Activision and Electronic Arts have been in some serious competition over the years, which has been made worse by the close release date proximity of Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. Both camps have had their share of inflammatory comments, with Glen Schofield, Activision General Manager, and Sledgehammer Games head, commenting on the bugs in the Battlefield 3 beta. He has since retracted his statement.
In a now-deleted tweet, Schofield said, when questioned about the number of participants in Call of Duty’s own XP play test:
We had well over a 1000. Infinity Ward has years of experience with the biggest multiplayer game ever. I surely didn’t see bugs like I saw elsewhere.
Within two days of saying that Battlefield 3 feedback has been negative, he has apologized via a Twitter post, which states:
Bad day yesterday. My deepest apologies 4 bugs comment. I know about new engines, been there a dozen times. No disrespect intended.
Glen Schofield has gone on to say on record that Sledgehammer Games has been battling with lots of bugs and glitches during the production of MW3, so he understands the challenge involved with polishing such massive experiences that are under close examination. However, he didn’t say anything about BF3 not being as buggy as he indicated. Truth is, his original statement wasn’t far from the truth. Feedback has leaned toward the negative side, with much of it aimed at the dozens of strange unexplainable bugs that feasted on beta players.
DICE mentioned last week that BF3 won’t suffer from the same issues seen in the beta, but with such little time to spare, it’ll be interested to see if they managed to eliminate them all. We’ll find out soon enough, as Battlefield 3 releases on October 25th.
