Infinity Ward made an announcement a few weeks back stating that the PC version of their upcoming Modern Warfare 2 title would not support dedicated servers for online games, and also be capped at 18 total players in online matches (compared to 32 in Call of Duty 4).
This announcement just a few short weeks before the game launches caused outrage on the internet amongst those who had either already pre-ordered the game, or were hoping to pick it up once it released. Many PC gamers are already used to playing games on dedicated servers with little to no hassles, especially for games in the first person shooter genre. The subsequent outrage has prompted gamers to start an online petition to Infinity Ward to put back dedicated server support into Modern Warfare 2, which at the time of this writing as a total of 190,257 signatures.
Read more thoughts after the jump.
Another point of interest in relation to the lack of dedicated server support is how big of a high profile title this is, not only for the publisher and developers, but for the gaming industry as a whole. While it might not be the first title on the PC to have forgone dedicated server support, this particular game is causing the most uproar because of just how big it is, and it also shines a spotlight on this shift in consciousness when it comes to online gaming on the PC platform. The existing generation of consoles have their own respective dedicated gaming services to easily facilitate online gaming sessions in-between players (PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE). But, the PC is a bit fragmented with different services being offered by different providers. On the PC having multiple providers was somewhat alleviated by the fact that titles could have dedicated server support, so a gamer did not need to choose from a service (in some cases) or have any lengthy configuration to get online to play their games.
For one reason or another dedicated server support appears to be declining on the PC platform. This leaves PC gamers in a bit of a tough spot without one centralized service to go to in order to play online easily, such as the consoles have. The reasoning for this can be quite varied and to us, largely unknown. Perhaps it is related to anti-piracy, or perhaps they think that dedicated servers somehow aren’t streamlined enough for quick and easy match making online. Infinity Ward itself gave a very vague response on why they dropped dedicated server support stating, “All I can say is that we changed it to make it a better and easier experience.”
Whatever the reason this is a situation that PC gamers should watch out for in the coming months and years. After Infinity Ward announced their lack of dedicated server support id Software themselves came out stating that their upcoming title Rage also will also not have dedicated server support, and they were admittedly somewhat relieved that Infinity Ward came out first stating that they wouldn’t support it. At the very least this shows us this may be a continuing trend, and we really don’t know what publishers are planning to do the same. Who knows, hypothetically speaking of Infinity Ward didn’t do it, id Software may have waited until 2 weeks before their title dropped before announcing it as well.
Outside of dedicated server support I for one would love to see one dedicated platform on the PC such as the PSN or LIVE networks. There are options available to developers out there, but as we saw with the recent release of Borderlands and subsequent connectivity headaches by using GameSpy with direct almost p2p like connections, the selection of a provider can be quick tricky. There is also the Steam network which serves multiple purposes as a content delivery system, communications and multiplayer platform on the PC, and is actually quite good. But, as it is developed by Valve some publishers might not want to exactly consider a platform created by a rival publisher, as Valve also develops their own games as well (Half-Life, etc.).
Time will tell what direction this all goes in. Modern Warfare 2 itself will actually have an alternative to dedicated servers that Infinity Ward hopes will be better: a proprietary match making system called IWnet that runs in conjunction with the Steam platform as well. We will find out within a few short days how this plays out for Modern Warfare 2 itself on the PC. As for the industry in general the one thing that is for certain is that PC gamers do need a solution to this issue relatively soon if this trend continues amongst developers; whether it’s from the development of a new multiplayer platform on the PC that gives both developers and consumers what they need, the developers creating connectivity alternatives such as IWnet, or from the further development of an existing service.
