The Legacy of Call of Duty

Welcome to the Naavik Gaming Podcast, where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games. We bring together the industry's brightest builders, investors, and thinkers to keep a pulse on current events, dissect emerging trends in games, share lessons learned, and have a great time. This podcast is also part of Naavik's growing ecosystem, which ranges from free and premium research to consulting and advisory services. For more information, visit www.naavik.co. This episode is brought to you by Neon. For the first time in our industry, developers can finally have their own D2C channels to save on app store fees and build closer relationships with players. But, there's a catch. Selling direct means either building complex infrastructure yourself or choosing among legacy providers whose inexperience in games or questionable

reputations pose real risk to your business. Luckily, there's Neon, the D2C platform built for games. As a merchant of record with customizable web shops optimized for conversion and modern APIs that let you use your existing live ops tools, Neon is trusted by some of the biggest names in gaming to help you sell direct without the typical overhead. To start selling direct and finally take control over your full player experience, simply head to neonpay.com or check out the link in the show notes. And with that, let's jump into the episode. Welcome to the Naavik Gaming Podcast. I'm your host, David Taylor. The Call of Duty franchise needs no introduction, but today we're speaking with a leader who has been there since it launched in 2003. So, let's do a quick review. Call of Duty is the best-selling first-person shooter franchise and the second best-selling video game franchise of all time, after Mario and ahead of Pokémon and Tetris. It reportedly surpassed over 500 million

copies sold in 2023, over 30 billion in revenue, and maintains a monthly active user base of 100 million players, according to the Washington Post. Over the years, there's been three primary studios working on it. Infinity Ward created the franchise and the seminal Modern Warfare series. Treyarch established zombie modes in World at War and the popular Black Ops series. And Sledgehammer Games joined later to co-develop titles starting in the 2010s. Today, we're going to dive into Call of Duty's amazing history through the lens of Treyarch. With that, I'm thrilled to be joined by the former studio head of Treyarch, Dan Bunting, who is now the founder of Ready Up Games and a venture partner at 1 AM Gaming. Dan, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Glad to be here. So, we're going to cover a lot of your career over the next hour, but just to kick us off, could you give a introduction on your journey? How did you get into the video game industry? And how did you find yourself at Treyarch back in 2003 when the COD franchise was just getting started? Well, how I So, how I got into games um

was a very meandering path, but um eventually got there. Um you know, as a young kid, of course, I played games like everybody in the '80s. Um Kid Icarus was the first uh an NES game that kind of like got me addicted to really hard games, which I've still I love hard games to this day. Um uh Zelda, Mario, you know, I played them all on my 13-in black and white TV in my bedroom when I was a kid. Um and uh you know, growing up playing games, I never quite, you know, I didn't think of it as a career or a thing that you could do. You know, I kind of grew up with a very traditional sort of upbringing with um you know, go to school, study hard, get good grades, um over perform, and then you know, find a good paying job. Like, I never thought of games, you know? Um when I got to college, um that was when kind of in the in the mid-90s when the id Software explosion happened and I got very hooked on first-person

shooters, Quake 1, Quake 2. Uh, I was really into the mod community mod scene and I was, you know, I would download and play every mod uh, that came out from uh, from the modders, um, the Team Fortress, the original Team Fortress mod was became sort of my go-to game for like 2 years after that. Um, and so, you know, from that point forward I was hooked on on on games, I mean, for for my whole life, but but shooters, um, specifically from kind of college on. Um, when I graduated in the late '90s, I had uh, kind of done a tour around Europe backpacking and such trying to find myself and figure out what I wanted to do with with my life. And I knew that I wanted to do something creative in uh, what I would think of as a sort of like at that point in time a Renaissance art, like something that's multi-disciplinary, um, that involves art, storytelling, uh, engineering, um,

history, you know, everything that you can imagine in terms of the arts coming together to tell stories. And so, I decided I was either going to go to grad school for architecture, I was going to get into film and TV, or I was going to get into video games. Those are my three paths. I didn't set one in stone, but just kind of packed everything I I owned up into a car, drove out to LA because LA was a place that you could do all three of those things, um, and started my journey there. Um, first job I took was uh, in at FX Networks doing, um, kind of part-time work for a while and then got full-time there. Um, that became, you know, 4 years of kind of learning how to be a professional, I guess, um, uh, which was fun, but it wasn't my career uh, ambition and you know, ultimately I I realized to get serious about what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to get into games. So, I just started pounding the pavement. Um it took me about 7 months from start to finish. Um every day I would keep a

journal of whoever whatever network connection I would make. Um you know, it it I would talk to anybody and everybody and I didn't care you know, how executive level or high up they were. I just was I would cold call people. I would try to get warm introductions or whatever I could do. Um and the funny thing is that of all of the uh connections I made over that 7 months, it was actually the very first call that I made that led to the job 7 months later at Treyarch. Um and so, you know, the rest is kind of history. That that was that was how I got in. I mean it was a long it was a lot of interviews. Um at that point in time they were uh really focused on Spider-Man games um and I originally had interviewed with the Spider-Man uh producer. Um but then he referred me to this other project that was a new project um which was called Dead Rush and Dead Rush was an open-world zombie survival horror game which uh had a lot of potential. It was a lot of fun. There was really great

