I was one of those few members of the gaming community who stuck to their guns and didn't buy Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2; the lack of dedicated servers was a spit in the face of the PC gaming community and the fact that this was simply Bobby Kotick milking an already long dead cash cow put me off completely, I went back to World at War or Call of Duty 2 like others did.  
 
 But your average casual gamer doesn't care what they're doing to the franchise nor do they care about the quality of the game, if it's what their friends are playing or if it's popular they will buy it, with a similar mentality to that of a sheep. 
The majority of my friends purchased it and yes I did feel left out while they sat there yelling about "dual shotties" and gunships, it made me question whether I myself should really care about the quality of the games I purchase anymore considering aslong as the mainstream of people keep buying tripe, companies will keep making tripe. 
 
Should i just fall in line and accept it that in this world the quantity (of units sold) is more important than quality in terms of products?

There are still plenty of great quality developers who still make great games. Bioware, Bethesda, Relic, Valve, Blizzard, Creative Assembly and many more still push forward the PC gaming industry forward.

You know I had a similar question to ask myself when I was debating whether to subscribe to Warhammer Online or WoW. I found WAR to be a ton more enjoyable, but none of my friends play it. 
 
I decided to just go for it, and go for the more enjoyable game.

Well, if it's of shitty quality, it's not going to sell large quantities. Clearly MW2 has some sort of redeeming value. It's just not for me, and it appears it's not for you either.
 
The Sims is one of the highest selling PC games of all time. Everyone and their mom had that game. But I wasn't a fan. I felt completely stressed out trying to make my sim sleep, eat, do his chores, flirt with women, go to work, have fun, shower, etc, etc, etc ad infinitum all by day's end with hopefully a few seconds left to spare so that he could take a shit. Not my game.

You should play what you want.  Who cares if a game you're playing isn't a top seller as long as you're having fun with it?

You should definitely play the more enjoyable game, but having tons of friends can make other games even more so.

Yes, businesses exist to make money and provide people with jobs and an income. This is how everything in this world works. 
 
No need to be so grim about the whole thing though, companies like Blizzard, Bioware and Valve continue to make huge profits and churn out top quality games all at the same time. And yes, you definitely missed out, MW2 is a highly enjoyable FPS and a quality product. Even if its similar to its predecessor and lacks dedicated servers. Also, the comment about spitting in our faces made me cringe. From one PC gamer to another: get over yourself.

"Yes, businesses exist to make money and provide people with jobs and an income. This is how everything in this world works.  No need to be so grim about the whole thing though, companies like Blizzard, Bioware and Valve continue to make huge profits and churn out top quality games all at the same time. And yes, you definitely missed out, MW2 is a highly enjoyable FPS and a quality product. Even if its similar to its predecessor and lacks dedicated servers. Also, the comment about spitting in our faces made me cringe. From one PC gamer to another: get over yourself. "

 And yes, you definitely missed out, MW2 is a highly enjoyable FPS and a quality product

" @S0ndor said:

 And yes, you definitely missed out, MW2 is a highly enjoyable FPS and a quality product

If you enjoy dying every three seconds from AI controlled helicopters, campers, and people stabbing you from 6 feet away. "

Eh. Don't worry about it, Black Ops has dedicated servers. That has some redeeming quality.

Modern Warfare 2 is among the best FPS games ever made based solely on the shooting. The online is good fun to, at least on consoles.
 
But, apparently it's the cool thing to hate it now.

" There are still plenty of great quality developers who still make great games. Bioware, Bethesda, Relic, Valve, Blizzard, Creative Assembly and many more still push forward the PC gaming industry forward. "

Do what you enjoy doing.

" You should play what you want.  Who cares if a game you're playing isn't a top seller as long as you're having fun with it? "

"I stand up and call my friends mindless sheep "

Thats the problem with having friends that only play those types of games. A lot if not all of my friends are the same way. All they play are shooters and sports games which inevitably lead me to play hours upon hours of MW2 even though I decidedly hate that game. I eventually got Bad Company 2, and although I think it is a better game, it's just not nearly as fun if your playing alone. Playing a game with others that you know can make even a shitty game much more fun.

yep, it's that companies want to make more money. i do know what you mean by a slap in the face. companies don't care to much about PC games because of consoles. i was excited for alan wake for PC until i heard that it wasn't going to be made. i was disappointed by that. 
 
black ops is coming out in novemeber. hopefully it is going to be great. i think treyarch make great addons to the call of duty games that don't get added after them. world at war had some good things but infinity ward didn't add that to modern warfare 2.

