Modern Warfare 2 Uproar Continues
- Scribbled on October 20th, 2009 by Jonah Falcon
- Filed in Industry News, PC, Shooter
Gamasutra is reporting that the internet uproar over the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continues over Inifinity Ward’s decision to route all online games thru their own server backend IWNet, and will not support dedicated servers.
Infinity Ward’s creative strategist Robert Bowling:
“We’re building in our own match-making so you can get in there and play with players your same rank. You’re completely reliant on IWNet, and there are no dedicated servers or server lists.”
This has put some gamers in a tizzy, with them – wait for it – posting an online petittion, which historically has proven to be as useful as pouting, jumping up and down and holding one’s breath. There are two big reasons this is futile:
- 1. PC sales are going to be dwarfed by console sales. For example, while Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sold almost 8M on the Xbox 360 and 4.6M on the PlayStation 3, the PC version came in 6th on the most purchased game of the year, barely beating 1M. If you’re going to threaten a boycott, you better have the purchasing power to make a dent. MW2 is projected to have 200% more sales on the PS3 version and 140% more sales on the 360 version. Infinity Ward and Activision aren’t going to feel the bite of a few thousand bitter fanboys not purchasing a copy.
- 2. However, CoD4 was also one of the most pirated games of 2008, with 860K estimated illegal copies. IWNet is Infinity Ward’s version of Steam or BattleNet. There’s no problem with user-generated content on Steam games like Left 4 Dead or Half-Life 2, either.
Let us know what you think.
[UPDATE: Bowling Twittered:
fourzerotwo: Definitely made a big wave, and the response will not be ignored. I'll ensure everyone at IW sees the petitions and responses to it.
It means almost nothing. They'll simply release the game and wait the furor out, before starting some sort of program to have user-created content used in multiplayer play.]
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