CoD2 players threaten to strike

By Ellie Gibson Published 28 November, 2005

They're not very happy.

Call of Duty fans disgruntled with the game's developer, Infinity Ward, are threatening to shut down servers by embarking on a 24 hour strike.

In a message on the official Infinity Ward forums, a poster by the name of ButchCassidy wrote: "We request here and now that either Activision or Infinty Ward make an offcial announcement regarding their future support for the Call of Duty series of games on or before 16th December 2005.

"The statement should include the following:

1. When will you include an Anti-Cheat system for CoD2?

2. When [will] you release your 1st patch for CoD2?

3. What will it include?

4. What other plans have you for the support of the Call of Duty Games?

5. What will you do to ensure this situation does not arise again?"

ButchCassidy went on to state that if the demands are not met, "We will actively encourage ALL Clans, Leagues, Ladders, Players, Admins and server providers to enforce a series of 24hr mass server shutdowns of all Call of duty games at a time of our choosing."

Many posters and clans responded by pledging their support for the strike, which is now scheduled to kick off on December 17 unless a statement is issued in time.

As yet, neither Activision nor Infinity Ward have commented on the proposed strike.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Eighthours #1 6 years ago

    What's the root of their dissatisfaction then?

  • yorkiebar #2 6 years ago

    gosh, what next? Lets all go on strike against EA to stop them making shite sports games and medal of honor sequels.

  • Teeth #3 6 years ago

    Cue hundreds of humorous replies to the effect that their dissatisfaction is that they've bought CoD2

  • HarryB #4 6 years ago

    how not playing a game they paid for does anything, I don't know. mugs

  • gallow #5 6 years ago

    I played this on a lan a couple of weekends ago and within 20 minutes found the three following bugs:

    Players starting without weapons.

    Players starting invisible who can pick up weapons and kill but are invicible.

    Unable to change weapon on the spawn menu.

    If I found these bugs after 20 mins I wonder what else has not been found. Also not building in Punkbuster is a massive mistake they should have learned from the original release.

  • geepersd #6 6 years ago

    no too sure how refusing to play a game you are obviously passionate about and you've already paid good money for will be easy to organise let alone be of any effect

    anyway, what's the problem they don't want a repeat of?

  • mechamonkey #7 6 years ago

    Oh noes an internet petition/strike that will show them .....

  • The-Bodybuilder #8 6 years ago

    Change your number, change your life (or is that l-oi-fe?)

  • TILT #9 6 years ago

    Imagine you bought that awesome game to play it online, and there is noone to play it against... you'd be pretty pissed off, I guess, and you'd tell your buddies who also thought about buying it. If they can create that kind of effect "artificially", by going on strike or plain stopping to play it, they might just have an effect. Then again, they might not... isn't CoD more about the single-player? So, will people notice that there is noone online?

  • Bezzy #10 6 years ago

    Woohoo! So during the strikes, when others set up servers, can we jump on them and call the admins "scabs"?

  • trav #11 6 years ago

    Always hate CoD's mulitplayer, much prefer the single-player. No loss for me.

  • Elysium #12 6 years ago

    There are similar problems with the 360 version of CoD2; infact, much more worrying. The online ("Live";) play is worthless, rendering the game only useful for those who wish to experience the single-player mode.

    The Infinity Ward websites (and xbox.com) are awash with people complaining about the limited 8 players only.. the terrible lag, and the fact that once you finish a game you are thrown right back outside, losing all track of the players and having to start all over again.

    Infinity Ward are keeping away from both the 360 / PC complaints for the moment.. and who can blame them, the bad publicity surrounding the 360 launch is not something they wish people to catch on to.. I mean, how many European gamers are going to buy the 360 version aiming to play online, only to find it nigh on impossible.. then wandering around for minutes at a time with not even a pigeon to shoot.

  • Furbs #13 6 years ago

    What a bunch of "girls" (in a non-sexist discrimatory way) :p
    If us BF2 types did this, noone would be playing.

    Hint: If its that bad, stop playing it for more than 24 hours. Move on. Stop whining. Dont buy the expansion. Dont buy the sequel.

  • Tweakmonkey #14 6 years ago

    I think it's a good attempt by customers to show their dissatisfaction with a shoddy product. I hope that the publisher/developer takes notice.

  • Aurifex. #15 6 years ago

    I love the multi player side of it. Play it the most.

  • andrewfromdoncaster #16 6 years ago

    Bastard. I was hoping to get COD2 on friday, but 8 players is ridiculous. 8 a side is the minimum i go for, not 8 per game.

  • UncleLou #17 6 years ago

    The idea obviously isn't that they won't play, but that everybody (the clans etc.) will shut their servers down. So if I decided I want to play CoD 2 that day, I'll find there aren't many servers to choose from. Whether that's very effective I don't know, but it means a lot of people who usually play on these servers won't be able to.

  • wattoo #18 6 years ago

    To yorkiebar,

    Some of us are already on strike against EA. I just need a few more nillion people with me.

  • jellyhead #19 6 years ago

    Good luck to them i say.
    I'd also try and make sure as many CoD2 servers as possible were down when they do the "How many servers for game x" stats.
    It has to be frustrating for them and i'd be wanting some form of retribution even if it was pointless.
    Doubt EA or Infinity Ward are too happy about this.
    Bovvered - no.
    Happy - not much.

  • Carlo #20 6 years ago

    Will this work?

  • jellyhead #21 6 years ago

    Doubt it Carlo but it will make the protestors feel better.
    Might bring some negative press though, which i doubt EA or IW need or MS actually with the launch of their 360 console, the last thing they need is for rumours of the games being Donkeys to arise.

