There are times when I’m willing to let this whole "Black Ops is bugged crap" fiasco hit the dirt and never look back. However, for some really, really odd reason Activision and Treyarch keep beating a dead horse and seem to be acting like complete douche bags by white-washing the matter as if it’s not that important. Continuing on with their campaign of complete and utter bullspit, Treyarch's studio head, Mark Lamia, is now saying that only a very, very small percentage of gamers are experiencing only minor bugs with Call of Duty Black Ops and that the game is fine. However, flooded forums over at the Call of Duty website and plenty of gaming news sites say otherwise.
In an interview with Kotaku, Lamia stated that…
"Here is what I will say: We know this for a fact, that the vast, vast majority don't have these sorts of experiences and they're out there playing this game," ... "I really do encourage you to go online and play it.”
Playing fine online for the Xbox 360, that is. I can’t believe Activision keeps letting this kind of corporate trolling go on. It’s almost equivalent to spitting in the face of gamers. Well, Activision and Treyarch thank you for proving that the biggest corporate entity in the gaming industry at the moment is composed of a bunch of careless, greedy hooligans. Thank you.
They may as well have come out and said, “Just buy the Xbox 360 version and all your problems will go away”.
In addition to this, Lamia added that….
"We worked on the game for two years, we want nothing more than for people to like it, especially guys who invested in rigs to make sure they had a powerful enough system. Obviously we care about the PC community."We think it's an awesome experience. I wish it wasn't just the 360 version you felt that way about because we feel like it's a great experience on all of the platforms."
It reminds me of when Microsoft adamantly denied that the Xbox 360’s RROD was anything more than in the single-digit percentages when it came to the red ring of death failure rate. Funny because that turned into a billion dollar debacle for Microsoft. And they rightfully had to reap what they sowed.
Exclaiming that only a small percentage of Black Ops gamers are having issues doesn’t mean it’s an excusable issue. Especially considering that even if it’s around 10% or so, that’s still around two million gamers experiencing some bad bugs with Black Ops.
Hopefully Activision and Treyarch will come off the high horse with this Black Ops mess, admit they funked up; admit they screwed over the PC and PS3 crowd with a rushed port and seek to make amends with a timely, working patch. They should stay out of the press circuit while they do so.
Constantly running damage control by blaming gamers, blaming the press and making excuses just makes them look like fools in the eyes of the wiser.
You can check out the entire interview with Treyarch’s Mark Lamia over at Kotaku. In the meantime an independent pressure group called Gamer's Voice is currently seeking legal action against Activision and Treyarch over Call of Duty: Black Ops.
