Activision Blacklists Website for Revealing Existence of Black Ops 2

[News Portal]

A French website that revealed that [app=8801]Call of Duty: Black Ops 2[/app] is in development has declared that Activision has retaliated by cancelling all advertising and cutting it off its access to Activision games.

On the 16th, GameBlog.fr pointed out that the French arm of Amazon was briefly taking pre-orders for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Activision apparently then demanded the story be pulled – and went nuclear when GameBlog declined to comply...

Read full article by James Cottee

[Myzteriouz1]

I'd like to seek the death of this boring, repetitive series [of mappacks/reskinnings of the same old things]. Thankyou.

[Kamma]

The funniest part is that Activision actually thought people wouldn't realise they'd be excreting Black Ops 1.5 from their rectums a year after they did the last Modern Rehash. Who could have predicted?!

[Makena]

In some ways I don't know why Activision plays coy about things like this, It was already assumed Black Ops 2 was coming, why not start the ball rolling on the hype machine, unless they're concerned it'll kill the MW3 sales they're still getting.

[DarKnode]

What's worse is they will use the same old dated engine. Also in the process of piling on 20 thousand lines of code, they dropped the framerate from 120 to 60, and every thought that was acceptable. I waited 12 months for them to fix it, they didn't, so I know all sequals from Treyarch will just be as crappy.

[Jez]

It does seem like an oddly punitive measure to take against what virtually everybody assumed was going to happen anyway. In a way I suppose their press strategy matches their business plan of having absolute control over the flow of information and content to maximise their revenue. I find it distasteful.

[PURITy Kin]

I hope Blackops 2 has a corporate censorship kill streak award.

[cyclobs]

please just kill us now. save us from this mediocrity, for the love of god

[Naduk]

any time COD or Final Fantasy is mentioned i cannot help but remember this

[Tim Colwill]

The bizarre part is that when Kotaku leaked literally ALL THE DETAILS of MW3 last year, not just its existence, Activision went ahead and used that to kickstart their campaign. It was an absolutely brilliant PR response, they came out swinging and launched their marketing weeks ahead of deadline.

This time some site says "Hey we noticed a page on Amazon, it has no details but a name and I price I guess?" and their response is to blacklist?

It's a different situation obviously as the French site doesn't have the pull of Kotaku who would be much more difficult to blacklist, but you'd think that a "no comment" from Acti would have been a much more appropriate move.

[Makena]

The bizarre part is that when Kotaku leaked literally ALL THE DETAILS of MW3 last year, not just its existence, Activision went ahead and used that to kickstart their campaign. It was an absolutely brilliant PR response, they came out swinging and launched their marketing weeks ahead of deadline.

This time some site says "Hey we noticed a page on Amazon, it has no details but a name and I price I guess?" and their response is to blacklist?

It's a different situation obviously as the French site doesn't have the pull of Kotaku who would be much more difficult to blacklist, but you'd think that a "no comment" from Acti would have been a much more appropriate move.

Indeed, I'm actually interested to see how they move forward on this now, as it's probably getting a lot more coverage now than it otherwise would have.

[c0mc0]

Although...It's generating articles and interest about a new game already. Hard to know if the "any exposure is good exposure" will work out for them here.

It's also quite concerning that, due to what appears to be a **** up from either Amazon or EA has been noted by a journalist (ie, a guy doing his job) and that he and his outlet is then punished for it.

For goodness sakes GOG, please don't be caught in the same situation - actually trying to do research or any more than regurgitating media releases is obviously off limits in the gaming industry.

[Lumen Melano]

Although...It's generating articles and interest about a new game already. Hard to know if the "any exposure is good exposure" will work out for them here.

It's also quite concerning that, due to what appears to be a **** up from either Amazon or EA has been noted by a journalist (ie, a guy doing his job) and that he and his outlet is then punished for it.

For goodness sakes GOG, please don't be caught in the same situation - actually trying to do research or any more than regurgitating media releases is obviously off limits in the gaming industry.

Either you are a master of satire or you have completely nullified your own argument by referring to EA instead of Activision and GOG instead of GON.

[wyver]

When I think of this gaming series I can't help but picture it having a voice and its saying "It hurts to live, please kill me now".

[MunchY]

I hope Blackops 2 has a corporate censorship kill streak award.

Bahahahaha

@On topic - This seems like a ridiculous overreaction. As someone else said, a gaming journo was doing his job? And now the site he represents suffers.
**** Activision.