Robert Bowling

Spec Ops Survival mode, solely because it brings a lot of stuff to the game that we've never done before, plus you get to use a lot of Multiplayer features without worrying about them being over powered (since its co-op and not competitive MP), so you get to do shit like have an awesomely powered ACR and take on bomb dogs with Juggernaut and it doesn't matter if its completely ludicrous since it all takes place outside the story mode. Its all about just having fun.

It changes daily because we're always rebalancing and tweaking the damage in multiplayer. We'll continue to do that until launch based on feedback, playtests. We're currently playing MP every night with big games on Friday (friday night fights) and giving feedback.

We've been building up our infrastructure as a whole since Modern Warfare 2 to focus on extended post-launch support, while MW2 did have patches, it wasn't nearly to the speed and frequency that I would have liked. We fully planned to address that with Modern Warfare 3 with the ability to do smaller fixes more instantly (playlist updates, hot fixes) so the small wait for the patches to cert and release are more enjoyable.

Absolutely not. Multiplayer in-game has no fee or option to pay a fee at all. You buy the game and you get everything that everyone else gets, there is no option to buy advantages.

What you may be referred to is the ELITE service that Activision is doing that allows you to check full detailed stats, create groups, clans, compete in competitions and tournys, and a lot more. That service is also free to all Call of Duty players, they have said they will include paid features that are optional but not have said what they'll be.

The coolest free feature in ELITE that I will actually use is the ability to change your create a class from anyone online (or your phone / tablet) and push it to the game.

Branding.

Spec Ops by far. Adding in the matchmaking, progressive ranking, killstreaks and unlocks, and wave based modes have made Spec Ops everything we always wanted it to be when we first introduced it.

Also, returning to gun on gun focused multiplayer is a big thing for me.

Survival Mode in spec ops, which is playable solo or in co-op, contains endless waves of increasingly more difficult enemies. The first wave is just infantry with standard weapons, then they get better weapons and more accuracy, then its infantry and dogs, then dogs and infantry some with C4 strapped to them, then helicopters to shoot down, then juggernauts, then juggernauts with riot shields, and even more. It's constantly throwing new tactics and enemies at you.

Now the cool thing is we have progressive ranking in Spec Ops now, so you'll be able to rank up, unlock new weapons, attachments, gear (like turrets, claymores, armor), killstreaks (like calling in a squad of delta to help you defend or airstrikes) so that you can change up your tactics as you rank up.

From a story stand point, Modern Warfare 3 is a direct sequel - picking up just hours after Modern Warfare 2 ended.

the big difference, from a single player campaign standpoint, in Modern Warfare 3 is the scale of the levels you're fighting in. Like going through the streets of Manhattan both on foot and in-air, or Paris, or London, or parts of Africa. The sizes of the campaign levels are massive, which required a lot of work in terms of advancing the streaming tech to not only get to that level of scale but to maintain the game running above 60 fps at all times.

From a multiplayer stand point its all about polish and balance. Taking all the feedback from Modern Warfare 2, building up from the core design philosophy of Call of Duty 4 (the simplistic beauty of fast paced gun on gun focused gameplay), keeping what we loved, losing stuff we (including you) didn't, and adding in stuff that will change up the way we play.

The single player campaign is all about delivering a cinematic experience with set piece moments and massive action. However, we know you want open (let me decide how to tackle this) gameplay and that is where we've really expanded on Spec Ops in allowing you to play out missions with objectives in more open areas that are not tied to the story. Furthermore, you can play every Spec Ops survival mission on ALL multiplayer maps that are completely open.

Loved: High gun damage, gun on gun focus, depth of features but simplistic in design.

Less-loved / removed: OMA, Commando, Overpowered Explosives, Nukes, Last Stand aka Second Chance perk.

Yes. This has been an extremely major focus for us after MW2 and we've spent the last two years building our infrastructure in a way that will allow us to extend our post launch support. Increasing not only frequency (if needed) but speed of them as well as how we can expand the ability to hot fix and playlist updates to address concerns when possible while an full patch goes through the certification process.

