UPDATE: Activision has replied with a short statement on Bowling's exit.

"We sincerely thank Robert for his many years of service. He’s been a trusted and valued member of the Infinity Ward team. We wish him all the best on his decision to pursue future opportunities.”

Does that sound at all to you like the sort of thing a company not quite expecting this type of thing to happen might say? Read that way to me, anyway, but maybe I'm off-base.

----

In a startling bit of news that pretty much just happened, Robert Bowling, the longtime creative strategist for the Call of Duty brand at Activision and developer Infinity Ward, has announced he is resigning from his current position.

No reason was given for the announcement, but the terms were absolutely clear. He stated as follows:

Today, I resign from my position as Creative Strategist of Call of Duty, as a lead of Infinity Ward, and as an employee of Activision.

Bowling had been with Activision since 2006, working early on in the franchise's existence as a community manager, and eventually rising up to become the most recognizable face associated with the brand. For all intents and purposes, he has been Call of Duty's primary mouthpiece since the Modern Warfare era began, especially in the time following the exit of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West, who went on to found Respawn Entertainment.

We've reached out to Activision for an official statement regarding Bowling's exit. We'll update this story should they respond.

UPDATE: Activision has replied with a short statement on Bowling's exit.

"We sincerely thank Robert for his many years of service. He’s been a trusted and valued member of the Infinity Ward team. We wish him all the best on his decision to pursue future opportunities.”

Does that sound at all to you like the sort of thing a company not quite expecting this type of thing to happen might say? Read that way to me, anyway, but maybe I'm off-base.

----

In a startling bit of news that pretty much just happened, Robert Bowling, the longtime creative strategist for the Call of Duty brand at Activision and developer Infinity Ward, has announced he is resigning from his current position.

No reason was given for the announcement, but the terms were absolutely clear. He stated as follows:

Today, I resign from my position as Creative Strategist of Call of Duty, as a lead of Infinity Ward, and as an employee of Activision.

Bowling had been with Activision since 2006, working early on in the franchise's existence as a community manager, and eventually rising up to become the most recognizable face associated with the brand. For all intents and purposes, he has been Call of Duty's primary mouthpiece since the Modern Warfare era began, especially in the time following the exit of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West, who went on to found Respawn Entertainment.

We've reached out to Activision for an official statement regarding Bowling's exit. We'll update this story should they respond.

Whoa

copy and paste warfare 3

<checks pockets>

<checks under bed>

Hm, can't seem to find a fuck to give

HOVER HANDS

I guess he got tired of all the hate mail lol. And lying to people faces about features in Call of Duty and things that were a complete lie

Well there was no point in him joining Respawn until they had something to talk about.

@gorkamorkaorka said:

HOVER HANDS

He's starting Hover Hands Studios.

Meh.

???????????

I'm pretty sure it has to do with MW3 being hacked.

Bowling was like:

Who?

Must have disagreed too much with upper management.

That's a hell of a photo.

Dat picture.

He always seems cool on the CoD Elite interview videos. What a shame he is leaving...He was growing a beard.

HE WAS GROWING A BEARD!!!!

Is Creative Strategist (Community Manager) sort of like how Subway call their employees Sandwich Artists? 
 
fourzerotwo always struck me as either incredibly ignorant of the PC platform or he was being told what to say by Activision.

Maybe he got sick of the Call of Duty franchise.

OK.

HOLY POOP

Maybe he saw Bobby Kotick before he had a chance to morph from the Devil into his Kotick costume?

the less i see or hear of him the better

lol hover hands

Maybe his hover hands made him do it

Will he be on the Bombcast?

Goodnight, sweet prince shitty corporate mouthpiece.

Good luck with future endeavours, I guess.

I lost all respect for this guy when he stood on a stage at Call of Duty XP and announced "NO MORE LAST STAND!" to a screaming crowd of approval when he damn well knew Final Stand, which is much worse, was going to be kept in the game. Not to mention all the other lies he's fed the community since CoD4.

GTFO.

wow, unexpected

I have no problem with that.

That photo is proof of winning.

Good riddance.

I've always hated him

well considering he never listened to the fans or actually managed any issues I really don't see how he was living up to his title. His presence will not be missed, he was a remnant of the XXxsolidscopesnake420xXX culture that was plaguing the COD series. All he ever did was give into those type of peoples concerns, maybe the community will get a representative that listens and actually makes improvements that level headed players asked for like David Vahn over at Treyarch.

Also....Hover Hands

To be fair, if you're going to have pictures like that taken of you, you kinda deserve to have them be the default pictures to use for articles written about you.

@Tamaster92 said:

That photo is proof of winning.

Winning does not involve hover hands.

@AnEternalEnigma said:

I lost all respect for this guy when he stood on a stage at Call of Duty XP and announced "NO MORE LAST STAND!" to a screaming crowd of approval when he damn well knew Final Stand, which is much worse, was going to be kept in the game. Not to mention all the other lies he's fed the community since CoD4.

GTFO.

Ahahahahahahaha! Did that actually happen? It's amazing how many times he just straight up lied to the community and almost no one ever caught on and stopped taking him seriously.

Well, once you've "creatively" run a franchise into the ground, where do you really go from there as a "creative strategist"?

Meh

May his hands continue to hover.

Good riddance. No more Robert Trolling feeding lies to the sheep.

@AnEternalEnigma: Don't you have to die, like, 4 or 5 times to get into final stand?

If so, what the hell does it matter if someone on a crazy deathstreak gets to last stand? Don't tell me he "lied to the fans." There is a HUGE difference between someone who always gets to fall down and pistol you, and one who sometimes gets to fall down and shoot you.

Who?

Did he have any sort of impact on the actual games? No? Then why are we talking about this guy?

He was nothing more than a mouthpiece and apparently he was bad at it, too.

*Herp-a-derp response about not knowing who he is/caring cause CoD sux lulz.*

Guys those hands aren't hovering.....he was about to smack both of those women's ass and it was caught in the middle.

@brianontoast said:

copy and paste warfare 3

Unoriginality is eternal, good sir.

Remember the "one shot center-mass" thing?

He sure changed his tone since then.

I thought he would have come up with a more creative exit strategy.