Infinity Ward 'Welcomes Negative Feedback'

The very public face of Infinity Ward says that his company does not take offense when people that (seem to) hate Call of Duty criticize the game. Instead, the man in the public trenches for the wholly-owned Activision studio takes those complaints and finds useful feedback to help his company build a better game.

"We may have the number one selling game," Creative strategist Robert Bowling told Kotaku. "We may have, at times, the number one most played game. So it's very easy to sit back and say. 'We've done our jobs perfectly. We have the best game ever created. Look at the numbers."

"But then you can get online and have people kick dirt in your face constantly every day about anything that they may not like about the game. It allows you to have a gut check and a perspective that this is where we still need to go. This is work that we still need to do."

Bowling also said that the decision to join Twitter and talk to fans (and sometimes enemies) was the best decision he ever made from a development standpoint.

"It allows you to not rest on acclaim alone, whether critical or commercial, and makes you realise that there are still audiences out there that want to enjoy your games that may not even play shooters, that may not be into the type of game you make. You can look at that and find ways to introduce them into the experience."

Source: Kotaku by way of C&VG