Here is what I believe will happen to the three big shooter titles for the PC this year.

MW3 will have the same features as BO. Since Activision, and EA, receive a percentage of the server rent each month it's logical that Activision will follow this route again as they did for BO. Iw.net offered nothing but infrastructure costs to Activision and if they can make money out of standard features they will. So there will be semi-dedis, probably tied to GS again, and perhaps even the promise of modtools. Either way we will only know this in the last 4 weeks before release, much like BO.

Judging from the general reactions on the net, MW3 will win the battle very easily over BF3 on the consoles. Activision has the advantage of an established brand on the consoles, unlike EA with BF, a full-blown BF game at least, and may have the edge in marketing though by the looks of the release trailer I'm surprised they're playing on the defensive and imitate BF3's trailer. Either way, tens of millions, if not hundreds, will be spent in marketing by both EA and Activision.

On the PC however the case isn't that clear cut between MW3 and BF3. Today MW2 has more players playing it than BO, one of the biggest reasons for this to happen is that IW created a virtually smooth and bug-free experience with MW2, albeit unbalanced and without any PC feature, and over the time it seems stability and smoothness won over PC features in the CoD Steam numbers. MW3 is being made by IW, a different IW though since the debacle that happened a couple years ago, and PC gamers may actually make MW3 more successful for the PC than BO. Yes there will be many people saying they won't buy but in the end there's a reason why most of my analyst colleagues think gamers are the most idiotic of consumers out there, because they may whine and bitch but they never put the money where their mouth is at. As such MW3, mostly due to the IW name behind it, has the potential of being a better seller than BO was for the PC, especially if they announce the same set of PC features as BO. Therefore BF3's dominance over the PC is not that assured since IW's name still carries some nostalgia feeling over a large segment of PC gamers.

Meanwhile BF3 will most likely be released within a month, if not 15 days, of MW3, before or after MW3's release. It's clear EA is aiming at taking down Activision so it's in their best interest to go against MW3 with a release date as close as possible to MW3 in order to try and capitalize on sales of disgruntled CoD gamers, console or PC, who want something different and new. Also in their favor, a major point, is a new engine, unlike MW3's tech that's already past its prime even on 7-year old hardware like the consoles. So the tech is in BF3's favor. For the consoles, however, the question is if the console crowd is willing to play a different game from CoD. Though BC2 came for the consoles it wasn't a full-blown BF title so there is the element of introducing something new to a large audience. Brink tried that and failed, though on the PC it's gaining a foothold as a niche game.

ROHOS is coming out before those two, likely in August. ROHOS is more of a competitor to BF3 than MW3 and even so it's still its very own game. If ROHOS is everything that Tripwire says it is then it will pick up considerable sales numbers, both from starved PC shooter gamers wanting something new and from those wanting something different. Come MW3 and BF3's release ROHOS will no doubt be eclipsed by both in sales. However ROHOS big advantage is in the long-term. If ROHOS is indeed a stellar title and with all the upcoming mods I can see this game having as much players as BF3 and even MW3 for a long, long time, especially if the mods do come in and deliver. Either way, come BF3's and MW3's time ROHOS will be forgotten briefly. In the long-run however it will be word of mouth to make the difference and that is ROHOS strongest point, if and only if Tripwire delivers in their promises.

The big battle, however, will be between BF3 and MW3 for the first 4 to 6 months as each game tries to establish a foothold in gamer's communities, both PC and console. Personally, I think that BF3 stands no chance against MW3 on the consoles, because people will always go for the true and tried, even if it's the same game with different skins, than venture into a new style of game, despite having superior tech over MW3 easily. On the PC I really can't say, on a first glance BF3 seems a winner in sales however IW's name plus the high probability of semi-dedis and even maybe modtools may tip the balance towards MW3. If MW3 does become a best-seller wouldn't surprise me, even if it would disappoint me personally that PC gamers are willing to buy the same game in different skin over and over again.

Either way, interesting times for the PC gamer are coming. Personally, my bet is that ROHOS will be the one coming out on top in the long-term, 1, 2 years time with a constant high player number count since its release time. In the medium and short term, however, it's between BF3 and MW3 and I don't think anyone can say which one will sell better on the PC. It all depends on what PC features IW will announce for the PC, I think that will be what decides if it will be BF3 or MW3 to sell more units on the PC.

And that's that.

