Despite Infinity Ward’s community manager tearing Call of Duty: World at War senior producer Noah Heller to shreds, the Activision man is still chatting about the CoD franchise and subjects that some people feel he should shut up about.
Heller claims that it is “gratifying” to have internal competition within the Call of Duty franchise. As we all know, Infinity Ward and Treyarch now take it in turns to create CoD games, something which World at War‘s senior producer believes helps the overall franchise.
The two studios apparently trade builds and review each other’s work, which is what happened with both World at War and Infinity Ward’s hugely successful Modern Warfare. “It’s awesome that we’re able to trade and we’re able to do a Call of Duty game this year,” explains Heller. “They were able to do one last year, because on Call of Duty 3, it was nine months in the pipeline to get that game done, and no team should ever have to work like that.”
On the subject of competition, Heller admits: “It’s tough, but at the end of the day, we’re all Activision. Frankly, it’s more gratifying to compete internally than it is against any other company, because at the end of the day, we both win if we make a great product.”
Heller also notes that the competition is there because IW and Treyarch’s efforts are often directly compared. Perhaps if Heller would stop comparing them himself, there wouldn’t be so much conflict, and certain community managers won’t refer to him as “Senior Super Douchebag.” Just a thought.
