Recently Activision has been criticized for a social media stunt that many found in poor taste. In a series of Tweets meant to act as the lead-in for Black Ops III's storyline, the official Call of Duty Twitter account changed its name to Current Events Aggregate and began to narrate a fictional terrorist attack. Now, a producer at Treyarch has spoken with IGN about the incident and apologized, saying:
"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."
He continued:
"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."
It's hard to imagine that the team behind the stunt were completely unaware of the effect it'd have, given the lengths they went to in order to sell the facade (including Tweeting several unrelated news links before starting the fake terrorist attack narration). For their part, Activision has yet to officially comment on the incident.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III debuts on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 6.
