Jeff's post recently drew my attention to a feud between Infinity Ward (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)and Treyarch (Call of Duty: World at War) representatives. Robert Bowling of IW is mad at Noah Heller of Activision for mentioning CoD4 too much in his WaW interviews.

Apparently, Bowling thinks Heller is trying to ride on IW’s coattails as WaW nears its release. Whether or not this is true isn’t any concern of mine. What I find interesting is how Bowling finds it okay to voice his opinion so publicly. Allow me to explain.

The video game community is a sea of opinions with potential conflicts as far as the eye can see. For the most part, these opinions belong to the gamers, but occasionally, a professional opinion (or, the opinion of a professional) comes along and rocks the boat.

I understand that game developers are groups of individuals, but those individual opinions shouldn’t be thrown in with the rest. This case, for example, does nothing to improve the image of either Infinity Ward or Treyarch. This leaves the IP, Call of Duty, to suffer in the middle. It reminds of an incident surrounding that Wii Ware game we have yet to receive: Eternity’s Child.

Luc Bernard, creator of the game, came out to criticize the low score Destructoid assigned to the PC version of Eternity’s Child. In doing so, Bernard offered no constructive criticism of the review and then eventually relented by calling out his team, passing the buck. He later went on to proclaim his retirement from the industry while offering another idea for a game and a comic book or something. It’s all kinda’ hazy, but the point is, the guy was incredibly unprofessional by publicly stepping in to offer his (ill-formed) opinion and making such a pitiful spectacle of himself. The attention did nothing to help his game’s image, especially after drawing readers to Destructoid’s painful review.

When the opinion of gamers conflict, they’re arguing about which game is better than which. When the opinion of developers conflict, they’re arguing about which game their game is better than. It’s just unprofessional and unbecoming of the people we come to expect so much from. It can only serve to isolate your fans and harm your IP.

Professionals, keep your opinions to yourselves.

Jeff's post recently drew my attention to a feud between Infinity Ward (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)and Treyarch (Call of Duty: World at War) representatives. Robert Bowling of IW is mad at Noah Heller of Activision for mentioning CoD4 too much in his WaW interviews.

Apparently, Bowling thinks Heller is trying to ride on IW’s coattails as WaW nears its release. Whether or not this is true isn’t any concern of mine. What I find interesting is how Bowling finds it okay to voice his opinion so publicly. Allow me to explain.

The video game community is a sea of opinions with potential conflicts as far as the eye can see. For the most part, these opinions belong to the gamers, but occasionally, a professional opinion (or, the opinion of a professional) comes along and rocks the boat.

I understand that game developers are groups of individuals, but those individual opinions shouldn’t be thrown in with the rest. This case, for example, does nothing to improve the image of either Infinity Ward or Treyarch. This leaves the IP, Call of Duty, to suffer in the middle. It reminds of an incident surrounding that Wii Ware game we have yet to receive: Eternity’s Child.

Luc Bernard, creator of the game, came out to criticize the low score Destructoid assigned to the PC version of Eternity’s Child. In doing so, Bernard offered no constructive criticism of the review and then eventually relented by calling out his team, passing the buck. He later went on to proclaim his retirement from the industry while offering another idea for a game and a comic book or something. It’s all kinda’ hazy, but the point is, the guy was incredibly unprofessional by publicly stepping in to offer his (ill-formed) opinion and making such a pitiful spectacle of himself. The attention did nothing to help his game’s image, especially after drawing readers to Destructoid’s painful review.

When the opinion of gamers conflict, they’re arguing about which game is better than which. When the opinion of developers conflict, they’re arguing about which game their game is better than. It’s just unprofessional and unbecoming of the people we come to expect so much from. It can only serve to isolate your fans and harm your IP.

Professionals, keep your opinions to yourselves.

Noah Heller is a corporate big wig at Activision -- he doesn't work for Treyarch. There isn't a feud between IW and Treyarch, and in fact 402 was pretty complimentary of World at War in his blog. Just to clarify.

Well I did say the feud was between representatives, not the companies themselves, but thanks for clearing some of that up.

As for being complimentary, I don't think that matters as having Bowling's complaints highlighted like this does nothing to draw attention to any of these compliments.

