Modern Warfare 2: All your base are belong to us.
Modern Warfare 2 to introduce subscription content?
As I’m sure many of you will have already heard, on Saturday Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward made several controversial announcements regarding the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
Of the changes they have so far outlined, by far the most significant is the revelation that they will be completely removing support for dedicated servers and players will instead become reliant on playing games through a new match making service, IW.NET.
This means that no longer will players be able to browse through the lists of available servers and choose which game to join; the new service will choose for you.
Enjoy playing on custom servers? Sorry but it appears you’ve lost that option to unless you play a private match and even then (it is currently assumed) your options will be limited.
Run clan servers? Not with this game you won’t; indeed many of the large gaming server providers are already starting to announce they will be cancelling their pre-orders for Modern Warfare 2.
Although there has been no official confirmation, the removal of dedicated servers will also potentially spell the end for user made maps and modifications; or at the very least change the way in which they are delivered.
Infinity Ward could quite easily control which mods and maps to ‘publish’ and the lack of user made content certainly paves the way for more publisher add-on’s, presumably chargeable. The omens are not good.
Fans had started to make some significant noise since the announcement, primarily in the shape of several large petitions on the Infinity ward forums. Unfortunately, gamers found out early Sunday that Infinity Wards Big Brother attitude with Modern Warfare 2 also extends to their forums where the largest threads had been deleted.
“The topic you requested does not exist” was what visitors were greeted with; in reality perhaps Infinity Ward should have responded with “All your base are belong to us.”
Its early days of course, but what Infinity Ward is effectively doing are consolising your PC gaming experience and ultimately if they succeed, everything that makes PC Gaming worth the extra investment will disappear.
To a very small extent I can see why Infinity Ward would want to go down this route, especially from a financial point of view. By controlling the servers, you effectively control the games active community, particularly in the form of content.
Coming soon: Modern Warfare Monthly?
Aside from charging a premium for new content which would be unattainable elsewhere, you could also in theory even charge subscriptions for certain services as well. There’s been no mention of this of course, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it just yet.
After all, someone is going to be paying for those servers hosting your game, and surely at some point there will come a time when the cost of this will need ‘funding’. I can’t see Infinity Ward providing these services for free even if the charges are implemented by stealth.
That’s always been the beauty of the PC gaming market for many developers, the fans pay for the servers, run them and deal with any issues – completely removing a significant expense for them. And in some aspects that’s the trade off, we provide the servers and meet the expense but we also get free content which prolongs the life and replayability of our games (albeit admittedly primarily user produced).
Maybe the already controversial hike in the games RRP has already funded this IW.NET server infrastructure; maybe the stealth charges for this new service are already with us.
I genuinely hope that Infinity Ward listens to the fans or least provides more information as to their plans. Unlike the rather laughable Left 4 Dead 2 boycott, the issues being raised here are a genuine concern not just for fans of Modern Warfare 2 but for fans of PC gaming as a whole.
Like everyone else I don’t know where this will end, but I can say at the moment, I don’t like where we are heading.
Update: You can sign the official petition here; currently this has over 80,000 signatures.
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They had a gold mine… this game is going to sell in the millions… yet they decided to take a massive dump on it. It is like a beautiful chocolate cake iced with manure. I bought COD4 for the multi player and never played the single player on the pc. They killed it man… killed it… one small step for IW… 100 steps backwards for pc gaming. Gamers should really take a stand and boycott this game….
First we got multiplatform console rehashed games… now they want to ruin something that made pc gaming great for years… if it ain’t broke.. don’t fix it!
The community will just hack the game to the end to make their own servers, like with L4D. They never learn…
Very good article.
While I may not be getting this game on PC (will be on 360) I think this is one HUGE mistake by IW. I do however think given time the hackers of the world will find a way to get around everything, just like they do with piracy measures. In time there will be user made content and servers, how long it takes remains to be seen. Whether that will mean a jump in sales after it’s available is another issue. Many of those that have already decided not to buy it for PC may not change their minds. For this, no matter the outcome of these hacks/cracks, it’ll still mean a BIG loss for IW.