Profit Over Safety: Activision's Decision to Shut Down H2Mod: 16-08-2024, August. - Hammad Ausafi

Profit Over Safety: Activision's Decision to Shut Down H2Mod: 16-08-2024, August. - Hammad Ausafi:

I’m not sure where to start, but I want to talk about how PC gaming has never been entirely safe—this includes consoles, too, but I’m focusing specifically on H2M (H2Mod) and Activision. While I don’t agree with Activision’s decision to shut down H2M, as an IT professional, I understand some of the concerns. The Steam versions of Call of Duty games have been compromised, but I believe H2M could have potentially fixed these issues.

Companies and organizations that develop multiplayer games are often aligned with governments, local councils, and police in the gamer’s country when it comes to protecting and safeguarding players. Because of this, playing on the official Steam version will generally be safer compared to any modified clients running on third-party or dedicated servers not owned by Activision or other gaming companies.

That said, there are dedicated people who genuinely care about the online gaming community. They create their own servers to make games more enjoyable and secure for players, which I truly appreciate. However, the bottom line is that online PC gaming has never been, and probably never will be, completely safe. In that sense, I understand why Activision shut down H2M. But if they had the time and energy to shut down something with so much community support, why not address Plutonium?

Activision’s actions are questionable. They didn’t shut H2M down out of concern for GDPR compliance or player safety; they just didn’t want to divert players away from one of the most hyped games of all time compared to the upcoming BO6. If Microsoft (which now owns Activision) genuinely cared about giving users a safer gaming experience, they would remaster older games for newer consoles, fix the issues on old hardware—especially the PS3, which has been severely compromised—and secure their servers. Microsoft, Sony, and Activision have the power to protect us from these vulnerabilities, but their focus on profit is preventing them from doing so, which is arguably unethical and potentially illegal.