um gameplay mechanics and features in it. Um but ultimately I think the company determined it was too big of a risk and they uh shut down the game in 2004, which was you know, a blessing for me because um I fortu- was fortunate to be then put on the Call of Duty team in uh early 2004. So, um and that was right after the first game launched. So, that was the beginning. That that kind of I guess walks you through my journey. That's amazing and I I feel like that zombie game is going to somehow come back uh later in the story. Yeah. And I also love that you know, you mentioned that you're like passionate about history and you know, then you found yourself at Call of Duty. Like it just sounds like this was meant to be. Yeah, it was definitely it was a dream come true for sure. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay, so so you're at you're at um Treyarch in 2004. Could you take us through your journey at Treyarch as well and and then we'll sort of dive into like a bunch of questions about those

different time periods, but would love to just understand your journey going through uh through through Treyarch. Yeah, well so I joined in 2003. The very first project that I mentioned Dead Rush was a super small team. I think we had like 15 developers um and it was you know, it was it was like scrappy startup land. I mean you didn't get it was a risky kind of new IP. You didn't have the same kind of you know, publishing backing that you would have for a large, you know, proven franchise or anything. So in a lot of ways it was like an indie game um that a startup would do. It was small small team um very scrappy. We had to kind of um you know, figure out how to to do do more that with than uh other teams with less, you know. Um but it was a great great experience for me to just cut my teeth. Um you know, my first one of my first jobs was just to go around to every team member every day and kind of like figure out what was going on, what tasks they were working

on, what was their schedule like, which is super intimidating cuz I didn't know anybody and I was new to the games industry. So I had to go you know, be this like nerdy little kid who's I think in their mind is probably just an annoying. Um but it was really it was a an amazing first experience because it forced me number one to get out of my shell and and and talk to people. Number two, it taught me what everybody on the team did and standing workflows and tasks and how games are put together. Um so I think that you know, the kind of the year one of training wheels was actually a really good way for me to to to start my career because it it gave me a good cross-section of what everybody does and how games are made. Um so that was that was a you know I'm I'm thankful for that experience and and I think that the fact that the game got canceled was a blessing in disguise obviously for me. Were there any things that um sort of set you up to be successful in that role from your past that you can sort of touch on like you know I you

know being able to ask people questions or you know the fact that you had spent a lot of time on mods and got sort of getting an understanding for how how games got made just as a player? I would say that um well there's a number of things. One I kind of you know one of my I guess you know everyone everyone has their own superpowers. One of my superpowers is I I can I tend to spin a lot of plates um and I think part of that's just kind of my background of you know I was a very bookish kid um very you know heavy on school work and and was able like I try you know always try to push ahead on things beyond my you know comfort zone. Um I waited tables in college. That was another one that forced me to like multitask and just like deal with stuff um deal with stress. Um and then in the TV role that I had it was a production role so it was a lot of coordination across a lot of different people a lot of departments um in in

internal and external. You know I was talking to you big producers of TV shows and I was talked up to you know vendors who would drive you know tapes from one place to another. Um so it was just I think like you know all of that kind of multitasking prioritization um mission-driven kind of emphasis is what really helped me establish that strong foundation. That's awesome. Okay so we got a lot of ground to cover between uh you as sort of the the person going around and just checking in on what everybody's working on to co-studio head. So, what were sort of like your progression from there? Like what were the opportunities that came up and I know that the franchise just kept growing, but how did how did you you know move through the ranks and and become the studio head? Um you know, well that's a long one. Um it is it is a very you know any any career path is going to be a a very um

long and and kind of meandering journey. Um I think that on the first project the executive producer of that project had taken a particular interest in me because I was such a hustler and like just try like just trying to get everything done to the best quality as much as I possibly could and just and just like overloading myself with work. Um And I think that really helped me that was probably the the main reason why I was put on the Call of Duty team in the first place cuz it was you know it wasn't like everybody just got moved over. They they did handpick a a select number of people. Um And um I think that you know from there it was you know it was just like I would do anything. I would order food. I would you know I think I you know on that first project I got um my first two employees quote unquote which were like um the the only QA testers internal QA testers on the

project. Um one of whom I brought onto the team and is now you know an art director uh on the weapons and vehicles team at which is amazing. Um And I'm you know I I love him and you know that was part of like that was also part of my career journey was I would always bring people up that I would identify talent. Bring people into the development team and and give them a a safe place to grow and learn and kind of shape the culture alongside the rest of the team. Um and uh you know, so that that next project was uh Call of Duty: United Offensive, which was branded as an expansion pack after the first Call of Duty launched, but it was a really a full game. Um Uh we had joined with the team at uh Gray Matter, which was a smaller um PC dev shop. They had also just had a project canceled. Um and so we kind of we brought together the PC first-person shooter like hardcore gamer shops of

