The owner of ModernWarfare3.com is lashing out at Activision, the publisher of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, in a series of statements and videos that appear on the ModernWarfare3.com website, and throwing support instead to Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 3 due out two weeks before the release of Modern Warfare 3 this fall.
Up until yesterday the site had been taken offline. Before going offline the website was anything but negative about Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, racking up over 7,000 “Likes” on Facebook, as the owner looked to be building out a massive online fan website, albeit a site that was confusingly similar to Activision’s own MW3 site.
Now the tone on the website has changed. In what seems to have been prompted by Activision’s lawyers.
WARNING — THIS WEBSITE IS UNDER SEIGE, reads a message at the top of the homepage. Instead of an official trailer video, a video called “Modern Warfare 3” sucks runs on the homepage.
The site’s owner has also updated the disclaimer at the bottom of the site to say, “Modern Warfare 3 .com is a 100% unofficial fan site dedicated to the Modern Warfare series. IF you haven’t figured it out yet, this site is a parody of Modern Warfare 3. Call of Duty official site. Modern Warfare is crap. On November 8, 2011, the most over-hyped first-person action series of all-time returns with the copy and paste sequel to the lackluster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Check out the E3 2011 gameplay demo featuring the Black Tuesday level for a look at the epic fail of the campaign. Pre-Order Call of Duty MW3 Today for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC to secure exclusive bonuses only available online for Modern Warfare 3 fanboys who don’t know that Battlefield 3 is the better game.”
Click on other links on the site such as Media, and additional YouTube videos explaining why Modern Warfare 3 will suck are posted.
The Intel page is much of the same, with testimonials that say things like, “Been there , done that. NEXT! The new kid on the block Battlefield 3.”
I’ve reached out to the site’s owner for comment and will update this post if I hear back.
As far as the dramatic change to a parody site showing support for EA’s Battlefield 3, the only conclusion that I can reach is that Activision has contacted the owner about the domain name and website. While that’s clearly speculation, if they weren’t in touch before, they might be in touch soon.
EA may win the battle when it comes to intellectual property online. The company already owns and operates Battlefield.com and recently acquired Battlefield.net. It also owns Battlefield3.com.
Activision, as I’ve pointed out before, doesn’t own ModernWarfare.com or ModernWarfare3.com. One can only imagine the online games that would be played if Activision decides to release a Modern Warfare 4 in the future. As I’ve noted in the past, ModernWarfare4.com is one of the most interesting domain registrations by far. It’s yet another domain not owned by Activision, but in this case, the owners made news headlines when they threatened to hurt a clown if the game development studio behind Modern Warfare, Infinity Ward, didn’t play ball with their demands.
According to the latest Compete statistics released for May, the “rough” estimated traffic to ModernWarfare3.com was over 20,000 unique visitors.
Here’s a link to the Modern Warfare 3 Sucks video, in case the website goes offline again. WARNING: Language is strong.
