Activision disables Modern Warfare 2 family sharing feature on Steam without warning

Activision has removed the Steam family sharing feature for Modern Warfare 2 without notice just three days after the game made its debut on the service. The move has quickly caused a big uproar throughout the CoD community.

Despite only having landed on Steam three days ago, Modern Warfare 2‘s family sharing feature has already been disabled. Call of Duty developer Activision switched off the popular option on Steam for Modern Warfare 2 without notice, leaving fans extremely frustrated.

While the change was made without notice, it is believed that it was switched off on October 31, according to SteamDB. For any families or housemates who utilize the family sharing feature on a daily basis, this will no longer be possible.

First properly established back in 2014, Steam’s family sharing feature allows different computer users to have their own saved games, achievements, and more on a single digital copy of a game. In essence, it means a household only needs one copy of a game rather than each person having to pay full price for a separate copy to play on their own devices.

The family sharing FAQ does state that “due to technical limitations, some Steam games may be unavailable for sharing.” However, given MW2 was originally compatible, gamers are now taking to Reddit to express their disappointment at the sudden backflip on the feature.

“I feel like this was done on purpose. You already put in two hours of gameplay so now you can’t get a refund,” wrote on Reddit user. “If game share was not allowed from the beginning I would have bought it on console instead and the family would have had fun.”

And while some are hopeful that Activision will “revert” the decision, others are less optimistic.

Meanwhile, another user in the same thread wrote that, “I own the game on Steam and I work, I can’t play as much as my younger cousin can and neither of us want to play on the same account cause we got our own level, classes, friends, etc,” adding that, “this is just pure stupid, this works on PlayStation and Xbox why not on Steam?”

Activision is yet to comment on the surprise removal of MW2 Steam family sharing. However, We’ll be sure to keep you updated if and when they do.