Activision has gone out of its way to disable PlayStation 4's Share Play functionality on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Introduced in PS4 firmware update 2.0, Share Play feature allows a friend to play for 60 minutes on his friend's PlayStation 4 over the internet. Share Play includes an option for game developers to protect guest players from story spoiler by censoring portions of the game. This options was designed primarily for cut scenes, but Activision decided to use/abuse it to censor the whole game.
PlayStation 4 players who try to play Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare are now greeted with the message: "The host's game screen is not displayed because the current scene is a blocked scene for Share Play. Wait until the blocked scene is finished." Needless to say, the waiting never ends.
"Share Play is a system level feature enabled by System Software Update 2.0 making it available for all PS4 titles," a Sony spokesperson laid out the company's position. "However the option is available to developers to disable the feature according to what they feel will best benefit the consumer experience."
In its defense, Activision argues that it didn't have enough time to test Share Play with Advanced Warfare and couldn't risk giving its users sub-optimal experience.
"Delivering a great gaming experience for fans is our top priority. We're focused on launching Advanced Warfare and ensuring that people have a great time playing it, which our fans seem to be," an Activision spokesperson argued. "Share Play is a new feature that was introduced as part of the recent PS4 firmware 2.00 update. Our engineers didn't have access to it before it launched, so we haven't had a chance to evaluate it to see how it will impact the experience across all modes of play."
"Of course we wouldn't include a feature in our game without having the chance to test it. Once we've fully analyzed its performance, we'll determine how to support it going forward."