We the undersigned are each owners of a purchased legal copy of Call of Duty 4 PC version developed by Infinity Ward and Activision.
This game was released in Australia on the 7th of November, 2007 and within a matter of weeks programmers began releasing coding "hacks" that allow players to cheat in the multiplayer format of the game. As at the time of the creation of this online petition (57 days since the Australian release of COD4) there are now numerous websites on the internet offering "hacks" for sale. Many of these third party programs claim to be able to bypass PunkBuster, the product's so called anti-cheat program and allow players to see through walls, remove weapon recoil, auto aim at targets, even auto shoot and generally allow players who use these programs to have an unfair advantage against fair players who do not run these programs. There are numerous videos listed on YouTube showing these "hacks" in action and in recent days we are seeing more and more of these "hacks" in use in the public servers. The creator of this petition also holds a list of numerous websites offering these programs for sale.
Quite simply these third party programs degenerate the enjoyment level of players who do not use them and effectively ruin the online gaming enjoyment for thousands of people. As owners of paid for, legal copies of this game we do not believe we have received value for money with this product given that the PC version cost between $75 and $100 AU on release and most people who play this game spend on average hundreds of dollars per year to keep their PC's technologically current enough to play these latest games. We feel let down as customers of Infinity Ward and Activision for creating a product that was so easily recoded by backyard programmers in less than 2 months.
We expect when purchasing a product like this that the game developers are able to prevent others from so easily recoding the program and allowing players to cheat in multiplayer format and we do not believe that the current anti-cheat method employed - namely PunkBuster is a sufficient safe guard to prevent and deter hacking. We believe Infinity Ward and Activision have failed to deliver on our expectations and this petitiion is an effort to hold them accountable.
We call on Activision and Infinity Ward to do more to make this product and future products they release to be cheat free. As a result, we the undersigned refuse to purchase any future product releases by Activision or Infinity Ward or recommend their products to others until the problem is addressed and a certified warranty is provided that guarantees Call of Duty 4 PC version and future product releases by these companies cannot be recoded to allow players to install third party software which enables cheating in the multiplayer format.
