Steam Family Sharing has been around for a while. The service does what the name suggests: You can share a single digital copy of a game with up to five people you select, typically family or close friends. The service has its own limits and restrictions, such as not allowing two individual accounts to play the same game at the same time. Though Modern Warfare II shipped with this feature enabled, an entry on SteamDB reveals that as of October 31, the game was retroactively excluded from sharing features.

Reaction across the community has been a mix of confusion at the timing, speculation it was done to curb cheating concerns, and frustration from those who were planning to use the feature, particularly to save money and avoid purchasing multiple copies of a $70 game.