That Call of Duty games are routinely exploited by cheaters and hackers, regardless of platform, is nothing new. But players of the PS3 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 say the situation is worse than it's ever been.

"This issue is really out of hand," writes one member of the Infinity Ward forums, complaining to the developer of Modern Warfare 2 that hacks on the PlayStation 3 are more prevalent than ever, leading to players losing rank and being subjected to vulgar messages from others. Others say that its harder than ever to find a game that's not being subjected to hacking.

Infinity Ward's creative strategist Robert Bowling took to the game's official forums to address user concerns, saying that the issue is partially due to a recent compromise of the PlayStation 3's security.

"Sony has recently acknowledged a breach in security on the PS3 which resulted in games to become exposed to exploits and hacks," Bowling writes. "Modern Warfare 2 is no exception to this security exploit and we understand that some of you have experienced problems with stats and other issues associated with this."

Infinity Ward says that due to the security measures taken in Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2, or lack thereof, "updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform."

Bowling says that due to Call of Duty's popularity, hackers and cheaters are targeting it more heavily than its peers and that Infinity Ward has its hands tied in trying to deal with exploits.

"Let me assure you, while we are very reliant on Sony updating their firmware and security to address the core problem of this issue," Bowling writes. "We are looking at EVERY option available to us to help any user affected." Sony believes it can address exploits on the PS3 through network updates.

"In the future we plan to adjust our approach to not rely solely on platform security and reduce the ability for this to happen in our games," Bowling says, "as has already been displayed by the work Treyarch has done on Call of Duty: Black Ops to prevent similar measures."

What's your experience been like, PS3 owners?

Hacking on PlayStation 3 [Infinity Ward Forums via VG247]

That's what parents near Sacramento, Calif., want to know and, you know, I do, too.

Officials at East Valley Education Center in Oakdale, Calif. refused to appear on camera, but it sounds like they were using video games as an incentive or a reward to help kids with developmental difficulties socialize. That's well and good if it's, I don't know, LittleBigPlanet or Super Mario Galaxy. Modern Warfare?
Officials at East Valley Education Center in Oakdale, Calif. refused to appear on camera, but it sounds like they were using video games as an incentive or a reward to help kids with developmental difficulties socialize. Sounds great, except Modern Warfare, an M-rated game, was one of them.

A school administrator backed out of an on-camera interview (which the reporter chippily notes) but said that the school would get rid of the games. Meantime, the mom and dad involved here say their autistic son came home with manifested anger issues, acting out and directing some of his behavior at his sister.

Years of overreaction have conditioned gamers to mistrust hysterical parents and sweeps-hungry local TV outlets in the violent video games debate. But, at face value, this is colossally stupid. If the ESRB rating has any meaning, Modern Warfare is not appropriate in any school, regardless of students' needs. Someone's thinking lawsuit here, and someone else is probably looking at unemployment for Christmas.

Violent Video Games Allowed At Special Needs School [CBS Sacramento, thanks Mike B.]

Well, well, well, what do we have here? Some price drops on a few of our favorite PS3 games is what.

Sony Computer Entertainment America added seven more games to their price-reduced Greatest Hits library today. And among the list is one of last year's best games: Demon's Souls. Not surprising news, but still fantastic.

Here's the full breakdown:

MAG (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (Sony Computer Entertainment)
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Demon's Souls (Atlus)
Call of Duty: World at War (Activision)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
TEKKEN 6 (NAMCO BANDAI Games)

Sony says that games that they deem "greatest hits" are the titles that have "surpassed an impressive sales threshold and represent the highest caliber of quality software available on the PS3 system." We don't really care about all of that. What we care about is that these games will now only run you $29.99.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward continues its slow crumble today with the departure of two more key team members, sources close to the studio tell Kotaku.

Longtime Infinity Ward employees Mark Grigsby and Paul Messerly have both left the studio, the team's lead animator and lead character animator, respectively. Grigsby had been with Infinity Ward from 2005, spending more than five years at the company. Messerly was there from the very beginning, moving from former Medal of Honor developer 2015 Inc. to Infinity Ward in 2002. Both former employees have updated their LinkedIn profiles to confirm that April 2010 marks the end of their tenures at the studio.

Former lead animator Mark Grigsby may be familiar to Call of Duty fans as the inspiration for and voice actor of Staff Sergeant Griggs from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He's also the guy who ably rapped over the end credits of that game.

