A few weeks ago, Treyarch changed the @callofduty Twitter name to “Current Events Aggregate”, and live tweeted a real-life terrorist attack that took place in Singapore. The act was decried as at the very least insensitive and ill-conceived.
Since then, neither Activision nor the studio have made any sort of apology, but studio campaign director Jason Blondell has addressed the issue and stated that there was no negative intent on the studio’s part, and said he was personally ”very sorry” about it.
In an interview, Blondell explained, ”Here’s my view – and again, I’m a simple director and not involved in the marketing at all. However, it was absolutely not done for any kind of attention in any way. It was not done maliciously, or as any kind of scare tactic. I personally am very sorry for anyone who looked at it and got the wrong idea because it genuinely wasn’t meant that way.
“It was done on our channel, and it was to talk about the fiction of the world. I think we were as shocked as everybody else when it started blowing up, because essentially we were teeing up ready for a story beat.
“So again, very sorry for anyone who took it that way. It wasn’t meant that way at all – it was supposed to just be getting ready for a campaign element.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops III is due to be released on 5 November 2015.
