When will companies finally realize that killing mods only hurts them?

Just days after its anticipated release, Activision has served a cease-and-desist letter to the folks behind a hugely ambitious and increasingly popular mod for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. It takes the multiplayer from 2009's Modern Warfare 2 and incorporates it into the Call of Duty 4 remaster.

In response to the mod's release, the game's sales on Steam have skyrocketed, but now the excitement is for nothing.

That the mod was canceled is no surprise, especially after the gameplay went viral on social media and well-known content creators started making their own videos about it. The fan-made mod uses an officially released version of Modern Warfare Remastered, and Activision doesn't like fans messing with products or manipulating them into something they don't make a profit from (even if said mod increases sales). Usually, players don't make money from such projects aside from support to keep servers running or help with operational costs, but this alone is too much.

And so the project is no more, and H2Multiplayer immediately responded to the cease and desist order by shutting down operations permanently. Just days before, it had advertised that Modern Warfare Remastered was on sale and people needed it to access the mod, a move that directly made Activision money. I'm surprised they didn't see the alarm bells at that point, because once a fan remake, mod, or similar project of this magnitude hits the zeitgeist, it's only a matter of time before the corporations come knocking.

I understand the desire to protect copyright and keep the runway clear for future products that might go back to the old version and revisit old single-player campaigns and multiplayer modes just to charge money for the privilege. Activision has done this before, not to mention that Modern Warfare 3 features a half-baked remake of Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer, with a long list of returning maps instead of new ones, even if the graphics have been changed so much that some are now unrecognizable. This is not the game people want to play.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. If the mod shows illegal behavior or portrays a game or company in an extremely unfair light, something must be done. But I think such cases are rare, especially the ones that make headlines.

Modern Warfare 2 was originally released in 2009 for PS3 and Xbox 360. The multiplayer servers are still online to this day, but concurrent player counts are low and many of the once-successful lobbies are now vulnerable to hacking because Activision doesn't care anymore. Most entries in the franchise don't care about the company once a new one comes out, as capitalism dictates that they put all their resources and attention into the next big thing or fall behind. It doesn't matter if it's not what hardcore gamers want, and the death of this popular mod is crystal clear proof of that.

The Highrise map in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2

Fans saw something they loved falling into obscurity and tried to recreate it in updated form in a remaster whose popularity was already waning. They didn't step on anyone's toes, nor did they demand compensation for creating the mod. If anything, they encouraged players to get going together and try to emulate the multiplayer community so many of us grew up with. Any chance of success has been squashed because a company is afraid of watching profits slip past them, or because they want to keep Modern Warfare 2 in reserve for the future in case they need to weaponize our nostalgia again on a rainy day…

Over the years, we've seen countless incredible mods, fan games, and similar projects unceremoniously shut down, with the blame often placed on the press for daring to spotlight them in the first place.

The thing is, if these things are going to appeal to the audience they want and get the attention they deserve, they're all going to come to a point where corporations come knocking and demand that the whole thing stop immediately. It's in their terrible, selfish interest to stifle any form of creativity that doesn't serve their bottom line, even if it's reviving dying products or just serving to portray their games in a positive light.

I'll never understand it, but that doesn't change the fact that it's one of the more horrific aspects of this industry that will never go away, especially if we continue to move in a direction where a few big players control the majority of the things we play and interact with. Modern Warfare 2 is one of the most iconic multiplayer shooters in history, and a few passionate fans who want to bring it back to life are seeing their efforts wasted. And for what?