Call of Duty Success Due to Internal Competition

Recently, Robert Bowling, the director of communication at Infinity Ward, launched a somewhat heated tirade against Noah Heller from Activision, telling him to stop referencing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which was made by Infinity Ward, in all his interviews related to the launch of Call of Duty: World at War, which was made by Treyarch. Bowling even referred to Heller as the “senior super douche” in a blog post.

The senior producer with Activision has sought to calm down the waters by pointing out, in a Gamasutra interview, the way the two studios which work on the Call of Duty franchise collaborate and compete with each other in order to create the best product that fans can thoroughly enjoy. Heller says that “The engine is an Activision platform, something that we can all use. From a design perspective we don't want to step on each other's creativity, and the Treyarch team has its own insular design force”.

The two development studios are said to trade builds of their projects and comment on each other's work in an effort to make sure that as many people as possible get to have some input into the creation process. Activision likes the current situation because it pushes each team to show the best of its abilities. Heller thinks that the competition is “tough, but at the end of the day, we're all Activision. A great Call of Duty game just opens up opportunities to do other great things with Call of Duty”.

Call of Duty World at War has recently been launched. The game aims to portray two campaigns, one which takes the player island hoping alongside the Americans and one which drives towards Berlin as the Soviets. Treyarch have emphasized the way the individual approaches the horrors of war in their game and the multiplayer component is shaping up to be very solid, as seen in our time with the beta.