The departure of Grigsby and Messerly leaves Infinity Ward at least 13 employees weaker since March 1. That number includes high level staffers like fired studio founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, plus a quickly growing list of team leads and veteran developers.

According to sources close to the studio, morale at Infinity Ward is unsurprisingly low due to a worrying lack of leadership.

The blowup this week over gun-camera footage showing an Army operation raised comparisons to "video game-like" behavior by the men pulling the triggers. NPR's "On the Media" looked at this controversy and the relationships among games, tactics and weapons systems.

"On the Media" spoke with Clive Thompson of Wired for 10 minutes. "I'm a little uncomfortable judging the behavior," of the soldiers involved, Thompson said. But he did acknowledge the footage's similarity to the mission "Death from Above," in the first Modern Warfare.

If I'm reading Thompson and his host correctly, the discomfort people have with this kind of behavior is the fact it's completely depersonalizing the taking of another's life, regardless of whether it looks like a video game or not. "There is a moral and ethical aspect to the way weapon systems are designed," Thompson said, meaning the ease of killing they deliver, the distance they place between a human operator and his target, and the manner in which they depersonalize that target it or make it seem less real in life.

Thompson discussed games that actually sensitize players to the concept of death and violence, mentioning an example from God of War III in which players see Kratos through the eyes of his victims as they're killed.

On the whole it's a balanced examination of both games and military operations that keeps the purpose of both in their proper contexts. It's worth the 10 minutes of your time. Thanks to reader NINgod for sending this along.

Virtual War [On the Media]

Investigative organization WikiLeaks released classified United States military video today showing the killing of more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters employees, with a spokesperson for the whistle-blower group slamming the soldiers involved for their "video game" like behavior.

That video, which is incredibly disturbing and graphic, shows a group of Iraqis walking the streets of New Baghdad, identified as armed "insurgents" by military personnel. The group, which reportedly included Reuters photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and assistant Saeed Chmagh, is gunned down by a pair of Apache attack helicopters. Later, a minivan that appears to come to the assistance of the wounded is fired upon.

Australian journalist and WikiLeaks advisory board member Julian Assange released the video at the National Press Club in Washington. "The behavior of the pilots is like they're playing a video game," said Assange, according to a report from Fox News. "It's like they want to get high-scores in that computer game."

Assange may be referring to the detached, casual nature of the dialogue between military personnel and the excitable language following the attack.

The gruesome video will be visually familiar to anyone who has played through Infinity Ward's most recent Call of Duty games, in which the player pilots an AC-130 gunship in an attack on ground forces. The in-game dialogue, which closely mirrors that of the WikiLeaks-released video, appears to be just as realistic in its nature as the piloting of a military aircraft.

Video Appears to Show U.S. Forces Firing on Unarmed Suspects in Baghdad [Fox News]

Investigative organization WikiLeaks released classified U.S. military video today showing the killing of more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters employees, with a spokesperson for the whistle-blower group slamming the soldiers involved for their "video game" like behavior.

That video, which is incredibly disturbing and graphic, shows a group of Iraqis walking the streets of New Baghdad, identified as armed "insurgents" by military personnel. The group, which reportedly included Reuters photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and assistant Saeed Chmagh, is gunned down by a pair of Apache attack helicopters. Later, a minivan that appears to come to the assistance of the wounded is fired upon.

Australian journalist and WikiLeaks advisory board member Julian Assange released the video at the National Press Club in Washington. "The behavior of the pilots is like they're playing a video game," said Assange, according to a report from Fox News. "It's like they want to get high-scores in that computer game."

Assange may be referring to the detached, casual nature of the dialogue between military personnel and the excitable language following the attack. While the comparison of real-world violence to that of video games isn't uncommon, in this case, it's perhaps accurate, if a bit inflammatory.

The gruesome video will be visually familiar to anyone who has played through Infinity Ward's most recent Call of Duty games, in which the player pilots an AC-130 gunship in an attack on ground forces. The in-game dialogue in Modern Warfare 2, which closely mirrors that of the WikiLeaks-released video, appears to be just as realistic in its nature as the piloting of a military aircraft and the destructive firepower inflicted upon human beings.

Clearly, some games like Modern Warfare and Battlefield, the aim for a high level of realism, but the unsettling video released by WikiLeaks may put that virtual violence in a new context for some viewers. Whether its appropriate to toss out a "video game" comparison in a grim story like this is up for discussion.

Video Appears to Show U.S. Forces Firing on Unarmed Suspects in Baghdad [Fox News]