Treyarch's David Vonderhaar: Commentaries Are Lame

David Vonderhaar, Game Design Director at Treyarch, has made it publicly known that "commentaries are lame". That's a pretty big statement considering how much of a positive effect Youtube and big commentators have on the Call of Duty community.

[unchartedxplorer]

Well that's a bit ungrateful, considering how much you tube commentating has done for call duty.

[Wenis]

Probably hasn't done too much actually... considering how much $$$ Activision spends on marketing for COD

[Soldierone]

Commentating allows games to grow....A lot of small games have MASSIVE followings now because big Youtube commentators start playing them.....

[Blacktric]

"Commentating allows games to grow..."

Not true. At least not in this case. Call Of Duty is already a very well known brand, it doesn't need the help of a couple teens' and manchilds' commentary videos to sell better. In fact, in this case, CoD is the one that helps those people since some of them earn enough money to buy a brand new Mercedes.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

But in some rare cases, some games do get a lot of attention because of commentators (mostly indie or very low budget games though like Penumbra, Amnesia, Terraria and so on).

[SilentNegotiator]

But it still gets people excited for COD.

FFS, some days the front page of YT is 50% COD videos.

Do you REALLY think that exposure doesn't get more people buying?

[JohnApocalypse]

I really hate how some people get so much money just posting cod videos on Youtube

[SilentNegotiator]

Why? They obviously add SOMETHING if people watch them.

How does that harm you?

[JohnApocalypse]

Some of them get so much money for doing so little effort

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[SilentNegotiator]

That doesn't answer my question.

HOW DOES THIS HARM YOU?

[majiebeast]

Be glad people are actually posting video's about that turd you call the cod franchise.

Its just the same game repackaged every year i mean they even textures and objects from previous games its pathetic and lazy.

[3-4-5]

Why don't you like it though ? I'm the games are solid and quality....even though I couldn't stand MW3 after day 3, it was the only let down since COD 1 way back in the day.

[HellzRazor]

Solid and quality are things that have nothing to do with COD, the amount of bugs, glitches and patches these games have are way too much for a finished game to have.

Not to mention each cod is a copy n paste from the last game and no dedicated servers for multiplayer.

[taquito]

what a tool, youtube is huge for all games, more so for mainstream gutterslop like cod, all the sheep line up to take a peep.

[Chrono]

I agree

[XboxInnovation]

I called this months ago. This is not going to end good. When you have random commentators who are average at the game making more money uploading videos than the people that create the game, there is going to be problems.

It's only a matter of time until CoD cannot garner ad revenue on channels either not owned by Activision or are not a gaming corporation allowed by Activision (IGN for example)

[GraveLord]

Most commentaries are lame. I prefer shoutcasting.

Taping a match, then recording over it? That's sucks.

[-Gespenst-]

It's pretty ungrateful of him, but they are lame. The same goes for any game.

Commentaries to me are just nothing and they're completely uninteresting. Why do you bother? I don't want to WATCH you play the game while you crack unfunny jokes and generally be an awkward approval seeking youtube shut-in.

Thankfully, I can choose not to watch any of them ever, and that's what I do.

[RickHiggity]

I agree. But if I had developed games, I would praise commentators regardless of whether or not I like them.

[Pathosverdes3]

Watching ENB or Rurik do a Dark Souls session with live commentary is a pleasure. Lame commentaries or childish screaming and trolling in COD is not fun.

[BozoLoco]

Way to alienate your loyal community...