Soon. Now that E3 is wrapped I'm working on getting a Spec Ops gameplay trailer made for you guys, as well as have some planned TV appearances where I hope to show it off. Follow my Twitter to keep updated on WHEN that stuff gets confirmed.

Thank you sir. I appreciated it.

Currently, you can still quick scope in Modern Warfare 3. Keep in mind though, multiplayer is always changing at this stage (new perks, new balancing, new everything all the time based on feedback), however our philosophy on that hasn't changed since MW2.

Yes sir, and this is something I've sat down and talked with our control programmers about early on when you request came in.

We worked with N0M4D as well as got a full list of "ideal" controls from several disabled members of our community to try and make sure that the game controls were as accessible as possible for our community.

I'm afraid we never got to the point of fully remapping of controls, but have taken every step to make it as accommodating as possible. I just met up with N0M4D yesterday at E3 to talk about this very thing.

There will definitely be an internal one, but we haven't decided or confirmed if there will be a public one. A public multiplayer beta is a give / take in terms of development schedule. It takes a good month out of your schedule to prepare it for public consumption and actually have time to incorporate the feedback.

In the meantime, while that's decided, I've been flying community members out to Infinity Ward to see the game (not play yet) but to see and discuss it and give feedback. Furthermore, we will fly out members of our glitcher community to give the MP a run through its paces later in development to try to find map holes, glitches, and other exploits prior to release. We also have a full-time QA department.

The severe and insulting lack of dinosaurs in Modern Warfare 2 was embarrassing and a black mark on my career. The addition of Dinosaurs and turtles (the modern day dinosaur) are a high priority on the feature list of Modern Warfare 3.

There is no date yet for Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer reveal yet. I hope, starting today with this thread, to start addressing hardcore community questions regarding the direction multiplayer is taking, and hopefully start revealing things that won't change (like certain weapons, features, etc), however we can't start showing multiplayer until we get a little later and have it in its final iteration.

I completely agree and we have changed a lot of how XP, match bonus, challenges, rewards, and other incentives are distributed in objective gameplay, much on how we are encouraging gun on gun gameplay in TDM modes, in objective modes we are making it so being an objective focused player in objective gametypes.

Furthermore, we have focused a lot of the new equipment additions in multiplayer to make sure were giving the objective player just as many tools to be better at playing the objective focused gametypes as we do a TDM player.

Its not all about kills, we have to reward the defender of a bomb site, the flag runner, and the guy covering the flag runner, more so than the guy just getting kills and never going near the objective points.

I read you loud and clear and while I can't go into further detail, this has been addressed.

I'm a hardcore SnD player and a Dom player after that.

That would actually impress me. I think they would have to figure out what reddit IS before they'd be able to construct a plan to exploit it.

I was not surprised at all, because it positioned poorly and misunderstood.

If I thought I had to pay for stats, groups, clans, the ability to change my class on the fly online or on my phone, and all the other features they announced. I'd want it for free too.

Luckily, all that IS free for everyone, but people didn't know that.

I think these are services that all shooters should eventually have one day, and I'm stoked we'll have them free to everyone for MW3 and am glad that DICE is doing the same.

You should be buying both because they both will be stellar games. I refuse to say one ill word of Battlefield 3 or DICE because I think they're both fantastic and am good friends with several of the guys on the team.

If you are a shooter fan, they are both fantastic games to own because of one reason. They are different.

Each do their own thing in a fantastic way and it is refreshing to have the option for both styles.

Neither does MW3. All those features are free to everyone.

I want dedicated servers for the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 and we are currently discussing how we can support them, however am not ready to confirm if they will or will not be part of MW3.

The decision to create IWnet was a simple one, we wanted to make the PC version of our game more accessible. We were successful in this by introducing matchmaking and a lobby system. You could quickly find a game, but you did not have the control and consistency that our PC players have come to enjoy.

In an ideal world, I would like Modern Warfare 3 to have both. The ability to the mass PC user to quickly get in a game by default matchmaking via IWnet. However, I would also like to accommodate our users who desire a dedicated server experience, whether by direct IP input or server browser support.

