God bless you, sir; you're doing the Lord's work.
It seems a game can’t release any more without pissing off one demographic or another. Within hours of a press release over a new game, people are sharpening pitchforks and setting torches ablaze with something to be furious over. Whether it be Left 4 Dead 2’s extensive online protest over it’s less-than-a-year after launch sequel, or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s lack of dedicated PC servers, there’s always something for unsatisfied psychotics to complain about.
But, what a surprise, it looks like neither uproar did anything to slow down sales for either game. Let’s take a look at the numbers after the jump.
I can appreciate honest-to-god protesting. But do you think anyone cares about angry Facebook groups or stickied forum threads of hostility? If you didn’t know it, as easy as it is to commit to something with no consequences over the internet, it’s equally as easy to break that very same promise.
Modern Warfare 2 sold three million copies on launch day in the UK. That’s one country. I guess as offensive as the grenade spam video was, it couldn’t stop the juggernaut that is MW2. Valve announced that Left 4 Dead 2 is currently sitting at four times the number of pre-orders than the original Left 4 Dead. While this is no guarantee of what the sales are going to look like for a sequel, that seems like a pretty good indicator that the game is going to destroy the sales numbers of the original.
So where did all the protesters go? All those people shouting to everyone that would listen that they wouldn’t be buying the latest title? Are there still a few holdouts, sitting in their parents basement keeping the “www.ProtestLeft4Dead2.com” website alive, while the hundreds of their ex-protesters are already standing in line outside their local Best Buy waiting for the game to drop?
Numbers don’t lie, and the numbers for both Left4Dead2 and Modern Warfare 2 are already spiking mind-blowing numbers. Stop saying you’re not going to buy the game and then go out like a drug addict sneaking out of the house to go score a fix. Remember why you play games? To have fun. These games look like they’re going to be a lot of fun. So go get a copy; we won’t tell your fellow members of “SoapMcTavishcansuckit.com”.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=226704
http://kotaku.com/5401980/modern-warfare-2-ships-three-millionin-one-country
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Not to be a pain in the arse but the UK isnt one country…… Just as much as North America isn’t a country.
actually unless you count northen ireland it is. It’s a country made up of the country britain and continants scotland and whales though i think what shanghai meant was britain.
Don’t tell me you guys think Canada is it’s own country…
The fact that discrimination against Canadians is ok for Americans is well documented by the Blu Show !
…How many of those sales were PC? THATS all I want to know before I say “yep… people bought anyway.”
Agreed, as on launch day the PC copy wasn’t even on the shelves of my local GAME stores.
If protest because of a developers decision on a game I like , I will most likely still buy it. The reason why is simple: Yes I’m displeased with that tweak that really pisses me off, but that doesn’t mean I am totally turned off by the complete package.
It’s like complaining about the paint job of a BMW someone is selling you for 60 $( but seriously if someone makes you that offer run and run fast) Keep in mind though that when I protest I keep it civil no lulz-Bullshit.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6062/1258035395841.jpg
lolololol
The point of they protests is not necessarily to say “Your game sucks and you will be going out of business;” it’s just a message that gamers send that other companies can listen to. If there was an uproar about the fact that Activision’s CEO is a walking turd with very shiny shoes that decided to take out support for dedicated servers in order to charge for DLC, then other companies can look at that and say “Well, we’re not shelling out games that are made of hype, we actually ahve to make a quality product that can stand on its own, so maybe we should keep dedicated servers because that seems like something gamers like.”
Yes, it’s not stopping Bobby Kotick from grinding up million dollar bills and lining his nostrils with them, but maybe it’ll show other companies what’s a good idea – and more importantly, what isn’t.
Chub, that pic is awesome. Nice find.
Here’s a link to the actual page.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/wewantdedicatedMW2/members
Hilarious.
I stuck to my guns and am not buying MW2. You can’t get me to stray from a cause!
didn’t valve fly the originators of the protest to their offices, showed them left 4 dead 2 and sat down and talked with them and listened to their concerns before the guys retracted their original protest. also since then dlc was released for left 4 dead so i don’t think you can really rag on the protesters for that to hard.
@cynicalmonkey
Yes, VALVe did just that. Afterwards, the protest leaders decided that they liked Left 4 Dead 2, and then people whinged about that, and claimed the leaders had “sold out”. They didn’t realise something:
If VALVe flew you out, free of charge, to their offices to see a game in pre-release form, then you’d probably feel pretty guilty going back to your group and continuing to protest.