Like Overwatch 2, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II is also asking its players to verify their accounts with a phone number. Pretty pedestrian stuff, in this day and age, but the requirement doesn't accept phone numbers on a prepaid or VOIP contract.
This feature was rinsed into oblivion by the Overwatch community, with players expressing that they felt "too poor" to play the sequel if they were on these types of phone contract. Obviously, the image of that, especially for a competitive game that aims to be inclusive of everyone irrespective of skill or style of play, looks absolutely abysmal. Blizzard swiftly rolled back some of these requirements, stating that those who have had a Battle.net account since 2019 won't need to integrate their phone number.
Now, it seems that "newly created" Modern Warfare II accounts will be asked for their phone number in order to stamp out cheating and to notify legitimate players of any changes to their accounts. "Any mobile phone in a supported country with a data plan, and that is not prepaid or a VOIP number, can be used with this service," read the Battle.net phone notifications page.
Call Of Duty fans are already rankled, as per these statements from PC Gamer. "This seems very wrong to require video game players to enter into a contract with a telecom company before being allowed to play the game they paid for," said one. When it's laid out literally like this, it is extremely confusing that Activision Blizzard is sticking to its hard stance on which phone numbers it will and will not accept. We'll have to see what comes out of this conflict.
Featured Image Credit: Activision, Reet Talreja via UnsplashTopics: Call Of Duty, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, no article matching