These are the discussions we are currently having on how we can look at go back to our Call of Duty 4 philosophy of PC specific feature.

Making the game accessible wasn't the reason for removing Dedicated Servers, what I said was making the game accessible was the reason for adding IWnet (and matchmaking). They're not the same statement.

The team, at the time, wanted a universal experience across all platforms, however had plans for the first iteration of IWnet to be just step one. Once everyone was comfortable with matchmaking it was planned to eventually add support for Dedicated Servers. However this update never came, rather focus was put on addressing exploits, anti-cheat, etc. Work that ultimately ended up moving the code base further away from dedicated server support. When all was said and done, the move BACK in the direction of dedicated server support was never made.

I can't say I agree with the decisions made in the past or the justifications for them, but I can say that you should judge each game on its own merits. As the team on Modern Warfare 3 has changed up, with design philosophies that are now more aligned with what the PC community has been asking for.

It's not justification at all, it's the actual reason. I was asked why they were removed when IWnet was introduced and that was the exact reason given when the decision was made internally.

I have not once said that it was justified or the correct choice, simply was the reason for the choice whether you or I agree with it.

I'm not here to interpret the true intent of the decisions that I did not make, but to relay the reason and the goal whether that goal was ultimately reached or well received.

No need to be rude to me. I'm simply explaining the reasoning behind the decisions and acknowledging that the decision had one goal, which inherently caused another portion of the audience (fans of the dedicated server experience) to lose the ability to do many of the things they loved.

I think that was a mistake and that we should be sure that in the future, in Modern Warfare 3, we are making sure that we are addressing the concerns of the mass as well as the core who want a dedicated server experience.

At the end of the day, IWnet served the purpose that they set out to do, it made the game more accessible. Sales were higher than COD4, player counts were higher than COD4 (both all-time and concurrent to this date), but that doesn't mean it was ultimately the perfect solution by any means, which is just one of the reasons the philosophy towards PC is different in Modern Warfare 3.

I disagree with you. As I started this thread based on a request, with absolutely no expectations or intentions going in. The questions could and have been anything. I'm giving you raw answers as I know them, they won't always be the answer you like, especially when talking about past decisions - because we clearly know that there is disagreement on what was decided in the past (i.e. no Dedicated Servers in MW2)

You're correct, and I think Black Ops took a huge step in the right direction in terms of PC support and I want Modern Warfare 3 to take similar steps.

That is incorrect. I said Modern Warfare 2's goal, with IWnet was to make the game more accessible and then made a separate point that Modern Warfare 3's goals are more aligned with the PC communities. They were two separate statements referring to two different games.

Essentially saying, the goals of Modern Warfare 2 on the PC are very different than the goals of Modern Warfare 3 on the PC.

Thank you sir.

I thought it was hilarious. We had been rehearsing everyday, all day, all weekend long. It was something that happened the first day on the first rehearsal, my mark on stage was exactly out of the range of the console. They brought in new hardware that extended the range and we never had the problem again all weekend it went flawless.

My rule of thumb is, if your last three rehearsals go flawless, then the live demo will go wrong. My theory holds true.

Great to talk to you again. Lots of questions here, so I'll take them one by one:

1) The frame rate (always above 60 FPS) and resolution will be the same across all platforms.

2) No, this runs on the MW3 engine, which would typically be named IW5 but out of respect of our co-development partners at Sledgehammer games we are simply referring to it as the MW3 engine. It is upgraded from the engine we used in Modern Warfare 2. There have been a lot of advances, mostly in streaming tech to allow us to get the scale of levels we're doing in Modern Warfare 3 and maintain gameplay consistency with the framerate and smoothness. We've got a lot of audio stuff mostly adding situational awareness like bullet wizzbys and other subtle upgrades. A lot of lighting stuff updates as well.

3) No, there is no dive to prone in Modern Warfare 3.

