Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is out tomorrow on the Xbox 360, PlayStation and PC; and with it comes the official launch of Call of Duty Elite - Activision's Free and Premium service used to supplement the Call of Duty experience. We've already gone into details of what the service will offer to both paying and non-paying customers, but one platform won't have to worry yet about paying the $49.99 for Elite... and that's the PC.
Activision PR man Dan Amrich had a short Q&A up with Sonny Chacko from developer Beachhead, who's been integral in creating the Call of Duty: Elite experience. He had this to say as to why PC users won't be getting Elite at launch.
We’re as committed as ever to the PC, but the need to ensure a safe PC environment is greater than ever. It’s really extensive. We need more time to get there, so Elite on PC will not launch on Day 1. We’re working our butts off to make it happen, but we won’t release it until we know that PC gamers can enjoy Elite as it’s meant to be.
The issue here is that the PC is an insecure platform. Without a central, trusted resource for stats, a lot of our competition features become unfair. We can’t give away prizes when people can easily cheat their stats. Leaderboards are less fun when a lot of the users are there unfairly.
That's right folks - all your hackers, crackers, cheaters, and squeakers have managed to ruin the fun for everyone by simply not playing nice. So no Elite for you! At least...not yet.
My guess is Beachhead wants to give the game some time to breath on the PC and have Infinity Ward patch things up nice and secure before offering things like contests and tournaments with premium prizes to gamers playing the game on PC.
Source: Oneofswords.com