Petition for dedicated servers in Modern Warfare 2 growing rapidly

Yet the L4D petition accomplished something, did it not?

Unfortunately the folks at Infinity Ward are not going to care; they know that these same people signing the petition will buy the game regardless.

Robery Bowling?

Stop everything! I don't remember writing a cheque for Bowling!

Well, I know one person never made a difference, but I still canceled my pre-order for MW2. If they retract their decision, or patch it, or there's a wildly available hack created by the community to bypass the issue, I'll be right back on board of course. MW was the first PC FPS community I really got into since the launch of TF2, so losing dedicated servers just kills the sequel for me. I know a fair number of the more long-lived clans I played with took down their servers in protest.

Now, I'll still *rent* it on a console for the campaign, but that's it! A man must draw a line in the sand!

How many people for EACH one of these people who have actually signed it feel the same way?

Not everyone is as connected as us that pay attention to this stuff.

Most of them are so "disconnected" that sure, they'll probably pick up the game, only to find out what they're used to is totally gone.

OPTIONS PEOPLE!

Nothing wrong with having a dedicated server browser + an IW.net Auto-Match system.

Unfortunately though - and let's be honest because you all know this is true, this petition is probably going to go nowhere. It will sit and amass a considerable amount of signatures, but likely do nothing to convince Activision and Infinity Ward to do anything. The reason for this is Activision is a large company and will do one of the following things:

A) Of course this is everyone's wanted option. They restore dedicated server support as seen in COD4 and WAW.

The reason this is unlikely to happen though is because it removes control of the lifespan of the game from them. Also, it loosens control of a brilliant DRM scheme. Why would Activision give that up willingly? Remember, this guy said he would raise prices of PC titles if he could to $60. He did. He said he would stop piracy at any cost. Remember that cracked dedicated servers which don't perform product key checks are how many pirates play online. Through this method, Activision and Infinity Ward removes that potential loophole and instead takes full control of the online experience. Unfortunately though, they also have the ability to cease support for online gameplay at any given point (see: Metal Gear Solid 3: Online).

B) Most likely, As seen 99% of the time before by other company actions, Activision, as a large corporation with a base which will buy the game regardless of what they do to it simply due to the product value which it will carry, will merely choose to ignore this. So they lose (at present count) ~80,000 sales. Have you seen the sales figures for Call of Duty 4 and World at War? 80,000 is, most likely, an acceptable loss to curb piracy in the eyes of Activision and Infinity Ward.

C) This one somewhat ties into B. I'll title this option, "Screw 'em". Let's be realistic, with the exception of the joint Activision/Blizzard venture, Activision has never really cared about the PC. The Xbox 360 and (now that it is competitively priced) PlayStation 3 are Activision's selling points as a publisher. Especially since (and please don't take this the wrong way as it is nothing more than a generalization) console gamers typically are seen as being more ignorant of the wider gaming structure than PC gamers. Due to such, no matter what they are thrown, they'll buy it with a smile and come back for more the next go around. With that in mind, if this petition does carry across the PC gaming arena and sales are low, Activision decides not to publish the next title (they already don't bother to port or publish Guitar Hero titles and leave it instead up to a third-party (Aspyr) to do so) for the PC and instead focuses all direction towards the console field.

Petitions have never done much to affect company direction. Don't get me wrong, I encourage anyone who believes in the cause to do just that and sign the petition. I'm just also warning you, based on prior history, not to expect them to actually listen to it.

Valve listens to their fans.

Bobby Kottick listens to piles of money being dumped on his desk.

the piracy arguement is BS People pirate CRAP if you make a good game with MP worth paying for you will get a sale

if someone was to pirate your game it doesnt mean a sale it means that what you had presented them was not enough to convince them to purchase your product

i have pirated games only to buy them later i have also deleted them not 30 mins after install because it was utter crap

operation flashpoint dragon rising is using this listen server BS and you can use a copied ISO and play online with it on the legit listen servers ???

i also have purchased games and then pirated them because i was being treated like a pirate on the retail copy( mass effect )

the thing is theve gone okay what are all the positive to PC gaming then have gone okay how do we nerf them

at the end of the day the only 2 things they havent been ably to nerf are keyboard and mouse which is the only reason for even having a PC version

OR is it all a big conspiracy because they didnt have enough copies to go down and by doing this theve had 50k people cancel preorders

I'm not going to act as though each copie pirated equals a lost sale, but don't be stupid - do you honestly think most pirates download games simply so that they can demo 'em? Most of 'em, in my experience, download games because it's free for them to do. Whether or not you believe that's immoral is another discussion entirely, but the fact of the matter is that most game pirates aren't as noble as you would have us believe.

