Modern Warfare 2 and its launch have been plagued by quite a few controversies. There was an unfortunate promotional video pulled hours after it was released, there was the terrorist level where the player shoots civilians and we have seen a boycott organized by Direct2Drive initially and then joined by Impulse and GamersGate, services which have not offered Modern Warfare 2 as a digital download as a result of the fact that it included Steamworks, created by Valve.

The big question is what the boycott will lead to. Steam, as created by Valve, is seen as benevolent dictator of the PC digital distribution market and the addition of Steamworks, which offers the possibility for publishers to activate their releases through it, deliver patches, offer multiplayer elements and even get mods to be used, is seen by Impulse, GamersGate and Direct2Drive as a direct threat to their existence because it will enable Valve to both operate a service and force publishers to use it in their games.

The common impression is that by boycotting Modern Warfare 2 because of Steamworks, the three above mentioned services are limiting their audiences and losing customers and that their effort will not make Activision and other publishers reconsider the use of the Valve suite.

But Valve had until then proven to be “good guys,” people who listen to customers and to the companies they work with. This might result in them separating the Steamworks element, which provides excellent infrastructure and simplicity for a host of operations particular to the PC, from the Steam element, which will only be concerned with selling videogames.

It would allow them to say that competition between digital distributors is free and untainted while also offering publishers their application suite. Most importantly, such a move would allow them to continue to be named by a lot of players as the last company truly dedicated to PC gaming now that Infinity Ward is out of favor for the Modern Warfare 2 dedicated server incident.