Gray Matter into the console, you know, mass market expertise of Treyarch at the time. I was much more of a, you know, Gray Matter type of person because of coming out of the, you know, the Quake community and and and mods and being super hardcore into first-person shooters. Um so I I like when I moved over to the Gray Matter building, it was like that was the really the beginning for me cuz I just kind of gelled with that team there and and a lot of those team members are still currently the like the director level of uh Treyarch today. So it did eventually, you know, Call of Duty took over as it has done within the larger Activision family. Amazing. So sounds like, you know, you just you know, it was a I think you were there for 18 years and just Yeah. Over the years more more opportunity, more success, and you just sort of kept kept getting more responsibility. Yeah, and it's I mean, you know, a part of it is just

the the under-promise, over-deliver, you know, always trying to just do the best that you possibly can. Um I tend to be a very mission-focused person, so it's like whatever that thing is, whatever the right thing to do for that project is and that team is is where my uh you know, my North Star is going to be. And so I'm just always pushing to make things better. Um and it's, you know, personal life goal to always leave things better than I found them. So, um, that, you know, that kind of motivation I think drove drove me and propelled my career. You know, those first three projects we worked on, each one was done in under a year. So, you know, 2004, 2005, 2006, uh, we shipped games. Yeah. Um, it was a brutal slog. I mean, anybody who makes games, especially at that scale, can understand how, um, you know, especially a multi-platform, global, you know, fully localized, simultaneous launch, how how challenging that can be. Um,

and then, you know, by the time we got to World at War, um, that was a big turning point for us as a as a team at Treyarch, because we were no longer sort of just cranking out like, you know, these second games that are, you know, um, behind or underneath one of the Infinity Ward games, but we were now making, you know, a proper standalone two-year development, where we actually, for the first time, got to utilize the same tools that the Infinity Ward team had been using, the same tech. Um, and so, I think World at War really was where the expression of, uh, Treyarch first came out. Um, it was like, you know, that was our identity. That was our, uh, that was kind of who we were. Uh, and, um, it was dark, you know? It was it was edgy. It it pushed boundaries. It made people uncomfortable. Um, yeah, it was like the first game that had dismemberment, I think. Yes. Yes.

And, you know, and player choice, like some some player narrative choices in the in the mix, um, which became a theme as as time went by. Um, and, you know, we also, as a as a team at Treyarch, you know, also part of our identity was that we um felt like we're underdogs. We felt like we had something to prove. We kind of had a chip on our shoulder. So, we sort of overextended ourselves on our ambitions. Um World at War, we got 2 years to make that game. We're like, "Hey, let's go make a co-op campaign." You know, like not smart. But, you know, that was that was kind of where our head was at. And um so, we built that game, you know, for co-op and, you know, that that that required us to basically take the engine apart and put all the parts, you know, on the uh you know, on the garage floor and then put them back together with networking. Um which was no small feat. And

it also took a long time. So, our first year of development was actually ended up being a basically another 1-year development um because uh so much of the work that went on without having uh co-op campaign, you know, ended up getting thrown away. Um but uh once once the once the co-op stuff had come together and we were and the missions were starting to, you know, get fleshed out better, I think we kind of realized, you know, co-op in a very bespoke roller coaster ride Michael Bay triple-A blockbuster campaign kind of doesn't work. You know, it's like it's very hard to to uh you know, custom tailor an exciting cinematic roller coaster ride experience for four players, you know? Um and uh so, that was that was something that we learned a little bit later in li- in the development process, which ultimately led to the reason that zombies existed was the

need to have a smaller, replayable uh co-op mode you could play with your friends that actually was at the heart of what co-op gameplay was about. Wow. And so, Zombies I'm not answering your questions at all. I'm just kind of talking at this point. no, no. Sorry. I'm glad you I'm glad you brought up zombie mode. I was uh when I was in college, I played zombie mode with my my soccer teammates uh over and over again seeing how far we could progress through through the levels. Uh how many I'm trying to remember the name of the guns. There's like the the uh Wunderwaffe. Mhm. Yeah. Wunderwaffe. The yeah, the I mean, the ray gun is the one that just like stayed That was That was um That was one of those uh guns that was you know, it was kind of kitchy retro '50s style sci-fi, but very much fit the era and um you know, I don't There was not really a

a strong narrative thread or universe around zombies when it first came out. That was the thing that sort of came together with you know, it the the the the the motive itself had only existed because individuals from every department just put in extra work to make it happen. Um and so, all of those sort of individual contributions that came together helped to shape what the identity of zombies was. And then as time went by, as more content was released, you saw this um the the community reactions to all of those little pieces, and they started forming their own narratives, their own hypotheses, and there was a very conspiratorial kind of thread to all of the community you know, talk about it. Um and which we loved. I mean, like as developers are you know, especially a few members of our team were really really really into that um kind of MK Ultra sort of vibe stuff, and and seeing where the community was going with it, and then started playing with the community and adding

like it was it was this feedback loop. They would come up with conspiracy theories, we'd say, "Oh, that looks like a fun one to to with. Let's bring Let's So, we'd we'd feed into that conspiracy theory for the next one. And it kind of went on like that through the through the four DLC releases of World at War. Um until you got to Der Reise the end where where I think a lot of fans, you know, really think about that as as a uh as a big change like a big point for the solidification of of that uh narrative universe. I'm I'm curious about the the like transition. Do you think that the reason why you guys came up with zombie mode was because you had worked on a uh a game that was sort of similar or was are they completely detached and like there wasn't like a oh, we kind of already designed this before. It was completely detached. I know it seems very much like, oh, that was a you know, a a good synthesis of an earlier game that Treyarch was working on, but um the developers the most of the developers who were building zombies had actually come from

