Just how many Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 vs. Battlefield 3 posts can the mainstream gaming media handle? Apparently, not enough… especially when EA and Activision enjoy hitting each other with their giant dicks guns.
It was only yesterday when EA boss John Riccitiello suggested that the hardcore gamers will recognize that Battlefield 3 is obviously the superior product and thus the Call of Duty fanbase will "rot from the core":
The honest truth is I think Modern Warfare is going to be a really good game. I think that in a weird way it’s starting to feel a little to me like the Disneyland abstraction of a war game – a little bit jump the shark. So it feels a little bit like that to me. And I think there’s a market for that.
I think our game is more authentic. It’s definitely going to do a lot of things better. Lighting’s better, physics is better, animations are better, particle effects are better, vehicles are better. I think there’s a lot of things to like about our product and I think it’s going to be a great battle…
But he's not done yet, as he belittles Call of Duty Elite as merely a desperate shot of superiority by Activision:
The second thing is, I don’t know what’s in Elite right now, but based on what I’ve seen, I think they might’ve been better off holding the Elite thing and been a little more careful and show up a month after they’ve launched Modern Warfare 3. 'Hey, we’ve got an expansion pack. It’s going to be x amount of money, but if you give us y amount of money, you get extra stuff.' As opposed to leading with their chin.
But maybe there’s a reason they led with their chin. I think the reason they led with their chin is that they needed to say something against what was clearly a more powerful presentation of Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare. So they needed something to say. I think they picked the wrong thing, but there’s a lot of months between now and November so they’ve got plenty of time to recover.
Activision's Eric Hirshberg has heard his rival's fighting words and, speaking at gamescom, explains how he doesn't see the point in all of EA's yappedy-yap:
We will not be spending time tearing down competitors; in fact, we're pulling for them. I want as many games as possible to succeed, whether we created them or not. When someone does something great, it benefits us all. This isn't politics. In order for one to win, the other does not have to lose. We shouldn't be tearing each other apart; if we act like there are a finite number of gamers in the world, there will be. We will not be spending time tearing down competitors; in fact, we're pulling for them.
