In the link below, Noah Heller goes out of his way to mention that Gearbox’s Brothers in Arms:Hells Highway is not even in the same league as Call of Duty: World at War.
Link:EuroGamer
So, shortly after this interview a lot of people in the community, especially in the forums on TeamXbox.com and even at GearBox’s own forum immediately start pointing their Fingers at Treyarch as saying all of these negative things. And ya’, there’s nothing really setting the story straight… Unfortunately it happened and now Treyarch and Gearbox are mixed up in this unfortunate tangle of “bad press.”
If you notice in the interview, it’s an interview with Noah Heller and Rich Farrelly, but Noah is doing most of the talking, and really is the only one bad-mouthing other games, including GearBox’s BIA. Noah mentions he’s the Senior Producer on the project, but from what I know, he works on the Publisher side of things, ie Activision. Rich Farrelly, on the other hand, actually works at the developer Treyarch, and only talks about the game and team focusing on it. Reason I say this is because most people in the community (and in those Forums) are stating that Treyarch is the one saying that BIA is not in the same league, when in actuality it’s the Senior Producer from Activision saying this. I also know that Treyarch as a whole is completely embarrassed about the whole ordeal and does NOT think Brothers In Arms is out of their league nor a poor game in any way shape or form!
I really feel sorry for Treyarch and Gearbox cause both development teams are getting a bad wrap, one being in the press and the other by a lot of community members. I hope both developers recognize the mix up and no bad blood is spilled.
UPDATE:
So Treyarch has released an official apology for the fiasco that happened over the weekend, posted on TeamXbox:
“Hi everybody,
My name is JD, and I’m the Community Manager here at Treyarch Stduios. I’m writing to you on behalf of my colleagues here at Treyarch.
Over the weekend, we learned that some disparaging comments were made by an Activision rep at a recent Call of Duty: World at War press event. We want to let everyone know that we found those remarks offensive, and they do not in any way represent the feelings of any developer at this studio or at Activision. We hold all of our peers in the development community in the highest regard. We have nothing but respect for the guys and gals at Gearbox.
We offer our sincerest apologies to anybody who was offended.
Kindly,
Treyarch dev team”
As a designer from Treyarch, this is an embarrassment. A lot of people from our company play tons of games from all genres. For the design team, it is our livelihood that we play anything and everything we can get our hands on. It helps us become better designers because can analyze what works and what doesn’t. BIA is definitely in our league and should not be flamed. The lack of humility from Noah is irresponsible and should of not been said. Hopefully, people will learn to think before speaking.
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
Treyarch does not agree with Noah! I add magnification of the earlier stated embarassment, and simply offer my apologies to the team over at GearBox.
I echo the same thoughts, and am quite embarrassed for our “senior producers” unwarranted comments that do not reflect how the actual developers of this game think. I’d like to also echo what MikeD said about Rich Farrelly, an ‘actual’ developer on this title, and his connection to Noah’s comments, as despite being Canadian, Rich is an awesome guy and does not think this way and has the utmost respect for other games and developers.
So Primeover hates Canadians? Hey everyone – I think Treyarch Hates Canadians!
Just kidding – I don’t work at Treyarch, but I do work at another studio, and I know how much it hurts when you get rolled up into a “label”.
I feel for the guys at gearbox for getting trashed, and I feel for the guys at Treyarch who are trying to reclaim their good name.
They are both good teams, working on different game ideas. Hopefully this will blow over quickly.
Hate is a strong word, I just find them ‘hilarious’
I sure hope this does blow over, but it seems that on the internets that even when any news that confirms a bias of any sort is proven to be either blown way out of proportion, or even falsified completely, it still spreads and fuels fires. The amount of disinformation about Treyarch regarding our CoD involvement is simply awesome, people still think we developed CoD: Finest Hour for gods sake.
yeah, Canadians are not even in the same league as us, we don’t even look in the same direction as Canadia over there. He he, but seriously, Noah should have no right to represent on the behalf of the dev team like that. He demos the levels to the press and bobbles his head for the cameras. He has zero development involvement and just needs to stick to his role. Know your role, Noah.
Kudos to Rich for trying to steer the interview away from what Noah was saying, but Noah would not give him much of a chance.
I just kinda stumbled across this site while looking for more news items about the recent debacle. I’m an artist at Gearbox working on Hell’s Highway. I just wanted to let you guys know that most, if not all of us, do realize that guy in the video does not speak for the Treyarch dev team. In fact, the sentiment from most of us is that we feel bad for the guys at Treyarch that Activision chose that guy to represent them and their game to the press.
Jeeeez, I wish you Treyarch guys weren’t so damn insensitive. You know, each individually saying that about Gearbox is messed up.
But seriously, anything I would say has already been said. Glad it got pretty much sorted out in a day and I hope that Noah gets the CAN.
Mark F, we can only trust that Activision has our backs when it comes to things like this, some things are seemingly out of our control, sadly. It is nice to hear that you guys separate marketing from development and what comes out of their respective mouths. I do hear you guys suck at Quake though.
Thanks Mark, yea it is unfortunate this has happened, especially without any control over the situation… But at least we now know, from a developer-2-developer standpoint, everything is alright between us.
hahaha! Nice Prime! Yea, we don’t talk crap about projects ’cause that is just dumb… But it is “allowed” to talk crap about gaming skillZ! And, yea btw, Prime is correct on his statement.
Mark, you able to get on Quakelive? Cause that is the latest hotness right now, and between compile times it’s indeed fun!
Primemover: Not so sure about sucking at Quake. I have heard that all other devs that competed in the last round suck at TF2 though
MikeD: I actually didn’t know that Quakelive was in beta right now. I just signed up so I’ll see if I get a beta invite.
Mark F, I have a few beta invites free if you are interested, toss me an email and I can get you on the list.
Not sure how to get your email address off of here, Primemover. You can email me though:
mark@mforsyth.com
Thanks!
Sent, when they add more to the Beta, hopefully you will get an email, my nick on there is also primemover.
Dude, I know a guy at id, I’ll hook you up Mark.
hey primemover, watch out… I used to work at Gearbox and they have some guys that can and will take you behind the woodshed at Q3A. =) Perhaps their strongest player is also their president – Randy kicks ass at DM. can’t wait to see the potential throwdown! =)
Well shit, I might have to get something going here, Mark F, when QuakeLive has the ability to make passworded and lockable servers, lets get a CoD:WaW vs. BIA:HH tdm match going!
I hooked up Mark with a QuakeLive key… So he should be able to join soon.
wow i just cannot wait for this gameman i cant wait for this game