4) I absolutely can not comment on litigation. To me the game plays like Call of Duty 4 in terms of gameplay style, but with the smoothness of MW2 plus the new advances we've made. Furthermore, its not an all new team. We do have new people, but less than half left, with a lot of MW veterans remaining who continue to be passionate about the franchise.

5) We've been doing a lot of work on private match, especially on PS3 and plan to address this issue for you.

6) Yes, this was noted by several of our Spec Ops hands on players at E3, check out the comments @z0mgItsHutch made on Twitter after playing spec ops.

7) Yes, and we've removed Commando.

8) Explosives as a whole have been re-balanced to make them the support tool they're intended to be not a primary weapon of attack.

9) Yes sir.

I think our industry is no different than the music or film industry in the sense that the dominance of one genre is never infinite. While first person shooters are all the rage right now, it won't always be the case. Furthermore, the real decision makers are the consumer. We make shooters because that is what we do well, we've always done it, even before they were $1 billion dollar sellers.

We, as an industry, don't need to stop making stellar shooters for a creative new genre or take on the same genre to rise to dominance. We just need to make sure we, as an industry and as consumers, need to give equal opportunity attention to all games.

That's the approach I take, I openly express my love for games like Trenched (coming from Double Fine to XBLA in 2 weeks) as I do Gears of War 3.

Next-gen would be Fallout 3 or Red Dead Redemption, prior to that would be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and before that it was Super Mario Bros. 3.

From a design philosophy point of view, we are building up from Call of Duty 4, bringing the stuff we liked from Modern Warfare 2, losing the stuff we (and you) universally did not but overall focusing more on the gun-on-gun fast paced infantry combat, less relying on air support, but still using it as its intended (to aid in your fight, not supplement it).

I can't give too many hard facts on multiplayer at this time due to the fact that we're very much still balancing, tweaking, and adding to it daily.

For sure things I have confirmed is the fact that we removed One Man Army, Commando, re-balanced all explosives, maintained high gun damage without relying on Stopping Power to keep firefights fast paced but closer to COD4's balance.

We have to goals when it comes to the PC version. We want to make sure the PC users running the highest end machines can turn on all the bells and whistle and having a super smooth and absolutely beautiful game running.

Even more importantly though is to ensure that we have a reasonable min-spec that allows the majority of our PC users to run the game, out of box, also smooth and as they'd expect.

Essentially, not forsaken the min-spec crowd but also not restricting the power machines from getting the most out of their systems.

Yes, but the exact implementation of it is not finished. Its important to look at features and make sure they're optimized in a way that does not affect frame rate or gameplay for the sake just having it.

I legally can not comment on pending litigation, which any answer I could give to this would be a comment on. Not even in an AMA.

No, the nuke has been removed from the game. We are focusing on "killstreaks" that support and encourage you to be a better player not supplement you being a better player.

The original.

Absolutely not. Multiplayer is and will always remain 100% free. You buy the game and as always get everything everyone else has. In addition, there are a full FREE to everyone web service element that allows you to track stats, create individual / friend leaderboards, create groups and clans, change custom classes on the fly anywhere, and much more.

I personally play everything and am always looking at how other games implement a feature and think about how that could work in our series. No feature is typically universal, to where it could work exactly the same in another game, but you can typically boil it down to it's core value. What does this feature add and what problem does it solve? Okay, lets figure out how we can take that aspect, and incorporate it differently to work in ours.

I was just having this same conversation with Cliff Bleszinski the other night about this very thing. Particularly crediting them on the LB "show all team mate" feature in their multiplayer games. In a game that relies so heavily on team oriented gameplay to win, being able to quickly and subtly keep tabs on your team mate general position is essential.

We want to reward players for specific actions and have their rewards reflect the type of player they are or their accomplishment, as well as focus and invest your time in a specific style and be rewarded for that.

So if you're an objective player, your unlocks would be objective focused. That was the original design goal of Callsigns in MW2, was for you to be able to represent at a glance the type of player you are and the accomplishments you've made.

