Electronic Arts’ quest for realism hatched this new idea… Partner with real brands:
Trijicon:
SureFire:
LaRue Tactical:
US Optics:
The partnership idea is win-win if you ask me. If nothing else, it will at least help educate the kids in the proper equipment and it’s use. I just wish other games such as Grand Theft Auto would partner with actual car manufacturers. hahah wishful thinking I suppose in that case.
To see a full list of partners, check out the Medal Of Honor Warfighter partners page.
I’m dying to know what kind of partnership agreement was reached. It is interesting because it’s obviously mutually beneficial, but at the same time it is a huge advertising opportunity for the brands. My guess is that the companies involved cut Electronic Arts some very hefty checks. Anyone have any inside info? :P
Medal Of Honor: Warfighter isn’t out until October 23 :( If you want to pre-order it you can hit up Amazon.
Thoughts? Also, I might have already asked this before, but what’s the verdict on MoH compared to COD?
Comments
21 responses to “Medal Of Honor Warfighter – Tactical Strategic Partnerships”
MOH uses the same engine as battlefield. It’s not hyper-realistic but it’s far closer than COD by any stretch.
Hopefully now that they are partnered with USO, they will have actual USO reticles available for engaging long range targets in the game.
I just can’t believe it took the video game industry this long to think of this. Anyone know what EA will be doing for the troops? Cool post, Mike.
I’ve preferred MoH over CoD since the beginning. My first shooter was actually MoH: Frontline and besides CoD4: Modern Warfare, and CoD: World at War, I’ve not really liked much of CoD’s offerings. Sure CoD 1-3 were nice, they were mixing up the WWII shooter crowd and let you play as a Russian and a Brit, but for modern shooters? I was thoroughly impressed by MoH and I can’t wait for this.
I just can’t believe it took the video game industry this long to think of this.
I’m guessing the reticence was with the firearms manufacturers. Their marketing model up till now has been a) Find some doofus to talk about your product b) Send said doofus off with a camera crew to Outer Mongolia on an ibex hunt c) put the show on a minor sports-related network that airs on 4:30 in the morning on Thursday.
In the mean time, Cabela’s has a video game with their name plastered ALL over it residing on end-caps inside Wal-Mart, one of their biggest competitors. It’s like Glock having S+W sell their products for them.
Firearms companies are figuring out how to market with game companies.
Capitalism is awesome isn’t it? And I throw my hat in with the pro MoH crowd, it is as close to realism you will get in a game aside from Operation Flashpoint. Of course I speak only in regards to campaign mode, I don’t play online multiplayer.
I like the concept, but the videos were useless. It was basically just 2 company reps blowing each other, metaphorically speaking of course…
Oh great, I can’t wait for fratboys who logged over 100 hours on MoH to lecture me on how to use mil-dots based on their in-game experience.
Calling those games “realistic” is laughably ludicrous. If they were realistic, they wouldn’t be fun. Or easy.
As for partnering, who cares? It is capitalism. If it sells, it sells.
As an add on to my comment. My buddy and I have tried playing Arma II a few times. Now that comes close to simulating realistic situations in-game, as in-
– It is hard to figure out where the hell everyone is.
– You are often not able to get into a good positions.
– You die, or worse, get wounded often, mostly from enemy positions (since computer game style, got to be lots of bad guys, but realistically, lots of bad guys means you lose).
– It is not fun.
Still fun…you just have to adapt. You can’t run guns blazing into a field like in Call of Duty or a sniper/m2/random helo are going to have your number :-)
Operation Flashpoint would be the closest thing to realistic on XBox/PS3 – and they do pretty well from bullet drop to getting killed by a single shot. ARMA and the original Operation Flashpoint on PC hold the closest of any games though – poor graphics, but good simulations.
As for CoD/Battlefield/etc…you’re just playing the main character in an action movie. Tons of fun – but about as far from realistic as you can be.
