This is rather amusing, especially as I spent all day working on websites including FPSPrestige. It seems that noone at Activision thought to register the web domain www.modernwarfare3.com.
How do we know? Because at the moment it automatically takes you to the official Battlefield 3 website! Presumably it might have been set-up by someone working with Battlefield publishers EA or developers DICE, but unfortunately there’s not an easy way to tell as they had the sense to register the domain via Godaddy and set everything to private.
Wait - this isn't ModernWarfare3.com?
Now aside from making us chuckle, the only people likely to be getting confused or enticed by the move will be those typing in the address directly, and if Activision wake up at some point it should be easy for them to claim it as it relates directly to their trademark, but in the meantime, we can’t help thinking we should have jumped in first!
And if you’re wondering, a UK-based gaming community has already registered www.modernwarfare4.com should there be a 4th in the series, and www.blackops2.com has also already gone!
(Update)
Looks like modernwarfare3.co.uk has also been taken – this time clearly the work of an individual not connected with either company, who is using the site to complain about buying Black Ops on the PC, with a Paypal button which then leads to another page saying:
Ahh well, seems some people can’t take a joke 🙂
Also please note i fully support MW3 and i will be buying it as i have since call of duty 2,
all the warfares have been great and it’s the ones in the middle that just weren’t as good
Also this wasn’t about making any money and any one that did make a donation got there money back!
And the registrant is revealed as ‘Mark Harding’ in a whois check of the domain.
(Update 2)
In addition to the whois information explaining that modernwarfare3.com was registered back in 2009, it appears that Google’s cache of the site shows it might not have been the work of anyone at EA or DICE, as it previously featured the following text, which would be legally foolish for anyone working for a rival company to post:
Modern Warfare is crap. On November 8, 2011, the most over-hyped first-person action series of all-time returns with the copy and paste sequel to the lackluster Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Check out the E3 2011 gameplay demo featuring the Black Tuesday level for a look at the epic fail of the campaign. Pre-Order Call of Duty MW3 Today for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC to secure exclusive bonuses only available online for Modern Warfare 3 fanboys who don’t know that Battlefield 3 is the better game.
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