A former Call of Duty veteran has spoken out in support of modders just as publisher Activision made the highly controversial decision to discontinue a major mod just hours before its release.
After years of development, the H2M mod project was supposed to transfer a lot of content from Modern Warfare 2 (2009) to Modern Warfare Remastered (2017) today, August 16th. The enormous hype surrounding the mod has catapulted the seven-year-old shooter back up the sales charts in recent days, but that didn’t stop Activision from sending a cease and desist order the evening before release day.
The modding team announced just last night that it would “follow this instruction and cease all activities immediately and permanently.”
“Much of the original Infinity Ward team was comprised of developers who used to be modders,” tweets former Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling. “The original Call of Duty PC games released mod tools and server files to allow community creations to expand on the original vision,” he explains, before encouraging companies to “build systems that help their (user-generated content) community, not strangle it.”
Much of the original Infinity Ward team was made up of developers who used to be modders. The original Call of Duty PC games released mod tools and server files to allow community creations to expand on the original vision. Build systems that help your UGC community, not stifle it. https://t.co/zq9Ysg3Ir315 August 2024
Call of Duty’s player base hasn’t been this closed in years, and Bowling is far from the only prominent figure to denounce the sudden closure.
In addition to numerous major CoD-focused content creators, FaZe Clan CEO Richard ‘Banks’ Bengston also weighed in on the esports group’s official social media account: “We implore you, Activision, to reconsider this decision… Your team has made purchasing the original MW Remastered released by YOU a requirement. A great way to attract users/players to your product. This is harmless fun and community building. Something we think Call of Duty desperately needs. Please do the right thing and let the kids play their game.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered is currently being bombarded with critics on Steam, with its latest rating dropping to “Overwhelmingly Negative” as hordes of players claim they only bought the shooter to play the now-defunct mod.
Other Call of Duty mods emerged unscathed, so what exactly made H2M a target? Activision hasn’t commented publicly on the shutdown, but updated Modern Warfare 2 maps were used as a major selling point for last year’s Modern Warfare 3, leading to speculation that the publisher was worried about increased competition for its latest money-printing machine.
Elsewhere, Activision is battling Call of Duty’s out-of-control download sizes, but of course the road to “smaller downloads” starts with “a big one.”
