Some shipments of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 MW3 arrived at Kmart stores with instructions included to sell the copies immediately. Whether this was intentional or a mistake remains unclear. It appears that the chain has temporarily stopped selling the game, but not before some lucky customers in cities including Miami and New York got home with their copies.
Microsoft confirmed that if you manage to get a legitimate copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 before next week then you wont get banned as that only happens for pirated versions.
So the good news is you can play the game now and start practicing your multiplayer skills ready for when thousands of other players log on next week. But some early buyers decided not to play, and instead put their copy up for sale on eBay. One of those copies has just sold for an unbelievable $1,725.
Activision, the makers of Call of Duty MW3, has stepped in and expressed its disapproval of early play. Toulouse wrote in a shorthand-filled tweet, “MW3 pre-release play not authorized.” He asked for players’ patience and concluded, “Playing early may impact your account!”
The statement makes two points at once. First and foremost, you’re not guaranteed a ban will be imposed for playing early, but it sounds like Activision has reserved the right to do so. Secondly, Activision is the one pulling the trigger here, not Microsoft. That a third-party publisher has that power is news, although it may have always been this way and we just wouldn’t have been able to tell: previous permaban incidents for pre-release gameplay have involved Microsoft first-party franchises Gears of War and Halo.
The official release date is Tuesday November 8th 2011
If you are afraid of getting banned, just pre-order it on Amazon.com and get it shipped to your house by Tuesday or head over to Wal-mart Monday night