Gray Matter. Um Not all, but most. Um and um so, I think that that uh that that thread of what uh Dead Rush had been there were a little bits that came into it because some of the engineers had worked on Dead Rush on the team. Um but for the most part it was really I think, you know, the origin I mean, it's been out it's been talked about before, but the the origin of of the actual zombie part of it inspiration had had come out of a mocap session where they were doing motion capture for kind of walking wounded soldiers. Soldiers that just come out or shell-shocked. They just come out of an explosion. So, they as they were hobbling around, they looked like zombies. The character models had you know, were bloody and and dirty and um and uh they were hobbling like zombies and that kind of I think started the the foundation of of that idea.

It's fascinating cuz when I there I think reason why it resonated with me so much was cuz I had played Return to Castle Wolfenstein. And so like the idea of Nazi zombies was like already like there and I it was like a op- opportunity to like re-engage with Yeah. with that concept. Um And that Gray Matter team had had worked on uh Return to Castle Wolfenstein as well. Well, there you go. I knew there was a connection here. Yeah. Uh cool. So, I think we should Let's keep going. Let's talk about Black Ops because that obviously has turned into um that sort of came out came off of World at War. I'm curious like what were the It was It was a It was following Modern Warfare uh which had been this, you know, huge moment. I I played that game for hundreds of hours. Um and so you sort of you you talked about how like you guys were were looking at Infinity Ward. And it almost felt like

at that point it was like, "Oh, who's going to like uh make the make the better game?" Black Ops seemed to like go in a different direction, carve out its own identity. And that's sort of gone on to be its own um you know, sub-franchise. I'm curious to understand like what was that process like? How did How did um Black Ops become such a distinct game from from Modern Warfare? I think any I mean any group of developers is going to bring their own sensibilities to the table. Um especially in a um younger team like we were at the time. Um because you know, you you haven't you're not experienced enough to get kind of infused with some of like business knowledge, I guess. You know, when thinking about Think about it as a franchise. You were thinking about it as your game. Um and um and I think that that kind of rawness and um you know, the magic that comes out of that I think is what helps to shape that identity. Um

World at War, like I said, was the beginning of our expression of our our identity and our our tastes and our um uh our kind of, you know, fictional preferences. And you started to see the the beginning the the the what we called mind later. Um but mind became the the linchpin of the whole Zombies ethos or sorry, Zombies, sorry. Black Ops ethos. Um and uh you know, the introduction of Reznov in World at War was such an iconic character. Um I actually did a little talk about this um at USC not too long ago, but um because it's such an interesting like the whole story around Reznov is really cool. But I'm down to take a take a listen. Let's do it. Oh, man. It's it's a long one, but uh you know, it was Gary Oldman uh was the with the voice actor for Reznov. Um but his the the very introduction of him in World at War was just such a memorable moment in that game because

you wake up at the beginning of the mission, you're you don't know what's going on. It's sort of like you're coming in and out of consciousness. There's these black crows and dead bodies around you and you see German soldiers you're walking by. You're inside this fountain. And you're you start crawling. Once the player gets control, you start crawling. And as you're crawling, you see the the kind of German soldiers walking past. And one of the dead bodies just turns to look at you and gives you a whisper. But he whispers with his missing finger, which that's just like to me I that I remember like the the putting together of that moment was just such an iconic thing. Um and I like it still gives me chills just thinking about it. But um thinking about like the history of him after that and then that that was the introduction. We had no idea at the time what he was going to turn into. Um and then you know, you learn that the missing finger was because, you know, he's a he's a sharpshooter. He's a sniper, but he um he had his finger shot off. And so, that's why he's giving you

now the sniper rifle. And that was And so, then you have to take out all of these guards with the sniper rifle. Um and it be That was the the setup for the snipe, you know, sniper level. And um uh it was just I don't know. Like it was just such a cool cool way to introduce that character. And and he became um so popular. Like everyone loved him on the team. Um and of course, we had to bring Gary Oldman back. So, it was almost like Reznov uh the character had to um you know, be the reason that Black Ops existed. You know. Um and so, you saw Black Ops carrying the same themes forward, the dark themes, the the mindfuckery, the uh you know, some of the MK Ultra stuff that crept into uh these dark CIA experiments on human psychology. Um And it was just a lot of fun material to play with. Um you know, and on that project I was focused a lot more on multiplayer

