The Call of Duty makers made announcements over the weekend that broke many a fans’ hearts. They’re essentially destroying the PC gaming eco-system (clans, leagues & tournaments, server providers, modders) around upcoming hit Modern Warfare 2. They’re doing it to standardize game access for the masses and build a Battle.net/Xbox Live like service. At least that’s how I understand this entry over at Bash and Slash.
Years ago I got the chance to meet with top Blizzard designers at a Warcraft 3 presentation. This is quite rare to me, I’m not a journalist, so I remember these moments fairly well. I was all pysched up. I told them about Starcraft and esports, as this was all I was breathing for back then, and they told me about how one of the keys to Blizzard’s success was the donut theory.
The idea behind this theory is that to have a big success, it’s important to pay respect to your hardcore fans. Here’s a pic.
Back to Infinity Ward and COD: MW2. No one is blaming them for reaching at the mass market. Actually, the people that take gaming seriously, the ones in the hole above, like it when their favorite game is played by millions. The bigger the game, the more we belong, kind of like a tribe thing.
The problem is they’re doing it by turning their backs to those who live and die Call of Duty, those who organize a good part of their lives around the game. There are businesses and non-profits built around the Call of Duty’s of the world. And there are die hard fans of these games who need those 3rd parties to enjoy the playing in full. They are all part of Call of Duty’s success on the PC.
By shutting them down, IW is not only denying the support these 3rd parties represented for their success, the developer also is taking majors factors out of the Call of Duty equation, one that’s been working so well. Things I’m sure they of course thought about. They must have one helluva plan.
No wonder the uproar in the community is so powerful and many are already claiming all over the place that they won’t buy the game.
Even though I never really cared about the Call of Duty franchise myself, this news is surely sad for PC gaming in a whole. The lifeblood of many successful games has been the community. There have been many examples where for example the part of community that creates modifications for the published games have been very successful, even so successful that the mod has reached the point of being published as an independent game.
A classical example of this would be Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike was originally just a simple mod build on Half-Life, arguably one of the most influential games for PC by Valve Software. The mod quickly grew in popularity and in the end Valve bought the rights of this mod and even this day it is one of the most played first person shooter games throughout the world. This is all thanks to the original game being open to community; the players could host their own servers and modify the content by will.
Making the decision to not allow people to host their own dedicated servers is a killer move in the negative aspect of that wording. No custom servers means no custom game content by the community. And this leads to the game to die quickly. I would say it was certainly a bad move and I really hope that other game developers/publishers will not follow this trend.