Infinity Ward Responds to Server Uproar

There’s no denying the Modern Warfare 2 server uproar this week has been a hot topic and Infinity Ward has responded in length outlining the reasons behind its move away from  dedicated servers.IWNET is in and dedicated servers are out and that’s the decision Infinity Ward has made as part of the largest investment they have pumped into any product according to Robert Bowling’s Blog. Bowling has outlined some of the key reasons Infinity Ward has moved to IWNET which include better matchmaking, smoother gameplay, premade server types with the playlist feature, private match functionality, a party system with friends lists, and cheat and hack free games. A large portion of the community certainly thinks that these features are not enough to warrant moving away from the dedicated server platform which puts the players in control. I think we all agree that dedicated servers are great as they allow full control and customisation of game types as well as a variety of geographical locations, but does it put too much control in the community’s hands?Some may argue the community would then have the power to control the game’s popularity; after all, there is nothing worse than buying a game and being annoyed at the lack of servers a few months down the line from release. There are, of course, cases when built in server browsers and company controlled servers just cause an immense amount of frustration with poor features, difficult support structures and lag.One thing to note here, the game will sell by the bucket-load regardless of the vocal community. Modern Warfare 2 will probably prove too irresistible for shooter fans in the end and this is the biggest title for Activision this year. Will the community really boycott the game? If they are really angry at this decision they could hit Activision where it hurts, its bank balance. Time will tell.