A huffy customer support worker at Activision, no doubt fed up dealing with people complaining about Call of Duty: Black Ops' poor online performance, has snapped over an email exchange with tech blogger Jason Koblovsky.
Koblovsky, who for months has - along with many others - experienced connection issues with the game when attempting to play over the PlayStation Network, decided to email Activision's customer support over the problem. He was put in touch with a Mr. Dov Carson, a Senior Tester/Senior Support Representative at Activision, who had the following to say:
Well I have nothing else to offer and I too follow forums and have many friends who play and enjoy the game for all of its features. As an avid gamer, I would also disagree with any legalities involving a single aspect of a game as online experience may change at any time. The publishers have the right to shut down the servers for their game at any time as well which based on the number of reported posts from users may be a viable solution over the free PSN.
In any event, if you would like to send your game disc into us, we can either;
a) Exchange for a sealed (unopened) copy of the game that you can take back to the retailer
b) Swap for another platform
c) Exchange for another Activision title of equal or lesser value.These are the options that we are able to offer to you as a one time courtesy.
Let us know how you would like to proceed.
Again, that's "The publishers have the right to shut down the servers for their game at any time as well which based on the number of reported posts from users may be a viable solution over the free PSN."
People, including Koblovsky himself, are understandably upset at the blunt nature of the response (though it should be noted his half of the correspondence isn't exactly civil either). Especially since it fits with everyone's "evil empire" idea of the giant publisher.
Me, I just like the fact he got a gruff, personal response from a customer service representative who probably just had a bad day, and not an automated email or fob. So much of this crap is run by machines and emails these days that it's nice seeing a human face to it all, even if it is a surly, mildly-threatening one.
[Activision Threatens to Pull PSN Support, via Game Politics]