Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Frustrates Players by Removing Another Feature

Just after removing one of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s core gameplay features due to a bug, another feature has been removed with players struggling to find an explanation for this one. Activision has apparently disabled Steam Family Sharing on the Steam version of the game which makes it so that those who were planning on using that feature to share the game will no longer be able to do so. The removal occurred without warning, and now that the feature is gone, players want it back.

For those unfamiliar with the Steam service, the Family Sharing option does as its name suggests by letting multiple people play one game across different devices and accounts. Up to 10 devices can share a library across five accounts, so it’s a pretty generous feature for those who want to share their games with others.

The catch (aside from the fact that only one person can play the game at a time) is that not every game is compatible with Steam Family Sharing. As an example, Steam says that “titles that require an additional third-party key, account, or subscription.” Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 does not explicitly fit the bill for any of these circumstances, but the feature has been removed from the service all the same.

The removal of this feature was spotted via SteamDB where one specific change was made in the past few days to make it so that the game was excluded from Family Sharing. Neither Infinity Ward nor Activision have acknowledged the removal which has made players even more critical of the decision given that there’s no explanation as to why it removed or a timeframe regarding if it’d be reinstated in the future.

Discussions about the situation since the change was spotted have even gone as far as to theorize that this change was made intentionally days after the game’s release after a period of time which would make it so that Steam users could no longer request a refund if they’d been playing for at least two hours prior to the change.

Game sharing options still presumably work for Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox and PlayStation platforms.