There are three major plot lines that collide in Modern Warfare 3. First we follow the Delta force operators as they push the Russians out of the US and continue the fight into Europe. Whereas, British SAS as leading the fight in Europe. Lastly, MW3 is a pay off on the investment that players have put into the characters we've created since Call of Duty 4, and with Taskforce 141 (Price and company) dead and on the run at the end of Modern Warfare 2 we get to see how they play into the global conflict now that DC is burning and they're branded criminals.

Absolutely, the game is far from finished (we still have till November - minus certification). For example, most audio at this stage is temp and not mixed properly yet, including all dialogue.

We have completely re-vamped how "killstreaks" work in Modern Warfare 3, however its far to early to start confirming details.

1) There is a disconnect here, as Activision has no say in the content of map packs. That's our jobs as developer, to handle the creative and asset creation. However, Activision sets the price, this is a business decision not handled by the developer. I can't say what will be in the DLC because we don't even begin thinking about that until we finish the game, which is still very much in development.

2) I believe that users should have a choice in how they purchase their DLC. This is something we'll be changing with the introduction of ELITE, so our hardcore community who are subscribed to ELITE will have ALL DLC included in their subscription. So while they get to enjoy all the free services that come to all players, in addition to the unannounced premium services, they'll also have access to all the DLC. As far as price, it needs to be a no brainer price point, make it where if I'm a hardcore fan and put a lot of hours into the MP and want more content, it's an easy choice. There should be no one size fits all price, it should be priced according to content.

3) This is a very serious issue that I brought attention to during MW2, after we released our second DLC. There are many backend matchmaking updates we are doing to assist our players on PC who have purchased multiple DLC or no DLC in speeding up and improving their connection times.

4) They're entire different departments. DLC creation is handled by the designers and artists where post-launch support via patches is a QA and Code task. They can be worked on side-by-side without delaying the other.

Will Arnett was actually in Modern Warfare 2 (multiplayer voices), he's awesome and I think he should be in every game, anyone does, forever.

Being cynical. There is no need for it.

My username actually has nothing to do with marijuana, it was my roster number in the military while training at Fort Benning, Ga.

That said, I can only speak for myself and believe that it should be treated with the same restrictions that smoking in general is handled in California.

Every game should be judged on its own merits. I would never suggest anyone buy a product blindly. Make a informed decision once you've evaluated all the features.

I can tell you that we have a completely different philosophy on the PC version of Modern Warfare 3 than the previous years had towards Modern Warfare 2.

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

Call of Duty 4 is currently being looked into and is not being abandoned or forgotten. Our main priority now, beyond MW3 development, is getting MW2 synced up on all platforms. We patched PS3 first, then patched Xbox 360 with additional updates, and want to get another patch out for PS3 that gets it equal to Xbox 360 as well as get the patch out for the PC version. Then we'll do the same for COD4.

Our core demographic is actually closer to 30. Comparing two Youtube videos (one from an official source and one from a re-upload from a user) is not an accurate determination of "projected" demographic.

1) A lot, for starts its all about bringing in the best of the best. Building up from Call of Duty 4, bringing in our favorite weapons, losing the stuff we didn't like and refocusing on gun on gun fast paced combat. We've also completely changed up the killstreak systems but it's not fully implemented so I can't confirm details yet.

2) I wouldn't say they're new technologies but its definitely new procedures that we didn't have implemented in the past to help prevent and address cheating in Modern Warfare 3. We've focused on building an infrastructure that will assist us in supporting and addressing the online multiplayer after release.

3) We're aiming on it being impossible in Modern Warfare 3 and if possible, having more ability to address it without a patch.

Second set of questions:

1a) Not decided yet.

2a) Still adding them, so we don't have a final count yet.

3a) Still working on missions and pacing, so we don't have that known yet either. We let the story dictate the length of the campaign and then if there are moments we still wanted to see we add them to Spec Ops mission mode.

4a) I like offering players an entire package for all audiences, so you have the SP for the cinematic solo gameplay, then Spec Ops for plotless missions and endless Survival Mode, and multiplayer for endless competitive play. It's less enticing to only offer a product for one portion of the audience, even if it is a major portion.