Wrong; developers and publishers can voice their opinions however they wish. They may be getting paid to work in the industry, and they may risk their job's stability, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't voice their opinions or shuttered inside some dark room and have their mouths duct-taped until it's time to spout some company lines. If you're not familiar with FourZeroTwo, he's been IW's big community guy for years. He led us through betas, forum changes, all kinds of events, podcasts, news eruptions, and he really helped bring the community into its own in regards to CoD4 especially. To have the game you worked (whether directly or indirectly) so very hard to make pleasing and promote to the public eye used as a jumping point for an arguably inferior product, while your game is occaisionally crapped on in the process, would be absolutely infuriating. Infinity Ward is an Activision developer. 402 was/is risking a lot to speak out the way he did. That should garner him even more respect, not a "shut up, get back in your room, and feed people shit all day" responses that he has gotten.

To paraphrase from CliffyB in Jeff's recent interview with him, "I've got to give my opinion on things, say something controversial or show my individuality occaisionally, otherwise I'm just another puppet with my publisher's hand stuck up my ass talking for me." While he hasn't said anything as inflammatory as what Bowling said, the same basic theory applies- you're allowed to be a person when you work in the games industry. In this case, he vehemently disagreed with the manner in which a higher-up was going about doing something. Why he didn't take it to private channels? I don't know; however, given how he just exploded randomly the way he did, I would assume more went on behind the scenes before the incident. Bowling is a smart man; he knew what he was doing, and he obviously had a reason to take it to the community. The situation does not relate at all to Luc Bernard besides generalities- and Bernard has a lot of other problems besides being unprofessional like that.

Either way, I always love it when professionals come out and speak their minds. It lets people really get an image of these people as actual people, and the crack in the wall of PR-company-regulated bullshit that constantly gets spewed by people is refreshing. Itagaki comes out and says something ridiculous about some random shit? Cool. Ben Judd, the crazy mofo, wants to play some hardball? Why not? These people are educated adults with (hopefully) a good grasp on their own positions and places in the world. They know the risks that entail when they choose to act as they do; and to have the courage (or the stupidity, occaisionally) to do it anyway is laudable. It should be done more often.

I think Robert is angry that they are selling a game that isn't up to the level of Call of Duty 4 with the Call of Duty name on it, and he wants to make his opinion known.

Jayge: I never said developers/publishers couldn't express their opinions, just that they probably shouldn't.

Perhaps if Bowling wasn't so rude when he expressed his opinion, most of us wouldn't have even been aware of this situation, but Bowling was rude and expressed that rude opinion publicly. Why couldn't he have done this in private where the fans can't see? What will the Call of Duty franchise gain from people who work on it yelling at one another for everyone to hear?

Will the CoD4 fans agree and buy the game again? No. World at War is the new game and Bowling's public opinion did nothing to improve the game's image.

Also, I related the situation to Luc Bernard as another example of what the unprofessional expression of an opinion can do to a game's image.

"Jayge: I never said developers/publishers couldn't express their opinions, just that they probably shouldn't.

Perhaps if Bowling wasn't so rude when he expressed his opinion, most of us wouldn't have even been aware of this situation, but Bowling was rude and expressed that rude opinion publicly. Why couldn't he have done this in private where the fans can't see? What will the Call of Duty franchise gain from people who work on it yelling at one another for everyone to hear?

Will the CoD4 fans agree and buy the game again? No. World at War is the new game and Bowling's public opinion did nothing to improve the game's image."

Kind of immature more than anything.
Why do so many companies straight up bash something in the industry or put all the blame on something?  So many good companies have- Valve, Blizzard, Team Ninja, etc.
Seriously, be like MS's first parties, shut up and act mature, not even because it's your job but because you should. 

I say the more that industry professionals (developers, publishers and press) actually come out and say some controversial statement or call out someone else the better. We don't need people all pretending to get along and be happy, we want real feelings and thoughts, we want blood.

In the music industry when rappers have beef they make songs to diss one another, or so i'm told. In the gaming industry i demand a 1v1 deathmatch between the feuding parties.

Jayge: Again, you're looking at this as though I said professionals can't offer their opinion when I actually said they shouldn't.

Whether or not Bowling expressed his opinion on his private blog or not, he represents something larger than himself and will always be connected to that (at least as far as we're concerned.) I'm not saying everyone's opinion of Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Activision, and Call of Duty was torn to pieces, but I really don't see how Bowling expressing his rude opinion publicly can do anything to benefit the Call of Duty franchise.

I just don't see how he felt it was a good idea to make that post.