Well this week is becoming replete with gaming companies doing things to piss-off their users. First it’s Microsoft readying a mandatory update to kill non-Microsoft memory units, now Activision and Infinity Ward is basically trying to kill off the existing PC gaming community and replacing it with something different.
The news was broken to PC gamers by FourZeroTwo at Bash & Slash that there was not going to be any dedicated servers and that it would be replaced with IW.net matchmaking service. I think that Robert Bowling (Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward) expected applause from the hardcore gaming crowd that he was talking to but just heard dead silence.
Dedicated servers and modding (custom maps, rules, new game types) have been at the core of the PC gaming community since the beginning. Every online multi-player FPS has survived because people have been able to extend the games to get greater value out of them.
What it comes down to is Activision and Infinity Ward are trying to do a few things.
- Make the online PC gaming experience more friendly for casual gamers.
- Create a way of selling add-ons like they do for the console versions of the games to add extra income.
- Free themselves from the dependence of 3rd parties (server operators) for the success of their game.
- Manage the life of the game so that next year when the next version game is ready to hit the shelves they community is ready to move on because they have played the shit out of the stock maps.
Despite all the noise that is being made in the PC gaming community about this issue, I have the sinking feeling that the decision is final and we are seeing the current PC gaming community being forcibly replaced by something else.
PC gamer may still be able to make a difference by speaking up about the issue, tweeting, writing blog and forum posts and filling out the online petition against this decision.
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