What? provider exclusivity is there to make sure there are no server that aren't checking for the cdkey or steam in this case, same goes for EA. I love it when you guys pull facts out of your ass.

In regards to EA, are you saying that DICE receive money for server rentals or EA? It has been stated before that DICE do not make any money from the Trusted GSP partnership (or whatever it is called).

From what I've seen of newer players in Brink the game just confuses them. It's pretty clear allot of people have a hard time grasping how to play the game. COD probably remains more popular than Battlefield and games like Brink because it's simple. I'm sure allot of PC vets like me who started on games like Wolf3d and Doom or even COD got sick and tired of deathmatch long ago but your average player is still learning how to aim and shoot in a FPS game throwing more game mechanics on them just adds to the learning curve of entering the genre. Maybe in another generation we will see none deathmatch style FPS games pick up on consoles but right now it's a PC thing. It's pretty sad to because most developers want to move on from deathmatch as well.

Both EA and Activision receive it. Won't name my source for obvious reasons, only that he works at one GSP. Everything they've been saying about exclusivity, to prevent piracy, to ensure a better experience, etc, may or may not be true. That they receive a % of the "rent money", that is a fact that some of us have known for a long time.

After all, if you stop and think about it, why go through all the trouble of exclusivity if they can't gain nothing out of it, financially speaking? Publishers don't do stuff for free if they can get some money out of it, they're a for-profit organization not a charity work, it's basic business management really. And if you look at the amount of rented servers out there you can see getting a cut, even if a small %, is still quite a hefty sum of money and that it wouldn't take a genius at the higher management to think of this.

People should really stop believing in anything publishers say as true. Like people, they do tend to either outright lie or obfuscate the truth, and if there's anything that's not lacking on the corporative world is corporations caught lying, though the gaming industry has a higher quota of them than the standard industry values.

Uuuh... no. Otherwise games from the CoD5 era and before wouldn't have the structure they have. A master server is often more than enough to check the reliability of a cdkey, like CoD5, 4 and every single game from that time and before. BF2 used ranked official servers from trusted GSPs but the unranked server files are free, and BF2 is the only notable example of server restriction.

Again, people have to stop being so ingenious about publishers and corporations at large. They do lie and they do hide the truth with a mantle of blank, quite often in fact. They are in the business of making profit and any angle they can make a profit of, they will.

Who knows? Brink appears to be a great game but with a rather lacking execution. Still, it has a stable population and those who finally are able to "get" the game love it. But it'll be forever a niche game, like ET and QW was and is, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hopefully we will see new IPs coming up soon, indie and mainstream. People are indeed getting tired of the same old game modes, some more than others. This is another advantage BF3 has over MW3, it's a different mode. People are resistant to change though and prefer to stay on the tried and tested grounds unfortunately.

So you are saying EA and not DICE are making a percentage from ranked servers? Just want to make that clear. I have spoken to GVD about this before and he has stated that DICE make 0% cash from the Trusted GSP program.

DICE? No, they're a developer house, they have their paychecks. EA? Yeap.

See his statement? DICE makes 0% cash. That's absolutely true, they're employees of EA after all, their job is to make games. EA however is another story and notice that in all statements issued by GVD and other people at DICE they always dance around the fact that EA makes money though they are direct in saying DICE does not.

Common sense really though some of us who do have contacts with GSPs know that they do take a percentage of the revenue. Hell, anyone thinking a publisher nowadays would actually have costs with us when they can instead receive revenue is a little short-sighted. Remember, publishers are not charity, they do not do stuff for free, if they can profit from any aspect of game making they will, like any other corporation acting in a logical manner, though I can tell you that much of the monetization processes that happens nowadays from them comes from one man, Kotick, who introduced a lot of different business models in the mainstream scene though the social scene is a different beast altogether.

I already bought Battlefield 3, but I paid only about 15$ for this lol. This game will not be competitive for sure. But graphic, destruction rox, just for play with friends on a public servers.

but i will buy red orchestra 2 even if it will cost about 60$ and only this game maybe will be competitive game, but there will be only a few leagues. But this game will have some old school.

Dunno if I wil buy MW3, probably not, it will be the same as MW2 but with dedicated servers. No mod tools, no demo recording, it will not be competitive i think... but IW is working on this game, so it will be running smoothly, much better than Black Ops. That's my opinion ;]

(Brink can be competitive, but its far different game than cod, bf,, but I bought it too )

waiting for a Counter Strike 2.0