Quite a few, a lot in the memory management / streaming areas to allow for larger levels and maintain the smooth 60 frames per second + gameplay.

We introduced Spec Ops mode in Modern Warfare 2 and it has always had 2 players. This was a specific design choice, as we want both players to be essential to the success of the mission. The type of missions and survival mode experience we've designed works best with a two-operator team. We understand there are other co-op games with 4 players, which are a different experience, however we feel 2-players is the most fun for Spec Ops.

2) I can see how its funny. I think its important for people to just do what they love and to constantly create new stuff in different genres and industries.

3) Being accessible and not be afraid to sit down and have a conversation about what people like but most importantly what people don't like about your games.

We'll probably do some Spec Ops videos and then after that we'll be moving into a time frame of MP videos. It'll be before launch for sure.

It worked in making the game more accessible, there is no denying that, however it failed in allowing our audience a choice in how they experience their game. We'd like to correct that for Modern Warfare 3 and give the mass the option to enjoy the ease of matchmaking but not restrict our other users who wish to have more control over their experience.

It's a combination of company-wide feedback through daily playtests to incorporating feedback from players on previous games.

We've got some really cool plans for the collector editions of Modern Warfare 3, but until we have them 100% nailed down and in production I can't give out details. I'm excited to show you what we put together for you this year though!

I think of it as COD4->MW3

We've completely re-vamped the "killstreak" system, so the question doesn't really apply. Its too early to go into detail though.

All of the above. None of those are perks in Modern Warfare 3.

The ability to update a game post release. It has created an entire shift on the expectations of a game, a developer, a development timeline, budget, and the definition of "finished product".

Absolutely not. We've removed commando and have re-balanced the knife melee to be the "in a pinch" or "unsuspecting fool" tool that its meant to be, not a default go-to weapon choice.

You should never bring a knife to a gun fight.

Neither. We have a unique new way that weapon attachments and upgrades to your weapon are earned in Modern Warfare 3.

Every level and environment has it's own feel and tone to it. Not everything should be bright and colorful, although a little of both is perfect.

Consider it done, Zach will be told.

Thank you sir. I really appreciate it. My official title is Creative Strategist, but I still handle any CM duties among other things, so it's not totally unwarranted.

We have a two year development cycle for our titles.

Our marketing budgets are comparable to most major blockbuster films, generally around the $50 million mark, however this is a combined budget with marketing partners (such as licensing, business development deals, and more).

Yes, but I'm not ready to reveal the contents until we get all the production details finalized.

There will be Official Modern Warfare 3 forums going up at CallofDuty.com, however the digital team at Activision has been slow to get them up and running.

There are definitely some great supporting characters throughout the squads you'll play a part of in Modern Warfare 3.

I think Spec Ops is a great introductory / warm up tool for multiplayer as it allows you to fight on all the multiplayer maps, rank up, try out new weapons, gear, attachments, against an ever changing wave of enemies.

I confirmed no Commando, but that has no implication on the features of Commando Pro. I simply mean there is no knife lunge increase perk. It's too early in MP to confirm any additional details on that though.

I love kill cams, and we'd like to focus on highlighting the best kills in a game. However were still experimenting with different implementations of it.

There were many reasons, the main being that I wasn't finished working on Modern Warfare. Coming out of Modern Warfare 2 there was a lot of things I wanted to see changed, added, and improved on in Modern Warfare 3. With the change up, I saw an opportunity to step up and attempt to influence that to a greater degree than I had in the past.

Somewhere between Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2's. I feel we went too far with MW2's blood screen, we have addressed that in Modern Warfare 3, adding in more directional situational awareness tweaks to it that allow you to better understand the source of the damage so you can do more to prevent a total death.

Special Ops is definitely coming back, both the traditional mission mode and an all new Survival mode.