And no offense, but fuck your notion that 'oh, if a gamer pirates a game it means that YOU failed as a developer'. That's like saying grocery stores don't do enough to satiate shoplifters and that justifies their actions. It's retarded.

Just to clarify, I'm one of the few posters here who doesn't seem to view piracy as though it's a black and white issue, and I still think you need to think a little harder about how this whole piracy thing works.

Don't copy that floppy!

For some perspective, as an example: one Wall Street Analyst is estimating/expecting sales of Mw2 to have the potential to go as high as 11.1 MILLION for the first two months of release (~$803M US) and to do over $300M in FIRST DAY sales.

It's going to be hard for Activision to get around to looking at that petition when they'll have to dig a tunnel through the ginormous *pile of money* strewn about the office that is being delivered by dump trucks on the hour every hour.

Even 50000 signatures would be a tiny fraction of the fan base for this game.

Even though I signed the petition and decided to reconsider my purchasing of two copies of this game (360 for achievements and play with console buddies and PC since I prefer PC online), I have to say, this is true.

Over 2 million preordered this game. Assuming that about half the number preordered and then cancelled it (some claim to be in my boat, wishing to buy two copies, but we'll assume universally 1 per gamer, and even then, some will sign but not opt out of purchase), it still leaves over 1.9 million copies preordered. It's not big enough to do financial damage since console gamers are fine and dandy with this. It's a case where the console is destroying the PC community of gamers, although there are still many other games that thrive on the platform, it could dwindle down to become a very exclusive market. However, PC gaming is bigger in Europe than it is here (MUCH BIGGER) so, if word gets out that they're boned, it could get more significant.

It should also be noted that not even 15 hours passed since it was under 45,000 when I last checked. While it's possible it's slowing, if that pattern does keep up, it could be pretty big.

tmac,

Let me ask you a question. How would you feel if Guerilla announced they would be reducing the number of online players from 32 to less than 8, that deathmatch would be the only supported match type, and that they wouldn't be supporting chat (voice or text) of any kind for no other reason than to "streamline the online experience" for Killzone 2? What if Halo 3's online options were drastically limited and crippled compared to what its predecessor had? How would you feel if a sequel to Little Big Planet completely scrapped user generated content in favor of pushing Media Molecule's own DLC? Would you be happy with having to pay more for a product that's actually a regression from the previous iteration? No, you wouldn't be.

"You guys should just be thankful it's still even coming to PC at all," If there wasn't a market for a FPS shooter centered around war, it wouldn't be coming to our platform at all; no sane developer releases a port if they don't think it has at least some chance of turning them a profit. The market for the game exists, it's just not willing to put up with the company's crap. It makes no sense, absolutely none, to use only developer-owned servers in lieu of player own dedicated servers in a market that pioneered online gaming unless it's an MMO; when the IW serves go down because can't support thousands of players trying to go online at once or when they've yanked offline for maintenance, it's going to be painfully obvious to anyone and their grandmother that dedicated servers should've been made available. Online multiplayer can't really be considered a feature if you can't go online.

We're also pissed because IW's basically euthanized the modding community before it even had a chance to begin so they can now start charging us for things we got for free with the game's predecessors. We have you console kiddies to thank for that. If you idgets hadn't lined up, waving your credit cards while saying, "I don't mind paying $10 for 3 maps! Hey, $5 for horse armor is a fantastic idea! I don't mind pay $7 for something that should've been introduced in a patch! Hey...$20 for costumes that actually exist on disc isn't a bad deal!", there wouldn't be an incentive to try to monetize content outside of our initial purchase. Because they've grown fat, listless, and accustomed to console gamers throwing money at them for what can loosely be considered, "DLC", they're taking away one of the primary reasons to even own PC games.


Infinity Ward started off as a PC developer and, had we not bought their first COD game in droves, there wouldn't be a MW2 to argue about. If they can't release a PC game without doing all that is within their power to piss on us, they shouldn't be releasing the game at all.

