Since early August when a Treyarch employee was caught playing a game titled “Iron Wolf” on the Xbox 360, rumors of the next Call of Duty series being called “Iron Wolf” or “Project Iron Wolf” have been swirling on the internet.
A fake website located at ironwolfproject.com, likely setup by a Call of Duty fanboy, even went online in late December albeit with some significant errors like the misspelling of “Treyarch”.
Whether it’s a more clever stunt by another Call of Duty fanboy or a sneaky but legitimate transfer to Activision’s legal department, the domain name projectironwolf.com (Whois) was updated earlier this week and now has Whois details that match that of Activision’s other coveted domain names like CallofDuty.com (Whois).
The biggest similarities include the domain servers listed, as well as the address and phone information.
The big difference between the two Whois records, of course, is the name used as the contact, which is the telltale sign that this is nothing more than another silly stunt. Whereas Activision’s Whois contact used for its domains is usually Mary Tuck, the company’s litigation counsel, the contact listed for projectironwolf.com is currently George Pharell, who also uses an unrelated e-mail: callofdutytiw -at- post.com.
Post.com is owned and operated by World Media Group, LLC, an online company that specializes in owning premium domain names like doctor.com and lawyer.com.
According to Whois historical records, projectironwolf.com was first registered in early January by a resident of the Ukraine. The domain name changed hands days later to George Pharell.
Recently, the owner of the name (who ran a now suspended Twitter account) redirected visitors to CallofDuty.com, but as of today, the web address does not resolve to any web page.
I’ve reached out to George Pharell by e-mail, who appears to have a lot of free time on his hands, and will update this post if I hear back.
The Whois changes to ProjectIronWolf.com appear to be just an online ruse, but with all the “Iron Wolf” buzz emerging, I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether the domain ends up in the hands of Activision.
Activision’s involvement in this whole thing, may merely be a matter of a cease-and-desist letter.
Discussion: This Is Xbox