There is a lot of pressure, mostly focused on showing players something they've never seen before. In Modern Warfare 3, we're picking up where MW2 left off with DC Burning and really taking players into the major cities. This is something we've never done in the past (typically sticking to traditional conflict areas and outskirts), so it gave us a fun opportunity to try out set piece moments in places you've never seen them and in ways we've never done before. Plus, there's something impactful about see it in a location that is very familiar to you, like the streets of Manhattan.

No, because we've always worked on a two year development cycle. Our dev time is dictated by us, which is the whole reason Activision started having other developers work on Call of Duty because we made it clear that we work at the speed we work. We won't rush a product to meet a deadline, we set our dev cycle based around what we know we need.

We haven't signed any of our voice talent yet. At this stage all dialogue is temp and towards the end we bring in the final actors to record it all. We'll also typically have friends who are actors, like Will Arnett or others, record stuff just for fun.

Our big trailers (like reveal, launch, etc) are done by the awesome team over at The Ant Farm. Perk trailers, MP trailers, stuff that's all about the gameplay are done in-house by me and an editor.

Of course. We had several Battlefield community guys (not employees or dev members) come up to try and get a private showing of MW3 at E3 this year and I made sure to go out, meet them, and give them a personal walk through of the two levels we were showing. It would be no different for Mr. Riccitiello or members of the BF team.

No sir, I did not work on Black Ops.

Yes.

Engage me in mortal kombat. Last man standing walks away with a paycheck.

I'll give you the short version, but if you'd prefer the long I'll be happy to elaborate. My first official job was frying chicken at a gas station in Kentucky that also sold chicken - because that is exactly what you want when filling up your gas tank. I was 13 years old and I did it for 1 week. I would get burned by the fryer everyday, smelled like chicken when I went home, and spent 2 hours hiding in the freezer eating the donuts they kept there. It was horribly sad and mind opening all at the same time.

That single experience was enough to make me realize that I wanted to do something much bigger than my hometown of Piner, Kentucky (the middle of the country).

At 14 years old I went to the court house and got my first business license. I knew no one would hire a 14 year old kid to do what I wanted, so I hired myself, by starting a company. I had no clue where to start or what to do, but you'd be surprised what having a TAX ID and DBA bank account can do for you.

I went to the library everyday, learned how to create a website. Made a website for my company. I continued to go to the library after school everyday to teach myself something new. My business grew, kept evolving as I learned new things, changed my mind, wanted to go in different directions. This was my life all the way up to graduation of High School. I had taught myself and have managed to support myself enough to get by but by every sense of the word was poor.

During this time the war in Iraq was going strong and there was mass genocide happening Sudan. I got the urge to do something more impactful than watching out for myself and enlisted in the US Army as an 11B (Infantry), passed by ASVAB with flying colors, enough to be allowed to put in a letter of request for Special Forces. No one is guaranteed SF training or placement, that's something you earn and are chosen for, but you can show intent which simply means they'll push your ass into the ground every chance they get to see if you change your mind. My intent to go SF was solely because special forces at the time were the only boots on the ground in Sudan and even that was a limited capacity. All other infantry was being directed into Baghdad.

Long story short, my military career was cut short and I never got the honor to deploy. So now I've been out of the civilian world long enough to not have a career, fully trained by the US army (BCT to Airborne) solely as an Infantryman, and ready to take my life in a new direction.

I decided to start a company again, as I was pretty much in the same position as I was at 14 years old. No one would hire me to do what I wanted, so I hired myself.

I did whatever I could to get a paycheck coming in, barely making my $250 apartment rent, playing video games more than working simply due to lack of projects. At this point I was solely playing Call of Duty (the early years) to the point that my wife sarcastically told me "all you do is play that game, why don't you just do THAT for a living"!

So I did.

Being purely a gamer, I wasn't fluent in the ways of the industry, nor had I ever been in any industry I worked in. I taught myself, I set my goal on something, I learned everything I could from books and reference, and I just started doing it. I didn't let things like being broke ass poor and discouraged stop me.

So I look on the back of the box and seen Infinity Ward made the game, so I looked em up and sent them an email. Never got a response, I later found out when I was given control over that very inbox of emails, it hadn't ever been checked. So I found other ways to reach out and eventually got a hold of the guys who started the company.

