CoD: Cerrar los servidores en PS3 quizá sería viable

Over the past day or so my last blog post has been picked up by some major gaming blogs. On behalf of the PS3 community I would like to thank you all for this. I think it?s time that gamers speak up and be heard on the issues they have been having on this game on a much bigger scale, and like Ripten suggested co-operation is needed, but that co-operation needs to be a 2 way street. I posted an exchange with a customer service rep about my frustrations and the frustrations of many gamers using the PS3 platform and ongoing and wide spread connection issues, and also reported several alarming posts from the Call of Duty forums that Black Ops was causing significant harm to PS3 systems in some cases, which was also forwarded to government officials here in Canada prior to Christmas due to the popularity of this game and since several of the major issues with this game had not been worked out by Treyarch.

As you will see in the posted conversations with Mr. Carson and myself, there is a lack of acknowledgement of the wide spread connection issues that many of us who have properly configured networks are currently experiencing with Black Ops. For those of you who have had this game since November 9th, 2010 this has been an ongoing issue that should have been fixed by Treyarch before release. The level of customer service displayed by Mr. Carson needed to be published publically for obvious reasons. I will leave it to Activision to publically respond to this, and will post their official response on this blog.

Although I personally was offered a solution and an option to return the game, that does not excuse the culture of denial that?s going on with Activision and Treyarch on some pretty important issues that have yet to be fixed with the PS3 platform of this game. It took several attempts before Mr. Carson acknowledged the connection problems as wide spread with his statement about pulling support for the PSN. This issue with the connection problems and system freezes has yet to be solved and both Treyarch and Activision are playing these problems down to the point where they haven?t been fixed. The connection issues currently stem with the party system in multiplayer and difficulties connecting to different types of NAT connections. There apparently wasn?t even UPnP support for the game until patch 1.04. From what I understand, UPnP is what the PSN network uses to get around NAT type and port issues. The issues with connections and freezing should have been dealt with prior to shipping the game during BETA testing. It is the developers responsibility to be compatible with the user and release platform, not the other way around.

Games are products, and gamers have the reasonable expectation and legal protection that these games will work as advertised on their specific platform and safe to use on that platform. In fact, many countries including Canada have consumer laws that actively protect consumers from purchasing product that doesn?t work as advertised. Nor can the developer legally get rid of a section of a new game they heavily advertised as a main feature at time of purchase without offering compensation. Unfortunately for the publishers and developers, not all of us are 12 with pimples. I?m part of a generation that grew up with video games, and it has basically become a hobby of mine during my downtime. I?ve been a fan and active gamer with the Call of Duty series since United Offence. I used to host a server on my PC for UO.

That being all said, while cooperation is needed, so are answers and resolutions. In an attempt to provide some for the gaming community I?ve connected with several consumer advocates in Canada, and Gamers Voice in the UK on my last blog a few days ago. Gamers Voice sent the following:
Jason,

Thank you for getting in contact with us here at Gamers' Voice. As you rightly state, Activision appear to be treating a large section of their customer base with contempt by selling something that does not work as advertised. in any other industry such antics would not be allowed, but video games being the complex beasts that they are, people turn a blind eye as these problems can be patched out. This however is something that cannot be condoned, as it is the basic functionality of a game we're considering here, not an isolated and rare glitch in the gameplay.

Gamers' Voice is about to formerly report Activision UK to the Office of Fair Trading on the grounds of false advertising and selling a product that does not meet its description. We will pursue this until we gain satisfaction from either government authority or Activision's own capitulation.

In the mean time, may we suggest you contact the ECA on this issue who are our counter-parts in North America. They should be able to assist with taking similar steps against Activision in your region. You can reach them here:

http://www.theeca.com

Thank you once again for contacting us.

Regards,

For Gamers' Voice UK Limited
Chris O'Regan
Director of Industry Relations

UPDATE 1/19/11: More Troubles Headed Towards Activision

I (like the majority of Call of Duty Black Op's PS3 gamers) have been experiencing a huge number of connection problems for the past 3 month of release of this game. I've been in dialog with Activision with respect to the problems associated with this game, and following the call of duty forums (PS3 forums are filled to the max daily on complaints with connection problems with the multi-player of this game). I've posed some questions with respect to what Activision and Treyarch are going to do to keep the loyalty of the PS3 gamers to the Call of Duty titles due to the consistent problems PS3 users have been having and reporting to Treyarch since release. Activision offered the following and startling response:

Well I have nothing else to offer and I too follow forums and have many friends who play and enjoy the game for all of its features. As an avid gamer, I would also disagree with any legalities involving a single aspect of a game as online experience may change at any time. The publishers have the right to shut down the servers for their game at any time as well which based on the number of reported posts from users may be a viable solution over the free PSN.

In any event, if you would like to send your game disc into us, we can either;

a) Exchange for a sealed (unopened) copy of the game that you can take back to the retailer
b) Swap for another platform
c) Exchange for another Activision title of equal or lesser value.

These are the options that we are able to offer to you as a one time courtesy.

Let us know how you would like to proceed.

My Response:

So what essentially your telling me here, is that you've released a product that is known to have some major connection issues, and a threat here to the gaming community to keep their mouth shut, or the publisher might exercise it's rights to pull support for PSN?

I'm not going to accept or decline your offer at this time, however do have the legal right to accept the offer should the publisher pull support for PSN, or the next patch 1.06 forthcoming from the developer does not fix the connection issues with the free multilayer advertised with the shipped game, ON ALL PLATFORMS!

Considering this stunning threat from you on the PSN networks, if I chose to accept your offer it will be with option 1. I will never purchase an activision game again ever on any platform. I strongly disagree with punishing the users for mistakes made during the development process, and know several consumer advocates here in Canada that would be very interested in what you wrote here.

All gamers want is what they purchased here with the game, and able to enjoy it. So far I've seen nothing in respecting the PS3 gaming community on any front from activision, nor by treyarch on this. If you guys had issues with respect to PSN than it should have been a strictly XBOX PC release. I could seriously see some very strong legal challenges coming your way from the gamer community if PSN support is yanked after release. You can count on that.