Call of Duty director responds to community harassment on social media
Call of Duty’s game director Joe Cecot appeared in the comments of a popular r/ModernWarfare post to reply to a silly video and ended up revealing why he’s been spending less time in that part of the game’s community.
When passion for something gets taken too far, it paints a poor picture of a community. One of the leaders for the Call of Duty Modern Warfare team made that abundantly clear on the Modern Warfare subreddit when a reply to a silly video soon turned into a discussion about people online taking things way too seriously.
Joe Cecot replied to a post that had made its way to the top of the r/modernwarfare subreddit, showing a silly interaction between players involving a door, a shield, and a little bit of bamboozling.
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Cecot responded a link to the Unexpected subreddit, and was met with a reply expressing a lack of surprise that Cecot and other Infinity Ward representatives avoided ‘this s**tstorm of a subreddit.”
On its surface, the r/modernwarfare subreddit is home to highlights, humorous clips, and the occasional bit of criticism or feedback regarding the latest Call of Duty installment. But Cecot revealed that some users were taking things too far via private messages.
Cecot wrote, “It can be rough. I’d prefer less PMs about my children dying horrible deaths. Spending less time here. Thanks for the thanks. We’re still working crazy hard!”
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To the credit of the subreddit, Cecot was met with replies thanking him and the dev team for their continued support and efforts. Also, a screenshot of Cecot’s reply with a declaration that people who do that kind of thing are “the scum of the earth” catapulted to the very top of the subreddit.
Atrocious behavior and over-the-top negative feedback like the stuff Cecot has received in private messages is unfortunately not uncommon to Modern Warfare.
Ashton Williams, Sr. Communications Manager for Infinity Ward, is constantly berated with negative feedback and personal attacks by some players online.
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Williams has made it abundantly clear that any feedback coupled with insults or attacks gets blocked, and has shut down users who think she should get used to receiving abuse in her position.
Morning. Not feeling that much better. But would like to address something.
Seeing a lot of people saying I need “thick skin” and I “asked for it” by working in my role.
No. No, I didn’t.
— Ashton Williams (@ashtonisVULCAN) November 12, 2019
We get TONS of tweets and emails and comments all over the internet. We cannot respond to every single person.
I refuse to respond to comments that call me names, are racist, and just all around shitty. No one deserves that and we’re all adults.
— Ashton Williams (@ashtonisVULCAN) November 12, 2019
Modern Warfare is not a perfect game, and many members of the community at casual and professional levels believe there are still some glaring issues that need to be resolved. But the community also agrees that people who engage in deplorable behavior like this aren’t real fans, and need to remind themselves that developers are people first and foremost.