I talked for 2 hours with Grant Collier on the phone, talking games, philosophy, and what I thought about things. It was nothing but just an unfiltered conversation about gaming, the industry, and what I've done in the past. They flew me out the Los Angeles two days later to meet the rest of the team. I sat down with every lead of the company and talked, from animators to programmers to the studio heads. I spent all day just talking, giving my thoughts, and throwing everything out there.

Two weeks later they called and said "we want you to do what you do but for us full time".

So I did.

My first title was Call of Duty 2 DLC. I came in a massive fan of Call of Duty but also played Ghost Recon hardcore. So when I started and they said your first real project is us taking Call of Duty into modern days - I shit my pants.

No one really knew what my purpose was, what I should do, or how I should do it. So the first year was me doing as I always did, just talking to anyone who would listen, learning what they did and how they did it. Soaking in every resource I could find and contributing any way I could. At one point they had me seeing if I could come up with the intro credit sequence in Coup for COD4. So I spent two weeks teaching myself After Effects. I was kind of shit at it, but I got a prototype going that ended up being the base for the actual credits, but done by someone much better than I.

My greatest strength and weakness has always been my ability to identify what works and what doesn't, from a philosophy stand point and (here comes the weakness part) share that unfiltered opinion with anyone who will listen. Thank god there were people in the right positions who agreed with those opinions and I gradually (and I mean VERY slowly) began building more and more respect among those who thought I represented good opinions.

I just kept working at it, doing anything I thought was needed. Call of Duty 4 ended up being the game that it was and was a massive learning experience for me, as every project after that has been.

The lesson of the story is to just find what you want to do and start doing. If you don't know how, learn it.

Just start doing it and hope that one day someone will pay you for it.

I think having the community be able to give input in the development of the game, and post launch support, has helped our games.

I did not work on Black Ops, that was made by Treyarch, I work at Infinity Ward. We made COD1, COD2, COD4, MW2 and now MW3.

That said, you're correct that you have to have a core design philosophy and vision for what the game will be and then take the feedback from the players and put it through a very thick filter. You can't take any feedback as is, or allow it to supplement your own vision.

This problem is already resolved on the console side by setting your parental settings to only allow voice communication with your friends.

As hard as it will be, just relax and be yourself. I remember my first time coming to the studio and meeting with everyone (from animators to programmers, to artists, and the studio heads at the time).

I came into it with absolutely no expectations. The best thing I did was just be completely open and honest. More than anything, the thing that will make a break a hiring decision at a developer is your personality. It's so important that every new hire fits the culture of the studio.

Obviously your work has to speak for itself, but your personality is extremely important as I've seen people with fantastic work turned away if they would upset the culture of the studio.

Every dev team is a close knit family, and if they're not, you probably don't want to work there, but Bethesda is a fantastic place to work. Go in, be conversational, and have confidence in your right to be there.

Good luck man!

She's fantastic, talking more and more everyday. It's hard to see them grow up so fast. Thanks for asking!

I think that a 2 year development cycle is a good schedule for our team. We determine our own development cycle, so if we wanted more, we could make it happen.

Its a discussion that we have every year when deciding what our next project will be, and if it requires additional time.

I don't drink either.

We may not be hiring, but we never turn away an amazing asset to the team. We are always accepting applications and interviewing candidates that will add value to the team, regardless of current positions.

That's not a decision that is decided or influenced by me. It is something that is solely decided by Activision.

Hey man! I remember, god Shadowrun was awesome!

That is quite possibly the hardest question I've ever been asked.

White Castles is what I grew up on, it got me through some long nights, but In-n-Out has been there for me my entire adult life. How do I choose between two of my great loves?

I'm going to go with White Castles because I never have them anymore (unless I'm travelling back east) so I have a strong feeling of nostalgia for them.

We need more Geek Dads, I think my daughter can't help but grow up to be geeky. I've already got her Batman PJs so she can match daddy's wardrobe of practically 90% Batman T-shirts. My wife approves.