random people who stopped to ask us what we were doing into
believeing we were waiting in line for either:


A) Hannah Montana on Ice tickets
B) Cher tickets
C) Rick Astley....on Ice tickets
D) American Idol Auditions (with some rather convincing, though off-key singing)


I think i'm going to stop typing words on the internet now because as we all know, letters
that form into comprehensible combinations are for fanny bandits and sailors. That plus I
spent 14 hours on a Manhatten city sidewalk, meaning I need to start breaking a few
piggie banks to afford my tetanus, syphillis, and colon cancer treatment tomorrow

I was meaning to make this post around Memorial Day weekend, but I was busy pretending to be too cool to be on the internet on a holiday. You'd think a post that's been weeks in the making would have epic LOL's, tits, and exclusive gaming news but alas, I've only got the patience to rehash a post I made on the fucking forums. No one goes there though so it's as good as coming up with something new.

Here's some pics from around my underground lair, i've mercifully made them small since some people's tubes are more clogged than others, such as people from Mongolia. They're not really real people though so maybe I should make them larger. Oh, and they all come with captions too...that have letters in them. No numbers though, numbers are for prancing ninnies.



1) What I look at when I play these vidja gaymes. It's an improvement over my old seup, which was just an SNES hooked up to Etch a Sketch board.


2) A long shot of my room. More like a long shot to get laid in there amirite.


3) It's how I rock out cock shots and batteries not included


4) The few things i've got to be proud of in my life.


5) My consumer whoring symbolized


6) It's tough to put your feet up when there's countless unnecessary accessories on your coffee table. There should just be coffee there and really large hardcovers.


7) Where I send off all my consoles of yesteryear to rot in neglect and die of gay AIDS. Oh and my surround sound receiver too!


8) The reason I dropped out of middle school and turned to a life of crime and selling my body to the night.


7) Half of my game collection...the other half was repossessed by Bloomingdale's department stores.


8) Oh no wait, there it is. (P.S I realize Chromehounds and Perfect Dark Zero are sharing shelf space with all my other games that aren't complete pieces of shit...I kind of like those games though, in a masochistic kinda way)