The bad press for the biggest game of the year just keeps stacking up. The latest development in the bitter Modern Warfare 2 PC debacle has seen a number of online retailers stand up in opposition of Infinity Ward’s game, refusing to sell the much-hyped FPS. It’s not because of dedicated servers, though. It’s because Steam is a Trojan horse!
“We don’t believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse,” says online retailer Direct2Drive, criticizing the mandatory installation of Valve’s Steamworks that will be a part of MW2‘s PC version. Two other stores, Impulse and Gamersgate, have decided to join D2D in its boycott.
Direct2Drive isn’t just singling Modern Warfare 2 out, however. After revealing the boycott, it confirmed that it had evaluated some other games on its books, including Empire: Total War and Dawn of War II, and has refused to sell those as well. This is to continue until Valve has “decoupled its retail marketplace” from its other services.
Good on these outlets for taking a stand on something they believe in, but will it stop the juggernaut that is Modern Warfare 2? I’m curious as to how much bad press that game can withstand before a dent in its guaranteed sales will actually be seen. Probably ten billion.
