It looks like the last Black Ops 2 update stirred quite a situation. According to a tweet by Treyarch‘s design director David Vonderhaar, Black Ops 2 devs have been threatened by fans over some simple balance tweaks.
Allegedly, these are the “contested” tweaks:
Multiplayer Game Balancing
- AN-94: Damage slightly reduced.
- DSR 50: Rate of fire reduced.
- Ballista: Rate of fire slightly reduced.
In the meantime, Activision‘s Dan Amrich blogged about it, condemning this immature behavior of a “loud minority” that however damages the entire gaming community. Here’s an excerpt:
This has happened with every Call of Duty game that’s come out for the last few years, and it will continue to happen — a gun’s stats being adjusted should not be a surprise to anybody at this point.
Yet [Vonderhaar] often gets told he should die in a fire or kill himself or is a horrible person. If anybody thinks for a second that this is okay, it is not. But if the loudest voices in the Call of Duty “community” act like an angry mob instead, guess how the entire world views Call of Duty?
Now consider that these Internet Tough Guy rants and demands are not unique to COD, but exist everywhere, in many gaming communities. This is why the world often does not take gaming seriously; this is why gamers are assumed to be immature, whiny assholes. Because the immature, whiny assholes are louder.
If you enjoy your games, have a little respect for the people who make them — and stop threatening them with bodily harm every time they do their job.
Of course, he’s completely right. Although, if I might say, intelligent persons shouldn’t even think of condemning an entire group of people (in this case, gamers as a whole) just because a few of them misbehaved. On the other hand, clearly a few gamers do take their playtime too seriously.
