So we’re all witnessing the hullabaloo surrounding the departure of some of Infinity Ward’s finest, and certainly the company is taking a hit. And you know, I feel kind of bad for rooting for the folks that split.

Syndic and I have only recently, in the last couple of months, began what looks to be a long line of discussions on the devilry of publishers. Sure, they give you a launching point, but who the F wants their intellectual property in the hands of some steamrolling publisher? Lets set this up though: I am more or less neutral on Activision. Syndic and I have had a lot of fun with Activision games in the past, so I mean, I’m coming at this as though it was the first time experiencing either party…

Read my full discourse inside.

Another great reason to get Modern Warfare 2, besides being able to play it at midnight on release, is the implementation of Steamworks throughout. This will allow players to hop from one computer to the next, or one Xbox to the next, and retain all of their profile’s properties, such as achievements and, I’m guessing, things like killstreak configurations. Here’s what Infinity Ward said with regards to Steamworks:

“Steamworks will make it possible for us to have a closer connection to our fans, and enable us to support our community much more than ever before. Steam is the hands down leader in offering a community focused experience on PC and the inclusion of Steamworks has allowed us to deliver the most feature-rich PC version to ever come from Infinity Ward, which at the end of the day will mean the most to our fans.”

This is a huge move forward for Steamworks, which I whole-heatedly support. The concept seems simple, and I actually wish that more games would use Steam’s budding technology. Recently I’ve gotten into Steamworks through Left 4 Dead, retaining my game settings even when I had uninstalled the game. Whats next will be the implementation of Steam Cloud, which as I recall will keep your saved games.

What has yet to be seen is whether or not the dedicated server boycotters will get their wish and we’ll see a retrofitting of dedicated servers in game. I’m thinking its a long shot.

So you may have seen by now that Modern Warfare 2 is available for pre-purchase on Steam. We here at Pixel Well have discussed to a large extent the way we will partake of the gift that is to be Modern Warfare 2, and I personally think I’ll opt for the Steam version. I was pretty excited to see that its finally up on Steam, having check a few days ago, but similar to others of you on teh webz I felt like the $60.00 price tag was a little stunning. But why? Steam gives us this really interesting paradigm shift. I remember being well-prepared to pay $60.00 for a game in the days of yore, heading off to Best Buy as soon as someone could give me a ride. And now I feel its obviously a rip-off; the game is worth it, but wont the price go down sometime soon, like before Christmas? Can I wait? Now the adept shopper may say that they just waited for retail, but the thing is, back then, that was work. Steam makes everyone a bargain hunter, nay, assassin. In fact, oddly enough, I just bought Assassin’s Creed off of Steam a couple of days ago because it was just $5. I had been waiting for it, and I knew I would know as soon as it happened.

So theres the folks preordering the night-vision goggles limited edition, reserving it at Gamestop… Me, well, maybe I’ll just wait a week or two and see if it goes on sale. How do you feel about it? I mean, that Left 4 Dead 2 trailer almost made me impulse preorder the game, especially at a discount. And that’s where this is really going. With so many games coming out, can companies afford to throw out a $60.00 price tag? The end result is that we as gamers win; Steam is the bargain tool of the future. Lets just hope Modern Warfare 2 drops in price in the near future. Not that we have anything to complain about, when everyone in Australia will have to shell out $90.00 to get there hands on a copy.

On August 19 in Cologne Germany, thousands will gather for Europe’s GamesCom conference in hopes of becoming Germany’s leading trade show for interactive gaming and entertainment. This debut event hopes to attract the entire industry, as well as anyone interested in video games or computers.

Hey Guys,

I don’t know how many of you have seen this, but they’ve posted some videos of the new multiplayer for Modern Warfare 2. I played up to max level in the original Modern Warfare and enjoyed it fairly well, so I’m pretty excited for it. I’ve been talking to the rest of the team about it too, and we’re all pretty excited.

Check out the video hosted by Gametrailers.