I read that on the XS forums.  Without LAN play I can see this becoming one of the most pirated PC games this year, the removal of the multi player component removed any value of having a legit copy.  I would rather pay for a full featured game through steam than pirate one now.

  The industry is changing into a console only world where they can control content.  Its the only way they can release crappy stripped down games and then sell you content as DLC.  There are games released now that have purchasable DLC on launch day.  Starcraft would be nothing without LAN play and they nerfed that too by taking it out of Starcraft 2.

  Stupid empty suits sucking the soul/fun out of everything.  Valve has steam for games and Apple has iTunes for media, EA has absolutely nothing but DRM to offer and a million freelance game developers are releasing more and more sophisticated games every day.  They have already ghosted themselves and want the consumers and rest of the industry to feel their pain like SCO did to the *NIX world.

LMAO...yep...I'm a pirate and I'm okay. I DL games that don't include LAN PLAY!

For me, in COD4, the built-in server finder was always buggy as hell.  Half the time it would only find a handful of servers rather than the full list, forcing me to always manually enter ip addresses.  PunkBuster has bitten everyone here many times, causing you time to try to fix  (re-installing, updating PB) while everyone else is playing.  Not to mention steam auto-updating the client while all the servers are still at the older version.  Lots of frustrations with trying to get into (or stay in) a multiplayer game.

While I personally felt the single player was great, the multiplayer was where it was at (once you actually got in).  We all spent countless hours playing COD4 via multiplayer.  Doesn't sound like the changes will impact our weekend gaming, so that's good, especially if the changes fix all the problems i listed above.

But, unless they change their plans, it sounds like LAN gaming is definitely out, especially for competitions at the big lans.

Matchmaking does not belong on the pc version period.

To Quote the Shocter:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp

I used to think that was true. Until I saw that the online petition to release the Sunshine soundtrack actually did make a difference. I was waiting for that thing to come out for over a year. And it was finally released this past December. Proof that mass amounts of whiners can make a difference.

That's why I have to continue to give a big Fudge you to EA and never buy from them again. Period. Looks like Activision is getting added to the same list.

Modern Warfare 2 Dedicated Server Video