We've been talking about games for the past few classes, and today we talked about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Another controversial aspect of this game has to do with multi-player. Usually, for PC games (yes this is out for PC also), a user can create his or her own server to host a multi-player game on. This allows you to customize the kind of game you want, special features you want, and play what maps you want. Infinity Ward (makers of this game) chose not to implement this feature called Dedicated Server, instead hosting all games on servers owned and operated by Infinity Ward. A simple search in google on this topic can show you the outrage the gaming community has over this decision. Infinity Ward decided to place more control over their media. The podcast linked on this page contains a discussion on this issue from the perspective of computer literate game enthusiasts. It takes a while for them to get going. I haven't listened to it much yet.
PC users of this game are in an uproar. Infinity Ward says their matchmaking services provided by their servers will be. Link.
Also, since we're so keen on Fox News now-a-days, here's a link to an interview transcript from Fox & Friends about 'MW2'. I'm posting this mainly to illustrate the continuing debate between factions on videogame violence.
EDIT: This is a better rant on the death of the dedicated server.
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Infinity Ward's decision not to allow dedicated servers reminds me of a similar stance being taken by Blizzard, another gaming company, that has decided to only support multiplayer games through their online client. However, it is likely that third parties will quickly modify both of these games in order to allow for multiplayer without using the default online client. As a result, the only thing this type of decision will do is alienate some potential customers.
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