than campaign at the time. I had um you know, I had had produced a handful of the campaign missions in World at War. Um but I really wanted to do multiplayer more you know, first and foremost. So, Black Ops was the first one was really the first time that multiplayer team as a core came together uh to work as one unit where everyone had, you know, was sort of uh you know, on the same team working towards the same mission. Um From a multiplayer perspective, we had a different we had a different philosophy, I think, uh than than Infinity Ward team did. You know, with their the Modern Warfare game was very, very lethal. You know, you could sneeze at a player and they're going to die. Um and so it really was a game of who get who sees the other player first. Um we wanted to have um not to say that like we were influenced by Halo or anything, but but

there were some games that had higher um time to kill and they you know, there's a certain thing that happens, it's a dance that happens in those combat encounters where you get an extra chance to get to break away and have a longer engagement. And we felt like those longer engagements and that second chance of being able to break away and and circle back around and outflank the other guy, outsmart the other guy was fun and that that would be a more, you know, that was just a more interesting and exciting way to play the game and so that was where Black Ops 1 departed a little bit from Modern Warfare. We had a higher time to kill. Um it was a bit chunkier combat. Um Yeah. But um definitely I used uh I I remember the thing that I remember about uh Black Ops is just using a silent shotgun and just sprinting around and and getting into really close combat because for that reason cuz like because you could survive long enough to get close enough

to use the shotgun, it like yeah, it it was unique from in that sense from from Modern Warfare where it was like yeah, you just use the heartbeat sensor Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Um I'm curious about like during that time period were there any uh you know, design or technology trends that were enabling these games to come through? Like were you guys seeing technology that was not around previously that you were then introducing into the games? Uh that's probably another one of those areas where um we you know, just not knowing what we don't know uh let us to making very kind of ambitious decisions about things. Um you know, we had introduced the emblem editor. Um we'd introduced the theater mode. Um We were very into our team and the DNA

of our team was very much you know, massively into social systems and um and building a you know, uh tighter social weave around the game. And that that drove us to to build a lot of these kind of you know, the theater system for example didn't exist in the game. The technology to do it was kind of there, but um in terms of Remind me what the theater system was? So theater was the fact every single game was recorded from a data point of view. So it's not video recording, it's recording the data the positioning and location of all the um entities in the world at any point in time and um so it would record that as a data chunk would then get stored. You could stream it back down to your system to to watch um replays. Um so you could have an entire match, you know, would be replayable. We put controls for fast forward, rewind, uh free camera controls. You know, the the features that were around that were really robust over time. I mean, over the next three games

we added the ability to attach cameras to objects. So like if you had an amazing combat axe kill, you could attach the camera to the combat axe and it would follow it to the kill. So people can make really cool videos using uh theater. Um and that was totally outside of core gameplay. I mean, there was very little reason, I guess, for us like logically to do it because it wasn't core to the game. Well, I guess there was, you know, YouTube was coming up around that time, right? So true. Yeah. And then with Black Ops 2 we integrated uh Twitch streaming functionality and YouTube streaming functionality directly into the game. Um because at that time Twitch was not big yet. Um Uh so we were able to actually get the Twitch team to very heavily focus on feature development just to make our game stream their service directly out of it or directly out from our game into their service, I should say. Um

and you know that like they weren't a really it wasn't a really big platform at the time. I think they had just set up Twitch outside of Justin.tv, you know, very you know, recently and um but because they were a small team that was also startup and also very eager to make a name for themselves, they bent over backwards to help, you know, get their streaming service connected to Black Ops 2. Um so that was another one of those examples of just pure social features totally outside the game, not core of the game, but it was things that we were passionate about and trying to be kind of cutting edge technology-wise. Um I mean there's a million pieces of tech I could go into, but those are just some of the ones that just top of mind. Got it. On on the design side, so like I've noticed that the maps have gotten smaller over time. Like I remember with with Black Ops they were still pretty expansive in terms of, you know, all of the all of the it Turbine was old man Turbine. That was what we called it in in in-house because

it was such a large map that it took forever to compile and and build for So anytime we were trying to ship the game in Black Ops and and we're in like I don't know, 2:00 in the morning trying to get the game out the door to first party submission and it's like there's a bug in Turbine. It was like, "Oh my god." You know, you had to wait cuz then you had to wait for that entire map to build before you could get the next game build out. It was just that was such a nightmare. But um yes, they they were much larger earlier on. Um, that we took a very data-driven approach to, you know, kind of optimize. I think there are if you if you follow data just 100% purely, it's always going to, you know, over-index on just the single thing that people always want. And that can be self-defeating because then people will get bored. They'll get it'll feel grindy. They're not getting enough variety to their experience. So, we didn't always just, you know, I mean, everybody would want Nuketown or

