Infinity Ward director of communications/community manager Robert Bowling has angrily attacked Activision producer Noah Heller over comments made in a number of interviews for the imminent Call of Duty: World At War, apparently displeased about Heller's competitive instinct -- which the latter recently described to Gamasutra as "gratifying."
Writing on his personal blog, Bowling let fly a torrent of abuse in an entry entitled “Noah Heller – Stop Doing Interviews...” Bowling’s furious comments relate to references made to Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in articles ostensibly about World at War.
"Come on man, interview about your game. Not OURS! Call of Duty: World at War can stand on it’s own merits, leave ours out of it," states Bowling (original emphasis and spelling).
"A rule of thumb I like to use is… when promoting your game. Promote YOUR game. Don’t compare it to another game, or reference what OTHER games did in the past, pitch YOUR game. I mean, you have lots of cool things you could talk about… like Nazi Zombies…"
In an apparent appeal to the media, Bowling added: "Can you guys please stop interviewing this guy, talk to someone who actually works on the Dev Team at Treyarch and knows what the fuck they’re talking about. Not Senior Super Douche Noah Heller from Activision - who apparently has never played the game and doesn’t even work at the developer."
Amid rumors of a tense relationship between the two companies, Infinity Ward renegotiated its contract with Activision in July -- as also revealed in Bowling’s blog.
No official announcement was ever made, though, and with Infinity Ward a fully-owned subsidiary of the publisher since 2003, the exact change in relationship was never made clear.
Wow... Uh, "Tense" does not begin to describe this "relationship". It's more like a tolerance... Although I do think that Treyarch should be thanking Infinity Ward for being allowed to use the COD 4 engine because, without that, they had no game (and they would have had no Bond game either).
I think the problem here is that Treyarch continually views themselves as a AAA developer, when actually they are more like a b- to C level.
I'm sure there must be some talented people at Treyarch, and hopefully Activision will get smart and break them up into to something more manageable - because right now they're just viewed as a bunch of snivling "me too" teams that ride on the coattails of other more respected developers.
As a Producer, if I had made this public outburst/attack, I would be speaking with HR now at my exit interview. I guess 'use your best judgment' rules only apply to some.
Eric, yeah, you're totally right. Well, you know how it is... but then again, I'm happy people have been denouncing the BS that's going on, because there's a LOT of it, and clearly a need for a cleanup...
Whether it was appropriate or not for Bowling to say it, let's face facts: he was right. And sometimes you gotta call people on the BS.
Treyarch has way too big of an attitude for a developer as low caliber as themselves.
Most of the guys that I knew from Treyarch have since fled, and I'd imagine there will be more doing so after they cut the royalty checks from their latest set of "me to" games...
I think the problem here is that Treyarch continually views themselves as a AAA developer, when actually they are more like a b- to C level.
I'm sure there must be some talented people at Treyarch, and hopefully Activision will get smart and break them up into to something more manageable - because right now they're just viewed as a bunch of snivling "me too" teams that ride on the coattails of other more respected developers.
Treyarch has way too big of an attitude for a developer as low caliber as themselves.
Most of the guys that I knew from Treyarch have since fled, and I'd imagine there will be more doing so after they cut the royalty checks from their latest set of "me to" games...