Treyarch’s Game Design Director Squares Up To PS3 Black Ops Complaints

PlayStation 3 owners have arguably been short-changed when it comes to Call of Duty of late. Whether it’s Microsoft’s aggressive (and successful) exclusive deals or simply slightly poorer versions of the AAA first person shooters over the last few years, it does feel like Xbox 360 owners (and PC owners, of course) get the best.

Whilst Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 3 was actually pretty good on PS3, the previous year’s Black Ops wasn’t. It ran at a good 10fps slower, had much more screen tear and was sub-HD, plus multiple online issues at launch. This, as you’d expect, frustated a lot of PS3 owners, and that seems to have boiled over, finally, last night.

A thread on the official forums (now deleted) focused on the lack of developer interaction on what’s happening with the PS3 version of Black Ops II. It reached over 200 replies, and was filled with dissatisfied PlayStation gamers.

And then David Vonderhaar, Treyarch’s Game Design Director, started posting.

[drop2]”And you seriously wonder why I don’t enjoy talking to you?” he posted. “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.”

It’s clear he’s frustrated. I’ve seen the sorts of comments that used to float around Twitter against Robert Bowling and I found his patience staggering. There’s obviously some mediation required (and Vonderhaar probably shouldn’t have reacted so directly) but it’s also clear that Treyarch do care about other platforms than the 360.

Official forums can be difficult to read, and in this case Treyarch haven’t really done themselves any favours – although I personally don’t think Vonderhaar is really in the wrong with his replies, however barbed – but PS3 owners probably do need a little more interaction from the developers.

It seems like that won’t happen until everyone calms down, though.

Via MP1st.