Shipment, you know, or Rust. Like that I know you want to say Yeah, I mean, it's the most popular map of all time in the franchise. Um, but uh, and it is for good reason, you know, it's it's just constant action. There's never a there's never a moment of downtime, really. Um, but that would it's so, like, why do you think that's so hard to replicate? Cuz you wouldn't think of Nuketown as like that very, you know, complex map to design. And yet, like, I yeah, they can't I at least in my experience playing it over the last, you know, 6 months, like there really isn't a map that that uh, sort of is that comp- is as compelling as that. Um, I mean, Nuketown has its own experience or its own uh, story to tell. That was um, another part of that talk that I gave at USC, but um, it's uh, it actually

there was a design bible for how to build really good Call of Duty levels. And you could go through and, you know, it's well documented over like 60 pages or something. Like all the different, you know, rules. And then those got refined over the years, of course, through iteration, but um, but if you go and you actually looked at the rule the rules of level design for COD at the time, and you look at Nuketown, you could check all the boxes. Um, and that was the goal in that map in the first place was we wanted to have a very small map that was like Shipment but more structured. So, we wanted to have a Shipment experience with a more viable, you know, kind of three-lane um checks all the boxes of of the gameplay rules kind of map. And that was what, you know, that was that was the slug in our schedule that Nuketown filled. Um that um And so, yeah, so every, you know, it was the thing that was difficult with that map because it was so small,

um and we did, you know, different art styles of it over every game release, um one of the biggest challenges always line of sight because every it was so tightly constructed so that every line of sight was controlled. If you change the geo even a little bit, you would open something up that was unintended, you know? So, that was always like a big challenge with that map and and redoing reimagining it over the years was always making sure that those lines of sight were still covered. But yeah, every little detail and nuances conforms to the rules of the rulebook of what makes great COD map design. Got it. Which is the counterpoint to what you were saying just before we launching to this, which is like you can't follow you can't just follow like what the data says, you know, directly. Yeah. Um I'm curious to All right, so so what are some maps or what are some examples of things that emerged that weren't data-driven or maybe didn't broke broke some rules that, you know, that you know, prove the rule?

Oh man, rule breakers. Um we had a lot of rule breaker maps. I would say that um there was never a map where you could break, you know, too many rules at once, you know, like a lot of times what we would do is say, "Hey, what makes this map interesting is we'll break one rule. We'll do something that we don't normally do or doesn't fit within the construct of of the game. Um and uh you know, like I think about some of the inner map interactive objects that we would put in like radiation from Black Ops 1, you had the big bay doors that could open and close. You had a conveyor belt that that players could could walk up onto. You know, a lot of kind of little things like that that really were not part of core gameplay, but just made the made the map spicy. Um Summit had the the hanging gondola that you could jump in. Wasn't super useful, but it was kind of fun and cool when you got a you know, when you got a kill from it. It felt pretty awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Um so I'm curious about like the competitive environment. So, you know, Battlefield went in the completely opposite direction of of going from small scale to massive scale. Um how did you guys approach your competitors over the years? Did you look at what Halo was doing and and what Battlefield was doing or were you really just focused on on your uh and building the best possible version of your game? I mean, we play you know, we're gamers at heart, so we all play games. We all look at the other games that are coming out um especially shooters. But I don't remember ever a time really looking at what they were doing and being like, "Oh my god, we have to go compete at that level." Like we just always had our thing. And I feel like the uh the battle between COD and Battlefield uh was really more of a media manufactured battle because I don't ever feel like internally that was a thing that we

worried about. They were just two such different games. You know, they it was they were both first-person shooters. They both had guns. They both had military themes and that was about where it ended. Um you know, beyond that you had very large-scale vehicular combat with heavy heavy on destruction versus very small scale kind of arcade-y combat um which was you know low time to kill very different game experiences. So I just it was not something that we really worried about. I think the only time we ever felt um there was one Halo launch that happened uh the week before one of our game launches. I want to say it was Black Ops 3 which definitely did soften the week one launch but it picked up and then some in week two. So it was like it it never really was a thing. All right. You know. What do you So what do you think I'm curious what your perspective is on why Call of Duty sort of took the the

lead spot and why you know Halo and and Battlefield haven't haven't uh been able to keep up. Are there any insights that you can share on what made Call of Duty so you know so much more successful? I I mean I would probably boil it down to sticking to your knitting like instead of trying to chase other people. Um once you start trying to chase competitors then you've already kind of lost the race. I think um with Call of Duty it was a very like I said we never we were never trying to copy what the other shooters were doing. We were trying to do our own thing. Um in fact we would be more interested in what other non-shooter genre games were doing in terms of systems and mechanics and ideas. Um and I think that once you started to see the other franchises I guess I mean I don't want to Yeah, I wasn't there working on them so I can't tell you but uh when you started to see them

drift a little more towards trying to compete against COD or or emulate some of the Call of Duty feel or or vibe or style. Um I think that actually weakened their efforts. But they've always been great games. I mean, I was a huge Halo before I got into the games industry, um I was connecting LANs for Halo 1 and using a tunneling app just so I could play online, um because they didn't have native online support. So, to play multiplayer online, you had to use these like these basically hacked Xbox consoles and and a tunneling app on your PC. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess so Halo was maybe maybe was in the top spot like earlier on. Um and and so and then Call of Duty just has been so consistently successful year over year. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on like what uh on what's been what's enabled Call of Duty to have that long-term