I don't normally play multiplayer so they could choose to ditch the whole mode altogether and I wouldn't care.

"First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

Sure this is a stupid video game, but the point still applies.

"How would you feel if Guerilla announced they would be reducing the number of online players from 32 to less than 8, that deathmatch would be the only supported match type, and that they wouldn't be supporting chat (voice or text) of any kind for no other reason than to "streamline the online experience" for Killzone 2?"

He'd be like "lol, I didn't know Killzone 2 was coming out for the Wii"

Oh come on...seriously?

"site will be done soon and we will have information on there"

What information? Isn't all of the information pretty much summed up by "No dedicated servers"?

Curt Carter, I know you're still going to buy the game. Dedicated servers or not, you'll still buy the game.

Actually. I am not. Why would I? I only love the MP performance of a game. So, why would I buy a game if the MP is not to my liking? Not saying everyone will not buy the game. What I am saying is that some will choose not to, choose not to like it, choose to wait and buy it a few weeks later...after giving IW some time to think.

You're still going to buy it. Bobby Kotick, Activision and IW probably won't even give a shit about this petition. You guy are getting it for PC, you should be happy, but now you're complaining about no dedicated servers. Yeah, dedicated servers are important for online multiplayer, but it isn't a necessity. It isn't a big problem. Lots of games have no dedicated servers and the online is still great. Stop wasting your time complaining.

@ CheeziePotato

You're assuming that people upset about this (PC gamers) will still buy the game because that is what console gamers would do which is flawed logic. The two groups are pretty different when it comes to things like this. There's a reason why DLC usually comes for free to PC gamers but gets charged for on the consoles. Yeah, some of it has to do with Sony/Microsoft making developers charge for it but that policy would disappear if everyone stopped buying it. It's the same reason why Live is free on the PC but 360 users are charged $50 a year for it.

While I have no doubt that some of the people signing this petition will buy the game anyway, there will also be a significant chunk of them that won't. Some might just pirate the game, others will just skip it entirely and play a different PC game that doesn't have the developers trying to pull this shit (L4D2, TF2, BFBC2, etc)

I was already on the fence about the game since Activision was charging $60 for it but hearing this made it an easy decision for me. I might pick it up if I ever see it on Steam for ~$20 but that's just for the single-player portion.

I'm pretty sure the pc version is $60, another dick move from Activision.

But most of these people will probably crack and buy the game anyway. Even if every single one doesn't, that's 75k sales taken out of 10+ million. All these people are really doing is giving Activision another reason not to even make a PC version next time.

But that's 75,000 in a matter of just two days. That's quite a large number in such a short time which will more than likely further grow larger.

I said ~$50 because retail stores probably get $10

450,000$ is a shitload of money. Activision should be worried.

*4,500,000$

I forgot the extra zero. My bad. :D

Remember, its 60 dollars on PC because of all the extra content and support :)

Its $60 on the PC because Kodick knows he can get away with it.

no were paying 10 dollars extra for a vaesectomy of the PC industry

I'm pirating this game. I've been burnt out on COD's multiplayer for awhile now and well the single player is only going to be about 5 hours or so.

how is making the game $60 a dick move? I don't get it. They have made a product that has the potential to be the biggest and best of it's kind! This is not some $15 puzzle game. A lot of work went into this game. I'd pay $100 for it as long as I know I'm getting a high quality game. Hell, if naughty dog said uncharted 2 was going to be $120, I'd say, "here you go. you've earned it"

I think it's weird that so many people on here feel that infinity ward and activision owe them anything. Just don't buy the game if it doesn't meet your requirements. Don't bitch about something that is not being forced upon you. buy one of the other 100+ FPS games coming out.

I'm still getting the game regardless. sure it may not have dedicated servers but it's going to have an intense action packed singleplayer campaign and a great MP game. If that's not enough for you than don't buy it.

Joystiq contacted Activision. That says something when a relatively large gaming blog does that.

Whether every person signs once, or a hundred times, it still says something when an online petition gets 75k. Most online petitions can't touch that number and they also have people signing it multiple times.

But I agree, it's still pretty meaningless unless the company chooses to give it meaning.

They won't boycott it. Plus, I'm sure there's a bunch of console users that signed it too just to help out the cause.

Yeah, fuck people who play PC games because of the fact that you can do shit that console gamers can't. Let's just make all platforms even.