Activision Blizzard has confirmed that players will need to register a phone number for Modern Warfare 2. You can find all the info here.
Cheaters have always been a problem, especially in shooters like Call of Duty. But not only cheaters can ruin the fun for other players, also toxic players in the chat or particularly offensive player names usually violate the developer's guidelines. To counteract these problems, many games, such as Call of Duty, have an anti-cheat system as well as a function that allows you to report players. Especially on PC, however, this isn't enough with Call of Duty, as players have been able to simply create countless free accounts and avoid bans.
This is to come to an end with Modern Warfare 2, as Activision Blizzard has announced that players will have to register a phone number in their Battle.net account for some games, including Modern Warfare 2.
MW2 ON PC Only With Registered Phone Number
As with Overwatch 2, you will need a phone number for Modern Warfare 2. Here you can see the exact requirements:
As you can see in the picture, you have to register a text-enabled phone number in your Battle.net account, which can also only be connected to one Battle.net account. Prepaid phones, Voice over IP, iMessage and Whatsapp are not supported. Your account will be linked to the phone number, not the device. So if you change your phone but keep your number, nothing will change for you.
But why all this? Why does Activision take the risk of excluding certain players who don't have an active text-enabled mobile phone or only a prepaid phone?
Well, it's pretty simple, once your account has been banned for some kind of misconduct, you can't just create a new one straight away. Because with this system, Battle.net account can only be linked to one phone number, so unless you happen to have multiple cell phone plans (which you also have to pay for), you can't just make endless new accounts.
We're curious to see if this works out in the end. After all, there was already a huge shitstorm with Overwatch 2, which is why Activision Blizzard had to scrap part of the system. Time will tell.