Well, I think it was a really good game, but if you pride principle above gameplay, then OK! I'm doing the same for Black Ops!

" Modern Warfare 2 is among the best FPS games ever made based solely on the shooting. The online is good fun to, at least on consoles.   But, apparently it's the cool thing to hate it now. "

I think a lot of the MW2 hate is the result of people realizing that they just suck at playing FPS's, or at least, this game. It's one of the main reasons I'm not really a fan of the game. Don't get me wrong I play the game and all, do I enjoy playing it? Yes and no. I really enjoyed the campaign, which is probably because I could stay alive for more than a minute at a time.  And I enjoy playing the multi player when I'm playing with some one who is at about the same skill level. I suck, so this rarely ever happens. It's just no fun getting killed by all the stupid kill-streak rewards over, and over, and over again. I could defiantly see the game being fun If I was at the other end of this spectrum, by that I mean actually getting the opportunity to use the kill streak rewards. This is why I generally avoid the game, but I can understand the appeal of it and it is fun to play with friends.

" @SpiralStairs said:

" Modern Warfare 2 is among the best FPS games ever made based solely on the shooting. The online is good fun to, at least on consoles.   But, apparently it's the cool thing to hate it now. "

You have to stop assuming that everyone who hates on MW2 is just hating on it because its popular. It has legitimate problems as well as several gameplay issues that can completely turn people away. "

BLACK OPS WILL HAVE DEDICATED SERVERS.  Don't worry, Black Ops is going all out and filling in the spots where MW2 was lacking.  Black Ops will have dedicated servers and also fix some other lousy things that MW2 had like secondary shotguns/machine pistols, and the commando perk that let people knife you from far away like the plasma sword in Halo.  Keep doing what you're doing though.  If you think a company is being lazy, don't give them your money.  Don't do the boycott thing where you force yourself to miss out on great products, but if you came to play on dedicated servers, and they skimped out on that feature, then don't pay for that.   

I picked it up when it came out and enjoyed it for a few months. There's nothing wrong with the game, on the technical side its a very polished product. I was an alright player, nothing special, but I could hold my own most of the time. I eventually just needed to move on to different games, so I traded it for a copy of Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley and never looked back. (It was a gift for my girlfriend)

Modern Warfare 2 is better than the original in every single way other than story.  By sticking to CoD4, you're only hurting yourself.

My two cents. I told all my friends "No, fuck MW2, it can eat shit and die for all I care.", less than a week after the release I bought it for 360 and had a joyous amount of fun. Comes to the release of RDR and it's sold, it hadn't been played for a very very long time, and with the money from MW2 I got RDR for the same price I sold MW2 for. I hear about Black Ops and again can't be fucked, but with MW2 it was because of the lack of dedicated servers and all the rest of that shit, Black Ops was because MW2 was shit. Only a few weeks ago, I learnt Black Ops had dedicated servers, and now I'm thrilled to have it pre-order for PC and actually I'm REALLY excited. 
 
I just hope that RC car thing doesn't piss me off once I get my Tactical Hiroshima (you heard it hear first).

Big companies will always make money, and do things consumers find unethical.  I don't care enough about the publisher politics, to limit my gaming experience.  I find MW2 to be a better and more enjoyable game than both CoD4 and W@W so have bought it for both consoles, and play it regularly.  Regardless of whether I buy this game or not, Activision are rich and will continue to make heaps of dough as every studio does.  Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a wonderful game also and offers a completely different experience to the arcadey CoD games, but is slower and more plodding with not as much unlockable incentives and addictive factor as the CoD games.  Yes, they feel like a grind just like WoW did sometimes, but are ultimately still fun.  EA are bastards, Activision are bastards, Infinity Ward are bastards.  Any large corporation that makes shitloads of money off consumers are always going to be the subjects of massive criticism, it's easy to point the finger at the  big successful top dogs.  They make money and are successful because they often will do things everyday regular ethical people won't.

" You should play what you want.  Who cares if a game you're playing isn't a top seller as long as you're having fun with it? "

  Should i just fall in line and accept it that in this world the quantity (of units sold) is more important than quality in terms of products? "