(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Just got my Gameinformer today, always a great read. There was a very nice article that summed up a lot about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and why it has become, well, the most successful travesty game so far this century. Here's the article...



A Changing Battlefield

Modern Warfare 2 online multiplayer is a glitch-filled mess. For Infinity Ward, it's time to explore new tactics

by Matt Bertz (Gameinformer)

Having problems finding a decent match while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? You're not the only one. The list of competition-crippling bugs in the game is so long it looks like a tracking sheet of known issues from the an alpha build. First it was the javelin glitch, an exploit that allowed players to become a suicide bomber, taking several enemies with them to the afterlife upon the explosion. Not to be outdone by the javelin, the akimbo shotguns came next, a fearsome dual-wielding kit with the range of an assault rifle that resulted in impossible long-distance deaths every round. And who could forget the nuke boosting, super speed care package knife deaths, players hiding in walls elevator glitch (this bug can be found in almost any game, and almost impossible to avoid, so I personally don't blame IW for that), unlimited ammo, private matches that earned people experience, and the Ground War/Rust map bug?

A lot of these could have been avoided had Activision set up a public beta, which many shooters (including the original Modern Warfare) employ to discover and eliminate major issues before the games ship. Even the best quality assurance testers in the world can't match the unpredictability that arises when the public gets its hands on a multiplayer game and starts jumping into objects, unearthing imbalanced weapon/perk combinations and discovering new exploits. Without the benefit of the beta, Infinity Ward was caught with sits pants down in front of an audience of millions.

The talented studio is doing its best to address glitches as they arise, but anyone who logs onto Modern Warfare 2 on a regular basis will tell you the inmates are running the asylum. As soon as one glitch or hack is addressed, another arises to take its place. The stat-chasing cheaters have rendered leaderboards meaningless, the glitches have destroyed the competitive balance, and lobbies sound more like support groups for disgruntled fans than a place where people are having fun. It should not have spiraled this far into oblivion.

In a sense, Infinity Ward has become a victim of its own success. As of mid-January, Modern Warfare 2 has already amassed a mind-boggling $1 billion in sales - more then game publisher Capcom made for the entire fiscal year. A game of this magnitude crosses out of a the niche population of many online shooters and into the mainstream, a new problem for any game not named Halo. In the same way Windows faces more threats to its stability than the infinitely less used Apple OS, games this popular tend to attract a much larger pool of annoying gamers hell bent on hacking and griefing their way to victory.

The old reactionary model of addressing bugs incrementally via patches and title updates no longer suffices for this large a community. When a game is under constant duress like Modern Warfare 2, maybe it's time to hire a full-time staff trained in policing hackers, stomping out bugs, scrubbing the leaderboards to eliminate the cheaters, and refining game balance. If Microsoft wants to keep encouraging people to use (and pay for) Xbox Live, it needs to hold up its end of the bargain as well, giving studios the ability to release patches in a timely manner, and more aggressively banning users of modded Xbox 360s.

Though the Call of Duty franchise is a cash cow, Activision likely won't sign off on extended post-release support without some kind of monetary kickback. Given the problems that the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer has faced, perhaps the shooter community would not be as jilted toward throwing in a few extra dollars toward fixing the problem as one might expect. If Infinity Ward could deliver glitch-free action, balanced gameplay, a steady flow of new content, I for one would be more than willing to shell out a few dollars a month for an evolving standalone multiplayer experience.

Whatever decision Infinity Ward comes to for its future releases, I hope the team doesn't just settle with the unsatisfactory strategy it is currently employing. A less-hyped game would have lost all credibility had it shipped with so many issues. An industry-leading games as popular as Modern Warfare 2 deserved better, and so do the fans.


Can't say I disagree with his assessment of the game, but hackers and glitchers won't go away. In a sense, they do help gameplay by exposing the flaws in a game. Though I do agree, that's what a beta is for.

In short, Modern Warfare 2 was a huge success, and a travesty of a game.

Thank God (or whoever one believes in....I choose Joe Pesci) for MAG.

Yeah i got that magazine yesterday the whole game is a mess god they should have had a beta. I mean there trying to sell the largest selling game in the industry but they don't want to put in the time to make a beta? The game is a mess the company is a mess what is this franchise coming to.......

lol not long ago i read this in my gameinformer, a beta would of been a smart thing to do.

At least Modern Warfare 2 has the ability to have these glitches. With these free-feeling and fast controls, glitches are possible that aren't in other games. For example, what other game lets you switch guns while cooking a care package as your jumping forward and back?

unrealistic ones.

Would you rather have that feature taken out of the game, just so it will seem more realistic? Me neither.

how often yo you jump back and forth with a care package marker?

The point is this game gives you a lot of freedom with what you can do with the controls and your player.

good article thanks for posting.

Nice post man. Good stuff.