Thanks to Ian for the heads up. From Shacknews.com:
The recent reaction to the upcoming Call of Duty demo has caught us here at Activision by surprise. We're appreciative and excited about of the high level of enthusiasm the game has received throughout the gaming community. Due to the tremendous demand for the demo we are answering the call by not only making the demo freely available to all gamers at the same time, but early This Friday Night - just in time for the long weekend.Activision had originally intended to release the Call of Duty demo exclusively through GameSpy's FilePlanet.
What kind of marketing genius comes up with these types of ideas? Call of Duty is from a new development studio that is composed of the majority of developers and producers of the highly successful Medal of Honor: Allied Assault game. MOH:AA caught the gaming world mostly by surprise and it's continued success is evident in the number of expansion packs released and in the works for it. Activision need only remind everyone of who is making CoD to drum up excitement and publicity. They do NOT need to manage the distribution of the demo file with an iron fist that would der Führer beg for mercy.
So why did Activision think they could release it exclusively through a download portal known for its exorbitant wait times (unless you want to pay a monthly fee to get free downloads)? FilePlanet is one of the most HATED entities amongst gamers for their wait times. I recall the last demo that was released exclusively through FilePlanet (Rainbow 6: Raven Shield from UbiSoft). Yup, I recall the little window telling me I was #1500 in line and was going to wait 8 HOURS just to START downloading.
I can't think of a better way to motivate gamers to not buy (or even pirate) a game than make it harder for them to get the demo. Exclusive game play videos? Fine. Exclusive beta downloads? Fine. Exclusive demos? Not on your life. Hopefully, Activision and the rest of the industry has learned their lesson.