One would think that when designing a multiplayer game for a AAA audience that the most important thing to focus on would be, say, the multiplayer funtionality. One would think that, but apparently Activision came to a different conclusion when developing Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. The latest in it’s insanely long line of first person shooters about white america going to war with just about every brown person under the sun for increasingly dodgy and unrealistic reasons.

In the process of designing the game it seems that Activision was dosing heavily on the crazy pills and the game was never made compatible with Steam and the Windows store. Meaning that those who bought the game directly from Microsoft can only play the game on PC with others who bought the game from Microsoft. This extends to consoles as well according to the games faq on Activisions website. The Xbox One version of the game, despite both being made by Microsoft, is also unable to connect online with those who purchased the Windows version.

Most likely this stems from the two design teams working on the versions never actually sitting down in a room and talking to one another, but the reasons Activision higher-ups didn’t step in and do something about it makes little sense. By necessity this greatly restricts the audience of the game and limits its potential playerbase. Those who want to play a game with their friends who use Steam or Xbox One will inevitably leave the game in the wayside for other games that promise more people to game with and less time looking for matches. Especially as the Windows store did not have a high playerbase to begin with.

To make up for this Microsoft has begun offering refunds to players who bought the game from them. Which would probably be a good idea to take them up on if you happened to buy the game on their platform. At least until Activision gets it’s act together.