As Activision suddenly kills a long-awaited Call of Duty mod, Infinity Ward veteran encourages the publisher to "build systems to help your UGC community, not strangle it"

A former Call of Duty veteran has come out in defence of supporting modders, right as publisher Activision made the hugely controversial decision to shut down a major mod hours before its release. 

After years in development, the H2M-Mod project was set to bring boatloads of content from Modern Warfare 2 (2009) over to Modern Warfare Remastered (2017) today, August 16. Massive hype for the mod propelled the seven-year-old shooter back up sales charts over the last few days, but that didn't stop Activision from sending a Cease & Desist order the night before launch day. 

The modding team announced it was "complying with this order and shutting down all operations immediately and permanently" just last night.

"A lot of the original Infinity Ward team consisted of devs who used to be modders," former Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert Bowling tweets. "The original Call of Duty PC games released mod tools and server files to empower community creations to expand on the original vision," he explains, before encouraging companies to "Build systems to help your [user-generated content] community, not strangle it."

A lot of the original Infinity Ward team consisted of devs who used to be modders. The original Call of Duty PC games released mod tools and server files to empower community creations to expand on the original vision. Build systems to help your UGC community not strangle it. https://t.co/zq9Ysg3Ir3August 15, 2024

The Call of Duty player base hasn't been this unified in years, and Bowling is far from the only high-profile figure to decry the sudden shutdown. 

Alongside countless big CoD-focused content creators, FaZe Clan CEO Richard 'Banks' Bengston also joined in on the esports group's official social media account: "We are begging that you guys reconsider this decision, Activision... Their team made it a requirement to purchase the original MW Remastered published by YOU GUYS. An excellent asset to onboard users/players to your product. This is harmless