Modern Warfare 2 upsets Russians
Once upon a time, the males of a nation — any nation — worked off their bloodlust by going to war and killing each other.
Nowadays, there are plenty of global conflicts, but they’re largely commercial ventures fostered by business interests and relatively speaking, they don’t employ all that many young men —-
—- or young women, as is increasingly the case.
And that may be one of the reasons you can’t keep a good video game with “blood, drug reference, intense violence and language” from becoming a raging success.
Ask Rockstar, purveyor of the Grand Theft Auto series.
Nonetheless, “Modern Warfare 2 is no longer available in Russia for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners, it seems, despite the game hitting store shelves as scheduled early last week,” says PC World, continuing:
“Noticed by fan site Hellforge on Friday, Russian game site GotPS3 claims Russian officials had threatened to ban the game, prompting retailers to yank copies from store shelves and distributors to shut down the outflow of new stock.
“Apparently the thematic content of the controversial “No Russian” level in which players must choose whether to fire on innocent civilians in a Moscow airport managed to escape broad public notice before launch.”
However, “First-week sales of Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in the United Kingdom are ringing in at £67.4 million ($111.8 million),” says Gamasutra.
“That’s 1.78 million units, according to ELSPA/GfK-ChartTrack data. The title, which launched on November 10, sold 1.23 million units on its first day in the UK, and Activision said combined day-one sales for the U.S. and the UK reached 4.7 million.”
Modern Warfare was one of the games listed in a Craigslist ‘For Sale’ ad by an Xbox owner, pissed off by Microsoft’s decision to cut off gamers from Xbox Live for modding their consoles.
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