Activision Says Call Of Duty: MW3 Negativity Helps Team Stay Motivated

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III launched earlier this month, with many reviews saying the game isn’t up to par with past releases from an overall quality perspective. The game was reportedly developed in only 16 months, with some developers saying they felt the production timeline was rushed. Despite this, Sledgehammer Games has said it’s been blown away by the positive reactions to the game thus far.

In a blog post, design director Zach Hodson said, “We’re incredibly inspired from the reactions so far.” Hodson added that positive sentiment from the community “makes the effort worth it,” and the naysayers have a role to play as well.

“We use the negatives as motivation to get solid fixes and improvements out as fast as we can. Keep the feedback coming!” Hodson said.

For multiplayer specifically, Hodson said there are more updates to come to improve player spawns–this has been a common criticism since launch.

Players have also called out Modern Warfare III’s use of skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) as having a negative effect on the experience, but as of yet, Sledgehammer has not commented on this. The team recently held an AMA on Reddit, but it did not discuss SBMM. The studio is, however, finally doing something about the maligned “evil Groot” skin.

Activision has not released any sales numbers for Modern Warfare III, but the company said the game has the “highest engagement” in the new Modern Warfare trilogy after two weeks.

Call of Duty is now owned by Microsoft following the Xbox giant’s $68.7 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard. Despite that, Call of Duty will continue to be released on PlayStation devices for the next decade, in addition to potentially expanding to Nintendo platforms.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III launched earlier this month, with many reviews saying the game isn’t up to par with past releases from an overall quality perspective. The game was reportedly developed in only 16 months, with some developers saying they felt the production timeline was rushed. Despite this, Sledgehammer Games has said it’s been blown away by the positive reactions to the game thus far.

In a blog post, design director Zach Hodson said, “We’re incredibly inspired from the reactions so far.” Hodson added that positive sentiment from the community “makes the effort worth it,” and the naysayers have a role to play as well.

“We use the negatives as motivation to get solid fixes and improvements out as fast as we can. Keep the feedback coming!” Hodson said.

For multiplayer specifically, Hodson said there are more updates to come to improve player spawns–this has been a common criticism since launch.

Players have also called out Modern Warfare III’s use of skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) as having a negative effect on the experience, but as of yet, Sledgehammer has not commented on this. The team recently held an AMA on Reddit, but it did not discuss SBMM. The studio is, however, finally doing something about the maligned “evil Groot” skin.

Activision has not released any sales numbers for Modern Warfare III, but the company said the game has the “highest engagement” in the new Modern Warfare trilogy after two weeks.

Call of Duty is now owned by Microsoft following the Xbox giant’s $68.7 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard. Despite that, Call of Duty will continue to be released on PlayStation devices for the next decade, in addition to potentially expanding to Nintendo platforms.