Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's overnight launch has caused a big headache for premium players.
The first true casualty of the military simulator is the new free and subscription-based Elite service, which has buckled under the stress from "hundreds of thousands of players" who have registered, according to a statement from Activision Blizzard.
A comment from Reddit member "ButterflySammy" indicates that users are having trouble with clans or using some of the other Elite features: "You just can't set up any clans or use any of the other elite features on any platform."
Call of Duty: Elite's free membership lets multiplayer gamers see extensive statistics from their games, set up classes, record/share HD video of gameplay, and other nice features. It currently only works for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, while the PC equivalent is still being fine-tuned. Paid users who dish out $49.99 a year have access to monthly downloadable content, compelling rewards for clan members, competitions with real prizes, expert tips and tricks, and much more.
In response to the unexpected problems, Chacko Sonny, head of Activision subsidiary Beachhead Studio, noted, "We are working around the clock to increase our capacity as quickly as possible...Registration requests for our new live service Call of Duty Elite are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations."
Many gamers aren't accepting the apology, however, and are venting heavily on the Elite service's official Facebook page about receiving error messages such as, "Request Error, there was an error communicating with the Call Of Duty Elite service. Returning to the title screen."
"Ok, so I paid 50 extra dollars for something that doesn't (expletive) work," wrote one user. Wrote another: "Ability to login: Questionable.... Facebook linking: FAIL.... User data: FAIL.... Get your sys/web admins to work. There's no reason for Elite to fail this hard on launch day."
Frustrated about Elite? Have a chuckle over this recent Modern Warfare 3 live action trailer with Sam Worthington, Jonah Hill and Dwight Howard.