Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella explain the decision as a conscious effort to improve their game for the vast majority of their players.

"We're just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners," says West. He points toward the mounting feedback IW has received from PC fans of Modern Warfare who couldn't find a decent server to play on between all of the cheaters, the insular communities, and huge skill level disparities that the original game's community fractured into. "We thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game," he laughs.

IW says that gameplay concerns for the majority of MW2 players are the overriding reasons for the decision. Zampella downplays the obvious piracy prevention angle (IW has cited numbers of people online playing illegal copies of Modern Warfare up to 60 percent). "The Steam stuff helps with the piracy. I don't know that the matchmaking stuff does," he notes. West takes a shot at the motives behind some of the outrage, noting that there's money to made by selling dedicated servers and adspace on them: "It's a little dubious. Some of the people complaining are complaining with their pocketbook."

Again and again during our conversation, West and Zampella hammer the point that hardcore PC players lose very little to this change relative to the returns that casual to moderate fans will see. Clans can set up private matches to do their training or what have you; all they lose is the ability to customize the game on a deeper level with mods and such. Infinity Ward sees the addition of solid matchmaking and community support like IW-run tournaments to the PC as a huge win, and not something that could be done under the old system.