On an earnings call today, Activision president Mike Griffith said his company is "not overly concerned" about gamer complaints regarding the lack of support for dedicated servers in the PC version of Modern Warfare 2.
"We're, of course, watching this very carefully and paying attention to it," he said in response to a financial analyst asking about the impact of the loud complaints among PC gamers.
"But we're not overly concerned about it," he continued. "One of the problems with our PC SKUs in the past is that it has not been as friendly a consumer experience in terms of matchmaking and online play as the consoles have allowed it to be. Our solution here improves that consumer experience overall by a significant margin. And so we we think that the benefits we will see are going to far outweigh any negatives that seem to be surfacing."
In a chat on the Best Buy forums this week, Infinity Ward representatives offered were short on specifics about the lack of dedicated servers, but studio veteran Mackey McCandlish did say: " Our goal is to provide the best experience for our users, so nothing is ever "off the table". We are always evaluating our options."
Gamers upset about the lack of support for dedicated servers feel their play experience will be diminished as they lose options to control their own private playing environment. Infinity Ward has maintained that more players will better be able to find good matches they can enjoy.