Infinity Ward has just made the most bitch move of any game developer this year. Community manager Rob bowling (aka ‘fourzerotwo’) has confirmed via podcast that Modern Warfare 2 will not have dedicated servers or user-supported mods of any type. Instead IW is opting to run the game through Steam, with a matchmaking service for multiplayer (think L4D or Xbox Live).

Since many a console tard will be saying “Who cares? Buy the game for 360.” – please let me explain the significance of this announcement.

Competitive Gaming and PC’s

True competitive gaming has always shined brightest on PC, and it always will. There are three main reasons for this. First, most major games released for PC come with tools allowing the end-user to modify the game however they wish, and distribute it to the game community. This is more than just something fun to do. Promod,  the most widely utilized mod for cod4, changes the game up to be more balanced for competitive play. It also adds other options not available in the standard game, such as being able to choose any weapon you need right from the start (very useful in tournaments), or allowing users to spectate during a match as a cameraman (useful for those wishing to broadcast live streams).

The second reason competitive gaming works best on the PC platform has to do with the level of customization that is simply not available on consoles. Rarely do two different PC gamers have the same computer set-up, which is half of the fun. Tweaking and upgrading your hardware to fit your play style, finding the right settings in-game to maximize your frames-per-second, adding some personality with binds; they all are part of an experience you can only enjoy on a PC. There is even an element of customization outside of the game. For example, some users like to use TeamSpeak or Ventrilo to communicate with their team during a match (a must for competitive play), the team leader will usually use IRC to locate a scrim for practice, and everyone usually stays in touch with each other using Xfire.

The last, but most definitely not least reason is dedicated servers. Dedicated servers allow teams a private place to practice, scrim, and compete that is under their complete control. This is important to have because:

• You will always have a low ping, password protected server to play in.
• You can control who uses the server and kick/ban users that need it.
• You can install whatever mod you need (such as the aforementioned promod, or any of the numerous training mods available).

At the bare minimum, dedicated servers are a must for competitive play.

Why IW Should Keep PC Gamers Happy

The competitive gaming market is more important than the suits at IW realize. Although it is true that PC sales only make 10% of their profits, there is so much more to it that that. Competitive gaming kept cod4 alive. There are just as many people playing the game today as there were when the game was released. Do you think people would still be playing the game if there were not gamers competing in tournaments, leagues, and LANs all over the world? Would people even be playing in those leagues if mods such as promod didn’t exist to balance the game? Or if matches could not be held on dedicated, private servers to ensure control? I don’t think so.

Although it is an irrelevant point to this argument, IW shouldn’t forget that PC gamers made the Call of Duty series what it is today. Back when the first title was released in 2003, it was only available for PC.

So Now What?

If IW does not turn their decision around, the competitive community will move on to a new title, and MW2 will stoop down to catering to casual gamers. Don’t get us wrong, we want MW2 to be a great game, and we want to be able to enjoy that game for years to come as we did with cod4. The best we can do for now is to make our disapproval known and hope for the best. I highly recommend signing this petition if you haven’t already. There have been several users in the IW Forums that have been expressing their disappointment as well. Every bit of recognition will help.

If the worst comes to pass, where will the competitive community turn? That’s a good question. The majority of us are looking into Call of Duty 5, due to Treyarch being very generous with supporting the game. Others are setting our sights on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 when it is released. Only time will tell…