franchise retention. Like, why are do players come back every single year to to play the next Call of Duty? Um this is a couple things. Uh one of the things that I would always say about Call of Duty is it's a greatest hit hits franchise. Um It was not the one blazing trails on new features and mechanics necessarily. Um a lot of them would be you know, ideas that were maybe smaller ideas that were done in independent games or smaller games that seemed really cool, um and they would build a following. I mean, you look at game modes like Prop Hunt, you know, um and uh you know, that would get adopted in its own sort of Call of Duty Call of Duty twist into into the game. And over the years, you know, of course what that means is now you have something for everybody. You've got large-scale Battle Royale, you have extraction shooter, you

have, you know, 2v2 small-scale PvP action, you You zombies, you've got, you know, wacky game modes like prop hunt, and everything in between. So, it's it's just um a part of it's just like always kind of you know, we always were driven by this idea of surprising and delighting the fans and bringing new new experiences so that um there's different variety that people can enjoy and and attract new audiences. That was one thing. I mean, like that the core though, of course, it just the feel of it was nobody could replicate the feel, the snappiness, the fast pace, the the immediate reaction. I mean, we really leaned into the moment-to-moment and and making sure that player feedback systems were super dialed in. Yeah. I still would say like as advisor to other companies, I'm like like player feedback systems, number one. Like get that right. You've got to you've got to do everything, go the extra mile to give every little piece of feedback to players at every at every step of the way. So, that when you refer to player feedback, those are like the sort of the pop-ups that are real-time

Sounds, animations, UI, yeah, controller rumble, just every little um piece of sensory, you know, input that you can give back to players for doing things in the world and interacting with the world. Yeah. I I I distinctly remember, I think it was Modern Warfare 2 when like the it was just like this there was just like an uh never-ending roll of feedback of like you did this, you did that, you did this, you did that. It's like, all right, cool. It was comical at some point. Yeah. Uh awesome. All right, so I want to take some time to sort of like, you know, we've been talking about the the history, but I I'm curious about personal reflections on on, you know, Call of Duty and and your your legacy there. Like what what stands out to you as your proudest accomplishments of your time over over the 18 years that you were at Treyarch? I mean, to be honest, my proudest accomplishment is when we um looked at

just our internal um team member retention numbers and saw that um 50% of our studio had been there for 10 years or more. Um Wow. So, that above anything else that we did, I think the fact that we had a really great culture that kept people together and motivated them to to stick with it game after game after game. Um we were always, you know, a part of it was um the culture of the studio. But, it was the fact that we did feel like underdogs, so we always were trying to prove ourselves. That can bring people together. Um the fact that we, you know, we're trying to constantly innovate and and do different things in the franchise even though conventional wisdom would be to just keep iterating and adding more of what you're already doing well. Um So, we were big risk-takers. Um the fact that we had good workflows, I think, you know, the way that people worked together was really was really productive. Um

Constant playtesting and feedback sessions. We would um I mean, we I think at one point we had like three play tests different play tests with different groups happening every day of the week. Um and um it's just that was just kind of ingrained in the culture is you're constantly playing your game, you're constantly talking about your game, you're constantly defining what's the next thing you need to do to make it better. That's amazing. And it's really interesting to hear that cuz it's in stark contrast to like what I think a lot of people hear about uh you know, Activision Blizzard and the culture there. Like it seems like you guys had carved out a a distinct culture within the the broader parent company. Yeah, I mean, I think um that you know, the original kind of the whole business model around Activision um from the early days was this independent studio model. Um you know, and that I think with every large company that matures over the years that it may not be able to be

sustainable for forever, but that is definitely what built, I think, the success there. Um, and so each studio did have a lot of flexibility, freedom, autonomy to carve their own path and define their own culture. Um, build games the way that it made the most sense for their team to build them. And, um, I think, you know, a lot of that kind of that autonomy is what allowed it to be a unique place, a unique culture. Yeah. I mean, it's it's wild to to just think about like you had been there for 18 years, half the team had been there for more than 10 years. Like you guys must have all just been like a family. I mean, you're not supposed to say that your coworkers are family members, but I feel like if if if it if it applies to anything, it would be like that team, right? Very much so. Um, you know, I I'm not going to, you know, sugarcoat it. There was it was hard. Um, there were weeks that I remember

you know, for months on end I'd be putting in 100 hours plus a week. Um, I think the longest time I spent in the office without going home was that I was into the fourth day. Um, so it's not and it's not like So there's there's definitely there's plenty of pain points, but it was something that we at least always were trying to improve and it did improve over the years. From game to game, every game I think got better. Um, and you know, I know you know, the in the last couple of projects I worked on, it felt like it was way, despite the fact that it was also like I think the standards were a a lot higher if you looked at it purely relative to previous projects, it was it was heads and shoulders above where we had been in terms of like you know, crunch culture and things like that. What What enables that? Cuz, you know, presumably the reason why crunch culture exists is because you're delivering a