  • Ninjamagic #22 6 years ago

    P.O.W.E.R to the people.

    Thats great.

    COD 1 PC Multiplayer was possibly the best 1st person shooter on MP out there. And i say this as a veteran PC MP gamer (Quake,Unreal et al). I stopped playing for personal reasons last year.

    But the amount of *new* people who kept coming to COD from Medal of Honour/other PC shooters every week you would have a horde of them who had just found out how fantastic it was.

    Dawville map is an masterpeice of level design. We used to play it like it was released the day before. Every game different.......

    So its no suprise the gamers are doing this. This is all down to release dates/bugs/insufficient testing (due to time) and basically to cut a long story short.

    Releasing a shoddy product (MP only mind) to get it in time for the holiday sales.

    If it scares the crap out of Activision or Infinity then Good.

    If you bought a car and it only had 3 wheels would you be happy when you expected 4 and they said "4"?

    How about a Microwave with no plug wires or sockets?

    Well whats the difference here? Why are PC gamers mugs to crap on and charge full whack just because "they can release a patch" whereas you cant patch PS2 or GC games or XBOX (ok taking Live out of it)?

    The negative publicity should hopefully make them sort themselves out and hopefully not do it again.

    FYI - PC World are doing a fantastic deal. Call of Duty 2 DVD brand new for £19.99. Only you have to get a code online from their website. Take it to the store and thats a massive £15 off the store price (i bought mine and picked it up and it said £34.99 sticker, only cos i had a code i paid 19.99).

    Sounds silly but there you go. Havent played MP yet but heres to the strike.....!

  • dynarama #23 6 years ago

    One...NILLION

  • ekko #24 6 years ago

    The demands are too light, go for increased pensions + better working conditions!

  • Artemus #25 6 years ago

    What a bunch of "girls" (in a non-sexist discrimatory way) :p
    If us BF2 types did this, noone would be playing.

    Yeah but BF2 ships with Punkbuster installed (hence the four hour verification every new game). The main reason this has happened is because of the lack of a anti-cheat system. Not only are some people cheating, but A lot of 'honest' players are being accused of it.

  • ImGameCube #26 6 years ago

    Strike has already had an affect on sales.

    I downloaded the demo over the weekend. I like it a lot and I was thinking about buying it in the next couple of weeks.
    Now I'm not going to until I see how this is resolved.

    Bad publicity = affect on sales.

    This type of protest *does* work.

    A.

  • Xerx3s #27 6 years ago

    "gosh, what next? Lets all go on strike against EA to stop them making shite sports games and medal of honor sequels."
    Thats actually not a bad idea. Even if we stop one game from beeing released by EA, thats a better world right?
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/05 @ 19:03

  • yorkiebar #28 6 years ago

    to wattoo: I'm with ya! Thats only 8 nillion 999999999 to go!

    Five points to anybody who can tell us what a "nillion" is.

  • yorkiebar #29 6 years ago

    Xerx3s - imagine if we could turn the clock back and stifle EA in their infancy. wow.

    Maybe somebody should make a game of that - battling through the shit sports games and MOH sequels until the final boss level: big fat corporate swine shitting on little kids.

    Peter Molyneux might be up for it...

  • Glitch #30 6 years ago

    Get in! About time game developers actually started making decent games. At the moment the game industry is releasing unfinished shit games, only game I would go for is king kong but the rest are shite.

    FUCK THE FREE WORLD!

  • jellyhead #31 6 years ago

    rdexter: are you saying we should be grateful to developers for pushing out tat with no hint of when it will be finished?
    We should pay £50 for obviously unfinished software?
    Sorry, but if publishers and developers are going to harp on about how they need to increase the cost of games to cover development then we as gamers have the right to ask them to finish the things to an acceptable standard, after all it's their job!
    If they take longer to do that then fine, take time and release good product and people will wait, pump out increasingly buggier tat month after month and gamers will start to get a bit cheesed off.
    Thusly.

  • yorkiebar #32 6 years ago

    and on the subject of development costs...

    How come CoD2 costs £50 on Xbox 360 and only £30 on PC? Given that the 360 version is a direct port - how can they justify the high price tag with "higher development costs" - surely it didn't cost them much to port over a game they'd already made?

    Xbox 360 owners shouldn't cause a strike on this game, but we should on prices. Cheapest I've found this game for is £38.99 and PGR3 £37.99. Powerplaydirect.com. Anybody seen them cheaper?

  • Bitkari #33 6 years ago

    How come CoD2 costs £50 on Xbox 360 and only £30 on PC? Given that the 360 version is a direct port - how can they justify the high price tag with "higher development costs" - surely it didn't cost them much to port over a game they'd already made?

    Console games are almost always more expensive than their PC cousins. The main reason for this has nothing to do with actual development costs, and everything to do with the stipend that microsoft, sony and nintendo get for each game sold.

    That £10+ that goes to Microsoft with your copy of CoD2 is where they make their money.

    On a PC there is no console producer to be beholden to, so the market is allowed to have its wicked way to a greater degree.

  • GitSomE_UK #34 6 years ago

    Bah! who cares about COD2 it's another FPS on rails... bought it had deja vu and placed it in the meh pile.

    I'm suprised CoD2 didn't come with the usual inane EA Trax as the backing music whilst in the trenches.

    EA don't care about what it's customer thinks not playing online isn't hurting their profits not buying any more EA branded cack will make them sit up.

    Boycott their next addon, tell your MP how we are getting ripped, call watchdog ANYTHING that hurts the brand... refusing to play for 24h.... ummm so what?