The kids love boycotts. Everyone gets together and refuses to buy a product that most people will know and love. It’s all kinds of fun. In the video game world, speaking with your wallet is the best way to get your point across to a developer and these boycotts have been popping up more often than usual this year. First it was Left 4 Dead 2, which was abandoned after some major damage control from Valve. Now, it’s the PC version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 because of the dedicated server fiasco.
Look, I’m all for getting your point across, and I really think that has happened in this case. Infinity Ward is speaking out left and right to explain its decision to use IWNet instead of straight dedicated servers. While I see their point, a lot of people don’t, and they’ve organized a boycott of the game. People are canceling pre-orders and signing petitions in the hopes that Infinity Ward will reverse their decision (and thousands of dollars invested in IWNet) to allow dedicated servers in Modern Warfare 2.
My problem with this boycott is that no one has really seen IWNet in action, at least from the perspective of those boycotting the game. It could be the absolute shit. It could take PC multiplayer to the next level. It could also be the death of the game. The only thing we have to go by at this point is Infinity Ward’s word. So how can Infinity Ward fix that? Get some videos out there pronto showing off the versatility of IWNet and why it’s better for the gamer. Show how all the cool stuff you can do with a dedicated server is still available. Seeing is believing and it may sway many on-the-fence gamers. If that doesn’t happen soon, the boycott will only grow stronger.
I wonder which boycott will be next? Will it be a multiplatform game or an exclusive? It’s funny that gamers criticize developers for not being innovative in one breath and fly off the handle at innovation and change in another. You can’t please everyone.
I’m boycotting boycotts. Starting now. I’ll show them!
Mark,
I would guess that the majority of those who are up in arms (pun intended) are like myself who also have a very big investment in gaming with dedicated servers. No, I don’t work for a hosting company. I am co-founder of a small clan of 40 members, of whom live all over the world.
We run two COD 4 servers, both modded, and running custom maps. One is an assault server using the Open Warfare mod, and the other is a sniper server running the eXtreme mod, using sniper rifles that allow you to shoot farther than the stock rifle, and special sniper maps that allow for slower games of shooting each other from mirror images.
We have had 1000s of people through our servers and all are welcome, although we do have some rules; mainly don’t be a jerk, and keep the language under control because we have some younger members. Age ranges run from our junior members under 15 to those in their 60s. Most in their 30s and 40s.
We run Punkbuster for cheaters, and have only kick/banned a handful. People enjoy coming into our servers for the mods, custom maps, including the jukebox feature on our assault server, and the friendships. The clan members all pitch in monetarily to support the game servers, ventrillo and our web site, and a few of us have spent hundreds of hours managing them all.
Over 150 maps keep the game play very fresh, and we work to rotate them in to keep up with new maps that become available. We love to do it, but know that with the loss of dedicated servers, it is all gone if we were to rely on MW 2 for our gaming.
This is not just a minor change in the way the game plays, it totally makes clans and running their own servers impossible. The other thing that is really discouraging is that IW chose to mention about the change with only a few weeks before release. The have purposefully kept mentioning of the PC version at all to a minimum. They obviously thought that to do so to have the least amount of dollar impact. And because of the true passion of the hardcore COD players, we hope they are wrong. We are not “fanboys” as IW has written us off as, but actually hard working people who have invested more than your “casual” gamer who play the games for a few weeks and move on to the next.
We don’t ask them to trash IW.NET, but let us have both so that they can catch the casual gamer, but also support the hardcore gamers and clans, who have really helped to make the game what it is today.
Come see what it is about, and visit us on our servers, which we generally all play on from 6pm-9pm eastern time. The assault server is IP Address: 68.232.162.18 Port: 28960. The servers are available 24/7 and people vote as to which type of game they want to play.
Sorry for the long post, but we are serious about our fun, and helping to keep the fires burning.
{SLS} ShavedDome
{SLS} SniperLords
+1 with lotsa zeroes.
I’ve never maintained a clan membership with any of the PC shooters (or any other PC game) or hosted the servers but I have relied heavily on, and enjoyed both. Unless you have spent time playing PC games multiplayer then you can’t really grasp how big a part that dedicated servers play in the experience. Even something as simple as wanting to play CTF with 30 people or in a half empty game with 10 is important. I’ve never played COD 4: MW for PC (I’ve barely played it, period) but it’s people like ShavedDome who have made my PC gaming experience enjoyable. What is sad is that I’ve seen more mature and reasoned responses from the PC crowd than even what I’ve seen from IW.
Taking dedicated servers and not telling anyone until a month before launch was unnecessary and unprofessional in my opinion. The ONLY thing to be gained by that was more money for the developers who were looking to minimize canceled pre-orders. If they were planning on completely shutting out a large sub-culture in PC gaming from one of the biggest FPS’s in a long time they could have at least acknowledged the fact that PC gamers are who put FPS’s on the map, kept them alive, and set the stage for the popularity that they enjoy now by giving them a heads-up well before now.