Call of Duty creative strategist leaves Activision
Infinity Ward exec and Modern Warfare strategist resigns.
In a surprising move today, Infinity Ward creative chief Robert Bowling announced that he was resigning from his post on the Call of Duty franchise and leaving Activision. No explanation was given on what he had planned or where he was going.
"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," he tweeted to his 367K followers.
Activision moved quickly and said "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."
Bowling had been with Infinity Ward for more than six years, working on the Call of Duty franchise, specifically the three Modern Warfare games.
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replyJohn Keefer posted a new article, Call of Duty creative strategist leaves Activision.
Infinity Ward exec and Modern Warfare strategist resigns.-
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His title was originally "community manager", but sometime after the MW2 release, it change to "creative strategist".
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A set of thick skin is part of the job description.
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They had one of those?
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What, did he get bored of doing nothing?
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he's had that handle for years. it's silly they let him do most of the company work on his twitter name. it makes sense to have that personal interaction, but a personal account should not be a substitute for an official one. if you want to grow them both, fine, but at least do it in tandem.
IW picked up on that in the later months, so they have far more followers now than they used to.-
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402 was his roster number when he was in the Army.
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It's not the choice of name; it's the fact that he did all of his official company work from his personal twitter
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That's the fault of Activision / IW for not putting their foot down and setting up an isolated Twitter feed, Facebook page, etc., but that level of community management was relatively new back when MW2 was under development. There was (and still is) an official Call of Duty forum, but Bowling didn't start to use it for official announcements until spring 2010, when plenty of people called him on having his Twitter account be the official announcement feed for MW2.
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Right. Nobody is saying otherwise. It was dumb of Activision and IW to allow him to do everything through his personal account
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It wouldn't be surprising, if most of your friends go on to a different company, it would seem logical to want to go with.
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I bet this is the reason he left: http://www.callofdutymappacks.com/news/robert-bowling-on-classic-maps-for-mw3-keep-classic-maps-outside-of-the-dlc-model/ ""I feel like we are in a f*cking era where everyone is so focused on subscriber numbers and all that stuff that we need to get back to what I feel like we did so much better in the old days of just plain good will, like stuff like the LAN patch, yeah it is lower priority but let’s get it out the f*cking door. Let’s just do it.”"
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Holy shit, look at some of the twitter stuff people have been sending him:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36386292&postcount=176
RobbertTheDutch
@fourzerotwo So you ruin everything, and just LEAVE? Pussy.
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ItsHawza
@fourzerotwo bye fking noob eat some lag
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MythAttach
@fourzerotwo Your a dumb mother fucker i hope you become homeless fucking faggot go to hell
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Mrjded123
@fourzerotwo NOW GO BACK TO YOUR JOB OF SUCKING DICK FOR MONEY YOU FAGGET ASS BITCH. GO DIE.
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rick_nadtke
@fourzerotwo Bitchmade nigga. Kill yourself.
Jesus, it's a fucking video game.-
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my handle isn't really separate from work. it's personal and i don't use it in a capacity like he did because i really, really, really hate that line of thought (i'm here for a game and a company, not for myself) but i'm pretty sure the thousand people or whatever that follow me don't do it because they like my dog.
anyway people can be super lame, but also super cool, so it balances it out.-
I'm a big fan of your whacky faces. But i like dogs too. Pics of dog plz.
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It's pretty typical for most CoD fans.
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I like CoD, but I hated the fans of CoD.
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so basically like xbox live chat
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Perhaps these are all terms of endearment.
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[deleted]
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Saw that. He's served as the lightning rod for a lot of Activision/CoD hate for a long time now. He's the face of Infinity Ward and I think the CoD player base is worse than any other online community, even Heroes of Newerth. Nothing compares to the trash talking tweens of Xbox Live. I played CounterStrike Source at its height and CSS was not as bad as the CoD or Halo lobbies of today. If I am not playing with friends, the only other reason I bother to logon to Live is just to pub stomp those punks and make them rage. My sympathies are entirely with Bowling.
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It's weird...playing CoD on the PC it was never that bad (though I admittedly never played much MW2 or MW3...mostly CoD4 and BLOPS)...is it just a Live thing or was I strangely lucky (or have I developed a weirdly thick skin from a decade and a half of playing online games)?
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It is a Live thing because the console player base is far, far larger and I believe it skews younger than PC. You're not going to find too many tweens on PC these days. I honestly believe the biggest factor is cost and ease of use; path of least resistance theory. Most of these players have no patience and behave like they have attention deficit disorder. The console costs less, is easier to use, all their friends are already on Live, and the game is always demoed or shown off by community luminaries on the 360. The community for CoD is unquestionably on 360.
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I agree.
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I saw it a LOT on MW2, and a bit on MW3 (but I didnt play that much) on PC. I've always felt that the PC gamer was a classier bunch, but the MW2 matches I played were a huge exception.
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It's like their best friend form high school just told them he was gay or something, fucking BRO'S MAN
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Yeah, I enjoy playing CoD multiplayer with my friends, and we usually buy it near release every year, so we must be retarded, right? I mean...we play a game that YOU don't play, right? Isn't that what retarded means? Not having the same preferences as you do?
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You're as bad as the fucking morons flaming Bowling on Twitter.
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lol the photo in the giantbomb article nwsish: http://www.giantbomb.com/news/robert-bowling-unexpectedly-announces-he-is-exiting-activision-updated/4051/
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Kotaku used that same one during the Noah Heller stuff in November 2008. Alex Navarro just had to be an asshole here; I'm usually a fan of Alex's snarkiness, but this was inappropriate.
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^^^ HOVER-HAND ALERT
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Those "face of the company" jobs must just be terrible. Not only are you the punching bag for all community backlash toward the company you represent, but also having probably come from that community, you have to reason out shit that might have riled you up if that paycheck wasn't involved. The steady bashing and disillusionment can only be soul crushing, especially with a franchise like Call of Duty that lost its soul a long time ago.
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I think Activision makes good games overall, but it must be the shittiest company to work for if the pattern of having their best employees routinely leave.
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Good riddance Robert has always been a douchebag.
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examples?
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I feel bad for Activision. They're going to have to a long and extensive search to replace this Creative Strategist. He was a key member of .. oh? They've filled the position already? Damn.
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Seeking Creative Strategist:
Job description: Ability to take "complex" information and explain it to people through a highly focused dumbing-down process so they better understand our product over a world wide web of complexity that we call the Internet. You do not need to be creative or actually plan / strategize anything. Essentially you must be able to use Twitter.
Required:
- Must be able to use Twitter.
- Thick skin fuckface. If you are insulted by this line please do not apply.
Desired:
- 5-10 years experience on Twitter or I guess just text messaging. Or a passing grade in grade school English. Essentially it's optional to be able to form complete sentences. -
Got to agree with Manveer:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/call-duty-creative-strategist-robert-bowling-resigns -
i guess he's going to respawn for modern warfare 4.
