Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II on PC will require a text-enabled mobile phone number in order to play. Activision confirmed the news today in an article discussing its RICOCHET Anti-Cheat system, noting that SMS verification is critical to its anti-cheat enforcement efforts. The company also clarified that SMS verification data is being used for security purposes only and won’t be used for marketing. Call of Duty: Warzone players who are already verified will not be required to provide any additional information to access Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0.
From the official Call of Duty blog:
A text-enabled mobile phone number is required to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II on PC. Existing Call of Duty: Warzone players that have previously verified their account will not be required to provide any additional information to access Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0.
The SMS policy for Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0 on Battle.net is the same as the requirement for Call of Duty: Warzone on PC, which was implemented in May 2020. A mobile phone number must be linked to your Steam Account to play Modern Warfare II on that platform.
SMS verification is critical to our anti-cheat enforcement efforts, tackling illicit account creation at its source. This helps our security team to maintain account and game security in order to provide a safe, fair, and fun gaming experience for all our players. In August 2022, we updated the SMS policy for new players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), requiring a text-enabled mobile phone number to play the game. Prior to this change, new accounts in Modern Warfare could access Warzone without a SMS security check. As the illicit account market adjusted to our security enforcement, #TeamRICOCHET started seeing more cheaters attempt to access Warzone from Modern Warfare to bypass the SMS policy, so the security team recommended the update to further combat the illicit account market.
The SMS requirement for game access is used for security purposes only. Call of Duty does not use SMS verification data for marketing purposes.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II officially launches on October 28 for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Battle.net and Steam. Anyone who pre-orders a digital edition of the game can play the full campaign up to a week early, starting October 20, 2022.
Discussion (10 replies)
Join Discussion →I wasn't going to play this anyway, but this would take even a "must play" title for me and turn it into a "never play" title.
Thankfully since I already have an account I can skip this nonsense.
It's to protect the value of peoples 'skins' that they paid in excess of 1k in value.
This trend needs to die.
Skins, collectibles, etc. just ruin the online game experience.
Nah, I've never found that they add or detract from it in particular. If a company wants to monetize around these things, I am 100% for it because the whales eat it up, the game gets funded, and I don't feel the need to ever have to - that's a win-win in my book.
At least that's my opinion about it. It's something I have been able to easily ignore.
I prefer games where skill + time invested = results. A lot of times I do not have the skill, but if I'm willing to invest the time (in upgrading, leveling, whatever the mechanic is), I can eventually brute force my way into being able to continue down some path of progression. I do have limits on how much time I'm willing to invest - I do like to see periodic payouts, but generally I'm fairly patient and willing to grind out something if I'm interested enough in the process and desire the end results.
I find two things that do ruin online games for me.
Predatory monetization -- you have to buy your way in with cash.
One example: Asian games are notorious for this: the path to upgrade items is an iterative process and success random: if you fail, your item is reverted to a lower state, and the chance of success gets lower and lower the higher grade item you try to upgrade. Going from a +1 to +2 is relatively low resources and will almost always succeed, whereas going from a +19 to +20 requires a considerable amount of resources and has a very low chance to succeed - and failure results in going from +19 back down to +18. So, of course, they don't sell the items or upgrade material in the cash shop, because that would be P2W -- they sell items that increase the odds of success (which, of course, is also P2W, but they can point to some very specific definitions and claim it isn't).
P2W games always end up with a very skewed population -- those that don't sink a lot of cash are all around some power level, and those that do are ... significantly better off. I don't see skins or customizations affecting game play in that manner though - but I do see them sometimes affect the community; I can recall in a couple of games where skins or achievements are awarded for specific things, and in order to get groups with people, you needed to be able to show off those things as "proof" that you had what it took to do whatever it was they would be grouping up with -- those generally weren't cash-shop related, but in game achievements that, of course, could be cheesed if you had the right friends (which, leads to Item 2).
The other thing that ruins online games are the community. More than half the reason I play online games is for the community. If I don't enjoy the community, then I'll just go play an offline game. I'm not saying the community needs to be filled with Angels and Nuns who wouldn't dare even say "Darn" - just that if you don't gel with the folks there, whatever your jam may be, why stick around?
I can't even play the likes of Counter-Strike anymore.
Casual games have devolved into mic spamming about skin trading.
I hated it in Counter Strike. I hated it in PUBG when I played that, and I even hated it when it reared its ugly face in Far Cry 6.
This shit is just awful and is ruining gaming. I don't think it is easily ignore-able at all.
It changes the entire vibe of the multiplayer game.
I want an end to official servers and matchmaking. Force all players to play on community servers, and kill all tradeable items and micro-transactions.
That's the ONLY thing that will return multiplayer games to being enjoyable. Without it they are unplayable, IMHO.
Ah that may be my disconnect - I haven't ever played in games where you can trade that stuff. That would be different I suspect.
Imagine if they monetized diablo like that.... oh wait...
I haven't played Diablo since Diablo II back in college.
It grew old rather quickly back then. It was just a matter of repeatedly mashing of the left mouse button.
Makes me think of Progress Quest.
Don't forget succubox.