Call of Duty: Black Ops was an atrocious port on the PS3; the fans were disappointed but the game still went on to sell millions. However, MP1st has reported an interesting interaction between Treyarch’s game design director, David Vonderhaar, and the PS3 group in the Call of Duty forums (taken down but cached).
What follows won’t please PS3 fans at all, but hey, I kinda feel bad for Vonderhaar too. How much accusations can one man take before retaliating?
And you seriously wonder why I don’t enjoy talking to you? You’ve been throwing me under a bus this entire thread.
[Complaining] that I tweeted about Xbox Live problems to Xbox Live fans is really a new low-point for you. When the PSN melts down, I’ll be doing the same thing. Oh right, I did do that when the PSN melted down.
It’s fine. I am a big boy and a few of you are not so great at making friends. When you think about changing your ways; I’ll think about communicating with you more often.
In the meantime, I’ll be doing the same thing I did last game, rolling with my own platform-specfic game crews to check the health of the game in the real world. That crew [still] won’t include anyone from the PS3 forum community whose primary post count deals with taking jabs at me.
More:
Very few people are spokespeople and permitted to talk to the community. We have 3 community people who manage the forums on a day to day basis.
Many developers, PS3 [specific] and otherwise, are on the forums. I know because they link me threads all the time. They lurk because they are not really supposed to post in the first place; and they lurk because of the negativity that can surround them when they make themselves known.
If the PS3 lead(s) wanted to post on the forums because he found it useful or enjoyable, we would probably let him after some media training. He doesn’t.
My PS3 crew on Black Ops 1 contained a Canadian, an Englishman, a Scottsman, and 2 Americans. I found them via Twitter. They were people who were having problems with the PS3 that I was trying to work out. One of them also happened to be a forum guy.
I burned through a couple of people to find these 5. I ditched anyone who fanboyed or trolled. I liked working with the guys so much that I invited them to my house. I’ll probably be doing the same thing this year.
I don’t surround myself with people who blow smoke up my ass; and I don’t surround myself with people who hate on me, Treyarch, Treyarch developers, or the game.
If you want developers on the forums and better communication, then clean up and self-police your community better.
