Activision posts

It's been over a month since the last patch was released for the PC version of Call of Duty Black Ops. However late tonight the Steam service offered up the latest bug update for the PC port of developer Treyarch's hit first person shooter.

The new patch is mainly for fixing issues in the game such as closing up some exploits, improving the game's stability and fixing an issue where the audio in multiplayer was stuttering on some PC systems. It does add some new private match server settings (Team Change, Team-Up Period, and Keep Balanced Teams) and your friends on your team will now show up as blue on the game's mini-map.

Activision's biggest game franchise by far is the Call of Duty franchise and everyone expects a new game in the series to be released by November of 2011. Now a report from the Los Angeles Times claims that the next game in the shooter series will indeed be Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and that three development teams are working on it.

According to the report, which does not name its sources, the game's main developer Infinity Ward is getting help on the single player campaign from another in-house developer Sledgehammer Games. Infinity Ward apparently needed the help since much of the team left the studio in 2010 following the firing of the studio's founders by Activision. In addition, the article claims that another developer, Raven Software, is handling the multiplayer portions of Modern Warfare 3. The downside? A Call of Duty spin-off game from Sledgehammer Games is now on hold while the team helps Infinity Ward.

In related news, our sister site Joystiq has all of the new and gory details of the current legal battle between Activision and Infinity Ward's former heads Vince Zampella and Jason West. In short, the court has now officially added Electronic Arts as a defendant in Activision's lawsuit against the duo.

The UK-based game developer Bizarre Creations seems to have run out of options and time. After its owner Activision revealed last November it was considering selling or shutting down the studio, Develop reports that the publisher has now recommended that the studio be closed.

According to the report, Activision said it had " a lot of leads but no interested parties" who wanted to purchase the studio which was formed in 1994. Activision bought the studio in 2007 and in 2010 it finally released its first games for the publisher; the racing title Blur and the movie-based action game James Bond 007 Blood Stone. Neither game sold well, however. The shut down of Bizarre, barring a last minute sale, means that about 200 people will lose their jobs.

After several days of a "police line" at the GoG.com web site, the DRM-free PC game download service has taken it down and revealed its newest additions to its library. As many suspected, the site has added the classic Police Quest games to its line up. The games from the now defunct Sierra Online are now owned by Activision. You can get the first four games in the series in one bundle from GoG.com for just $9.99.

Also added to the GoG.com site today is a bundle that collects six classic text adventure games from the 1980s. The Zork Anthology contains Zork I, Zork II, Zork III, Beyond Zork, Zork Zero, and Planetfall. That's a lot of gaming goodness in one small 9 MB download for $5.99.

While the pricing for Call of Duty DLC is something most people can disagree on, this trailer gives us hope that the maps will at least be high quality. It covers four of the five new maps in the Black Ops 'First Strike' DLC and discusses the additions made at the request of the community: more open spaces, more sniper opportunities, more verticality, and more interactive objects. Each glimpse at the four multiplayer maps details the few important features, such as collapsing walkways and automated turrets. However, one map is mysteriously absent in the trailer: the zombie mode map Ascension.

Download HD Call of Duty: Black Ops 'First Strike DLC' Preview Trailer
Check out all Call of Duty: Black Ops downloads

Activision's Spider-Man game license has been a solid one for the game publisher and last year's release of Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions from Activision's in-house game developer Beenox got a lot of good critical notices (the PC version was released as a Wal-Mart exclusive last November).

Activision was apparently happy enough with Beenox's work on the game that today they announced that Beenox will now be the primary developer for Activision's upcoming and unannounced games featuring Marvel Comics' favorite web slinger. There's no word yet on what the next Spider-man game will be about nor when will it be released.

It's "lawsuit day" today in gaming news as word has gotten out on a new lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard and the social networking game publisher Zynga. TechCrunch reports that the lawsuit was filed by Walker Digital, a so-called "invention company." In its lawsuit Walker Digital claims both publisher have infringed on one of Walker Digital's US patents, 6,425,828, that was first filed in 2002.

Walker Digital claims that Activision Blizzard and Zynga are infringing on the patent which is for "a method and a system for a distributed electronic tournament system ..." Walker Digital says that a number of games released by both publishers, including Call of Duty Modern Warfare 1 and 2, World of Warcraft and others infringe on its patent. The company is seeking an unspecified amount for compensation and damages. So far Activision Blizzard and Zynga have yet to respond to the lawsuit.

The legal sparring between Activision Blizzard and the two founders of game developer Respawn Entertainment continue, according to a new report on Kotaku. The story states that in new legal documents the two former founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, claim that they are "paying for this litigation from our own funds".

In December Activision Blizzard dragged fellow publisher Electronic Arts into its legal fight with West and Zampella. However West and Zampella now claim that the decision to bring EA into the mix was an attempt by Activision Blizzard to delay the start of the actual trial which at the moment is supposed to happen this May. The duo claim that " ... any delay of the trial in this lawsuit would increase the financial and non-financial burdens and would continue to distract us from running our business and earning a living."

Respawn was formed in April 2010 by West and Zampella after having been fired by Activision Blizzard as the co-founders and leaders of the Call Of Duty game development studio Infinity Ward last March. At the time Activision Blizzard accused the duo of "breaches of contract and insubordination" while West and Zampella stated that the publisher didn't want to pay the large bonuses that they would claim from sales of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Respawn is currently working on an unannounced game that will be published by EA.

Today was a busy day for news and with CES 2011 starting up in full force tomorrow it's going to get even busier. Time to take that 5 hour drink dealie.

• Folks who want to make new in-game weapons and items for Team Fortress 2 can now try them out with the first beta release of the game's item testing room
• Wired's web site has released the 2010 edition of its annual Vaporware list, with Half-Life 2 Episode 3 listed among the tech-related items. It also lists the Black Mesa Source mod as well which seems a little unfair.
• Activision is threatening to depart its UK offices because of that country's decision not to extend tax cuts for game developers.

Even though PC games have gotten a new surge in popularity lately, piracy of PC game software remains a huge concern. This week the web site Torrentfreak.com reports that the single most pirated PC game of the past year is developer Treyarch's first person shooter Call of Duty Black Ops. The site claims that even though the game was released in November, the site claims that it was downloade 4,270,000 times. The report claims the data comes "from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers."

In second place was Battlefield Bad Company 2 which the report claims was downloaded 3,960,000 times in 2010. Mafia 2, Mass Effect 2 and StarCraft II make up the rest of the top five.