To be fair, CoD 8 has “real steel” brands featured including multicam, Remington, and a bunch of others I don’t remember. They’re in the special thanks section of the credits I think. It’s too bad this Medal of Honor won’t sell. Look at the last one. Awesome trailers, but when it came out it was a huge disappointment. It was a flop critically and in sales. The community was excited but you never know with games like this that rely entirely on set pieces and only show trailers and otherwise supremely average gameplay. Not to say I won’t like it, I loved Battlefield 3’s single player-being able to go semi-auto on enemies with awesome effects is really all I need. But most people didn’t like it. And I can’t see what’ll make this single player game any different. Nobody would buy BF3 just for the single player. It’s possible, but I highly doubt this new Medal of Honor will have the polish necessary to draw attention away from the rest of the triple A crowd. I mean, sales of Halo and CoD and Assassin’s Creed obliterated the last MoH’s in comparison. I mean who cares if I get to run a LaRue predatAR if the animations are sloppy and slow? At that point it’a just another video game “m4” with a logo on it.
I honestly find battlefield 3 more plausible, if not exactly realistic, than cod. I think CoD is oversold and overhyped. It’s the same game every year. And I’m sorry, MAP PACKS are not DLC. That’s bullshit. BF3 introduces new game modes, maps, flavors, weapons and vehicles. THAT is proper DLC.
In MW3 they have released gametypes monthly…for free. Also both single and multiplayer maps in their DLC…no vehicles or weapons though, although that would be cool.
While it is muddled with generic weapons like M4s and such, to put a real name brand on something can cost money. While I haven’t played either of them much, IIRC both Counterstrike and the classic GoldenEye were examples of generic gun names partly done to bypass royalty payments. However, Call of Duty and even Medal of Honor/Battlefield are different beasts in since they are so big and then brand names turns into product placement advertising.
Even aircraft companies for awhile have threatened to sue flight simulator companies for using the names of aircraft. “F-16” is something that companies like Lockheed Martin have tried to claim as their trademark (which in my book is a hard sell since it is a government assigned designation). Since flight sims are much less lucrative, the production companies couldn’t always reach a deal. There are combat flight sims that haven’t allowed U.S. version of the game to have certain U.S. aircraft that are in non-U.S. versions since the trademark issues weren’t worked out.
I liked the post. The videos were kind of boring. But it’s a really cool idea, and I am also surprised on how long it’s taken for the companies to get so involved.
Uhhhh.. I think COD was the first to openly brand a product with permission from L-3.
They even sell a ‘COD Optics package w/3x magnifer’ *eye roll*
Cool, I like L-3. They seriously sell a COD edition? That’s weak.
Thanks for the shirt order btw.. I saw it this afternoon! It will go out soon.
Trijicon, Remington, Magpul and others have already been listed or shown in several games including CoD and Battlefield – but this is the first time I’ve seen high end stuff like LaRue, Surefire & U.S. Optics (Trijicon included as high end…I’ve just seen theirs before) really emphasized in a game. I like the realism of Battlefield and the high paced multiplayer of CoD…hopefully EA can come up with some kind of middle ground awesome game with this MOH – but the last one sucked horribly on-line so my hopes aren’t too high.
Getting real cars into GTA really may not be too much of a stretch. LA Noire, also made by Rockstar (who makes GTA) features all period correct real automobiles from the 40’s.
I think it is a new concept that firearms manufacturers are embracing finally. The old Counter Strikes always had similar but not exactly correct names for the weapons in the games. The new Counter Strike: Global Offensive has all the correct names for the weapons. As well as Multicam Crye Precision gear, and possibly other manufacturers I didn’t notice while playing the Beta. Firearms manufacturers seem to finally be actually connecting with their customers, instead of attempting to connect with who the CEO thinks their customers might be.
BF3 has had Acogs in it? and the Russian Kobra dot? but nice to see more items, but name brand suppressors in the game are meh, things need to have the actual characteristics (Reticle, etc..) to be worthwhile in carrying the name. Maybe at level one you have chinese made flashlights that break when you go prone running then next level you get surefire. Technology failure would be cool and give magpul or troy a chance to throw in BUIS.