Like It Or Not

Modern Warfare 2: Or Why the End is Nigh for PC FPS Gaming

- November 18 -

This is a love letter to Infinity Ward. An elegy caused by a number of heartbreaking decisions made for the PC version of their latest installment of the wildly successful Call of Duty series. Since the first CoD, IW has always provided exciting gaming experiences. I have many fond memories of all-night-long multiplayer sessions playing the original PC-only title with my college friends, while pretending to be “programming”.

The expansion to the original game, United Offensive, brought forth some key innovations that made the game immensely enjoyable. Players would gain ranks as they became more experienced in the battlefield, giving them access to certain “perks”, such as the hugely effective satchel charges and artillery strikes (available after a certain number of kills).

Two new versions of the Call of Duty series were released, all with a World War II theme. After years of WWII themed first person shooters, including the Medal of Honor and Brothers In Arms series, the audience became noticeably tired of the genre. IW realized this and made the inspired decision to modernize the Call of Duty series with contemporary weaponry and a cinematic storyline. Thus, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was born.

CoD4: MW brought forth such massive improvements in both the single player and multiplayer experiences that it became Infinity Ward’s most successful title yet. The ranking/leveling system was enhanced and expanded, new, more plentiful perks were introduced, and an important innovation that allowed you to create your own class was introduced, thus allowing every player to have a different combination of weapons and perks. This was the best FPS multiplayer experience I had ever had.

Fast-forward to late 2009, to the release of the much anticipated (an understatement) Modern Warfare 2. When the CoD series was born and made successful on the PC, something happened: IW made a series of crucial decisions regarding the multiplayer aspect of the game. In PC FPS games, there are certain key components that are ubiquitous and have arguably made PC gaming a vastly superior multiplayer experience to that of gaming consoles.

One of these key components is dedicated servers. In the olden days (Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, all the way up to Half-Life), when dedicated servers were far from ubiquity, players would connect to each other in a peer-to-peer fashion: Player1 hosts a game, all other players connect to player1’s game, limited to player1’s connection’s download/upload bandwidth and player1’s computer’s power. This gave player1 a huge advantage over his/her peers, as the host would have zero latency and every other player was subject to (mostly atrocious) lag. Dedicated servers would later fix that problem, as one host in the cloud has a server 24/7 and all players connect to this host, with all players subject to the same or similar lag.

Clans that have dedicated servers for their clan matches are used to a level of control over the rules of the server and the players that play in it. IW severely limited this capability and imposed a limit of 16 concurrent players on any given match. This ruins clan matches, as many clans have much more than 16 players, and they will never be able to have the entire clan play together again.

Another two very important key components are modding and custom mapping. PC FPS games have long had the tradition of having modding and custom mapping tools available to the community. The community’s ability to modify the game and create custom maps adds unprecedented replay value to a game, and allows players to continue enjoying a game well after the original features have overstayed their welcome.

With IW’s decision to remove these key features, they have demonstrated that they no longer care about keeping the PC FPS gaming a superior experience. They have turned their backs on the very community that made their company and their games successful. With the advent of the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, console gamers have vastly outnumbered the PC gaming community. It’s logical then, that IW would decide to neglect us, as the bulk of their customer base is outside of the PC. Although PC games sales wouldn’t hurt them, so what is the reasoning behind their blatant shunning of the PC gaming community?

The answer is control. By micro-managing every little detail of a game they are able to enforce their own rules, crush piracy and perhaps force the same experience throughout all consoles and the PC. Console games have long been this way, so it isn’t far-fetched to think that the reason there are no modding or mapping tools is for IW/Activision to be able to charge you for any subsequent downloadable content (as it would exclusively come from them), in much the same way it’s done on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

So now that the MW2 experience has been made the same for consoles and the PC, what is the advantage of getting it for the PC? I already own an Xbox 360, why not get it for that instead? The reason why I only play FPSs on the PC is because I don’t like the inferior console experience. So that puts me (and I suppose other PC gamers) in an interesting conundrum: If you buy it for the PC you get the same experience as in a console. But you’re buying it for the PC precisely because it’s a better experience than a console! If it isn’t, and you have to settle for a lesser experience, is it even worth the trouble?

MW2 has already gone on to break sales records for an entertainment title launch. Because of its success, I fear that other companies will jump on the bandwagon and follow IW’s lead on neglecting the PC gaming community. If that is the case, the end is nigh for PC FPS gaming. I’ve made a decision not to buy this game, because, as well done as the game may be, I’d rather not settle for an inferior gaming experience. My decision may well have no meaning, as every one and their dog seems to have already bought it, but I stand by my choice.