Activision (Modern Warfare) versus Electronic Arts (Battlefield 3): Update. Part -1 PS3, Xbox 360, PC
There are rivalries like Liverpool Football Club and Manchester United and then there are rivalries like Boca Juniors and River Plate; there is competition between Nike and Adidas, Ferrari and Lamborghini; there are conflicts like Israel and Palestine, but
now the latest most fierce rivalry in the modern world seems to be between Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3.
While this may seem like an exaggeration to a few, mostly World of Warcraft players who would rather live in a fantastical world, if one looks at it objectively, it has more tension than the Cold War had at its peak, in 1962.
Activision is one of the major publishers in the video game market and its annual release of Call of Duty titles, which alternate between the Modern Warfare series, developed by Infinity Ward, and the standard Call of Duty, which is developed by Treyarch
studios, sell in the millions. As a matter of fact, it is synonymous with the online first person shooter genre.
Despite getting heavy criticism from fans, for not being more like Modern Warfare 2, Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops has earned more than $1-billion since its launch last year. That figure was recorded just 42 days after the game’s release.
The best thing about it is, the astronomical sales were not even from the, even more popular, Modern Warfare series. If Black Ops could do so well, even with its fans complaining half the time, one can only imagine what the world will come to when Modern
Warfare 3 launches this holiday season.
At the same time, Electronic Arts is going back to its modern shooter roots with Battlefield 3. The Battlefield series had, and still has, a huge following, though its mostly on PCs. However, at the same time while its venture onto consoles, the Battlefield:
Bad Company series, was hailed for its fantastic multiplayer, it was greatly let down by its disappointing single-player experience.
Yet from what the world has seen of Battlefield 3, it seems all of that is about to change. The graphics look phenomenal, the gameplay looks solid and overall the game seems like an improvement.
The ‘My Life’ trailer managed to get everyone interested and the four ‘Fault Line’ trailers wowed everyone. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo, in Los Angeles, the live demo which showed gamers the level where they would, one day, get to control a tank,
was lengthy, yet it managed to hold everyone’s attention throughout, due to the intensity of the fight.
At the same time the Modern Warfare 3 trailers, were a case of being more of the same standard, run of the mill trailers everyone was expecting. Yes, Activision may have upped the scale, taking the game to four different countries, but from what everyone
has seen it seems more like Modern Warfare 2.5, than a full fledged third instalment of the game.
This brings us to the next point: the game engine which runs each game. While Activision and Sledgehammer will run the argument of not wanting to tamper with a winning formula, and one has to agree with that to an extent, it is Electronic Arts that seem
to be going all out, in terms of improving their game engine.
This article is continued in Activision (Modern Warfare) versus Electronic Arts (Battlefield 3): Update. Part -2 PS3, Xbox 360, PC
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