Inflict wound, apply salt

So the uproar over Modern Warfare 2 had just about peaked. Infinity Ward's forums are ablaze. The gaming media have picked up the story (see these articles on Eurogamer, Shack News, and GamesIndustry.biz for examples). In a matter of three days, an online petition to restore private dedicated servers amassed over 100,000 signatures. An unknown number of people have cancelled their pre-orders, and the game has an ugly one-star rating on Amazon (UK) after 103 reviews ... zero stars is not an option.

Today, IW started damage control. On his own site, Community Manager Robert Bowling provided some details on the matchmaking functionality of IW.NET, which could actually be a decent system if it works as advertised. There is one particularly salient question, however, that Mr. Bowling avoids altogether: why is IW forcing people to use this new matchmaking system instead of making it an option alongside the traditional server browser? In other words, why is it necessary to kill the dedicated server model that has served PC gamers - and served them well - for years?

Note the he does offer a (non) answer those questions, by way of setting up a rather transparent straw man:

IWNET takes the benefits of dedicated servers and allows them to be utilized and accessed by every player, out of the box, while removing the barrier to entry for players unaware of how to maintain a server on their own.

I call bullshit. Having administrative control over a dedicated server affords an array of obvious benefits that will be either neutered or completely unavailable with the new system. Anyone that has found a home on a clan server can rattle-off half a dozen without even thinking about it. More to the point, this supposed "barrier to entry" only affects the handful of people who choose to become a server administrator; no one else has to worry about it. Players have always had the ability to filter servers for a number of useful variables, and to add servers to a list of favorites. That system has worked well for years, and for the majority, there's no overriding need to totally supplant it with consolized matchmaking.

Insulting the community's intelligence wasn't a great start, but IW's Jason West decided to take it a step further by insulting the community itself. Talking to GameInformer, Mr. West was quoted as follows:

"We're just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners," says West. He points toward the mounting feedback IW has received from PC fans of Modern Warfare who couldn't find a decent server to play on between all of the cheaters, the insular communities, and huge skill level disparities that the original game's community fractured into. "We thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game," he laughs.

And later:

West takes a shot at the motives behind some of the outrage, noting that there's money to made by selling dedicates servers and adspace on them: "It's a little dubious. Some of the people complaining are complaining with their pocketbook."

More bullshit, another man of straw. Eliminating a proven feature set in favor of a simplified (read: dumbed-down) matchmaking system, instead of letting the two systems coexist, does not result in a net enhancement of the player experience. And IW.NET does not merely de-prioritize modders and "tuners" (whatever the hell that means), it marginalizes them out of existence.

I don't believe for a second that IW.NET was a response to an outcry for better matchmaking. No one who has played CoD4 for any substantial amount of time could mistake a higher rank (achieved via MMO-esqe grinding) for a higher skill level. And I guarantee you, aimbotters, wallhackers and every other species of cheating scumbag will find their way onto MW2's official servers. Every argument adds to the great, steaming pile of misdirection, crowned with IW's total indifference to the fact that most of us will see right through it.

And finally, IW's West and Vince Zampella drop the bomb we all saw coming:

Again and again during our conversation, West and Zampella hammer the point that hardcore PC players lose very little to this change relative to the returns that casual to moderate fans will see. Clans can set up private matches to do their training or what have you; all they lose is the ability to customize the game on a deeper level with mods and such.

That's all we lose? Yeah, that's not much of a blow at all.

So there you have it. Infinity Ward's response to the community that made them is this: "if you don't like it, you can all go fuck yourselves." That peak I mentioned at the beginning of this post is just the end of phase 1.