product in a very specific time period. And if you could if you could do it more efficiently, everyone would would love to to do it. So, how how are you guys able to sort of adapt? It starts at top. I mean, that's the number one thing. You do have to have a It is a leadership um challenge. Um and a lot of that is it's about um discipline, development discipline. Mhm. Uh you need to be willing to cut features constantly. Um which I think is hard for a lot of teams. Mhm. But if you can constantly cut based on an ongoing uh assessment of scope, um you know, some teams I've I've heard a lot of disparaging of like production when it comes to creative game development teams, but I was a huge supporter of production. I think that production was the glue that made everything work just so much more efficiently. Um and, you know, allowed

developers to actually be able to add more polish to their features um because a lot of that kind of like overhead and and uh you know, otherwise challenging interactions with other team members would be uh kind of bogging them down. Um but we had a really just world-class production team. And um always keeping a finger on the pulse of development and understanding where we were, how much would it cost us to do whatever XYZ thing was. Um you know, and they they weren't making the decision, they were just advising the leadership, but it it's that that that awareness of what what state are we in at any moment in time. And are we right-sizing our development to make sure that we're not going to get underwater. Is there any are there any feedback loops in order to like cut features? Like you can quickly test something and see if it's going to be valuable to players? If it's not fun within the first two to

three iterations, then it's um going to be very hard to make it fun. Got it. So So and is that internal testing or Yeah. Yeah, just it just with the team. Got it. Cool. Um okay, so I want to start a transition into forward-looking a bit well and I want to also hear more about what you're working on today. Um but before we we get into that, one last question just on the COD franchise. When you look at, you know, the next 10 years, are there any sort of key like are there any key challenges you see for the franchise or uh do you think that, you know, this this franchise is just here forever? So I'm speaking purely as an outside observer at this point. Um I think that it's you know, it's going to be important for the franchise to maintain uh a certain amount of nimbleness um because there's a lot of disruption happening right now. The industry is I mean, across the industry, it's very

we're we are in the midst of a just disruptive moment and um there's a lot of factors going into that from AI to um you know, lack of funding to uh publishers not knowing how to, you know, kind of navigate the current market to uh otherwise kind of random indie hits becoming the the the big games of the year. Um I just think that there is uh there's a lot of uncertainty that's happening right now and um I think it's always going to be harder for incumbent franchises that are large and um and and kind of like you know, just developer development heavy to be able to navigate change in that way. So, I think that's the big thing is just being able to be aware of what's happening around and be able to constantly be able to adapt. I mean, still nobody, you know, you you

still see a lot of games coming out where people will try them and they go back to COD. COD is still a big staple for most players that are, you know, in into that genre. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Okay, so sort of in the in a similar vein, so now you're a venture capitalist, uh you know, what are the things that you're most excited about in the in the video game industry? Well, in a lot of ways I've gone 180° from where I was. You know, I was I was buried deep into development um where in a very insular bubble for many many years. Um and then uh on the outside it's the complete it's just a different world. Um but I've been having so much fun because it is so different. You know, 20 years 20 years doing one one thing a certain way and then now the last 3 years doing a completely different thing um has been really rewarding for me. Um I I love working with other developers, especially startups because it reminds me of um it reminds me of where we, you know,

what I went through in the early days of my career um with those, you know, early teams. Um and it's, you know, having that 23 years now of hindsight to be able to um to help other people do things better um is is very satisfying to me. Um We have We have a lot of uh entrepreneurs who listen to the podcast, so I'm just kind of curious to know what are some of those uh those pitfalls that you're helping entrepreneurs navigate? What are some of the common pitfalls you see? Uh I think I mean, one of the things is that people, especially they've come out of AAA or come out of large established operations, um, don't realize even if they get a lot of funding, how hard it is to go from zero to one. And, um, everybody who goes into that space needs to think of it as like they don't have any money. They're scrappy. They're punching above their weight. They are doing everything that they can to, um,

outperform. Um, because that's what you have to do. Um, so that's one thing is just even if you have a decent amount of funding, like don't act like you have a decent amount of funding. Development is unpredictable. There's always going to be something that comes up that derails derails your your plan. Um, I mean, every single one. I've never been on a project that didn't have a derailing moment. You know, or multiple. Um, and, uh, so I think like being prepared for the storms is an important part. Um, understanding that there are smarter ways to do stuff. Uh, you know, I think and I've kind of, you know, I've had this conversation recently with some of my friends and peers. Um, if you are a you know, very senior veteran at a development studio that's been managing people for a long time. If you haven't gotten your hands dirty, it's going to be very very hard for you to adapt to startup life. Um, the the the very the most experienced people in the

industry who are also successful at startups are able to get in and still work with their hands. Um, still do stuff, still build things. Um, cuz you do have to wear a lot of hats as an entrepreneur. Uh, as a startup. I mean, think about it like you know, you're probably three games away from being at a at a little bit more settled place that's closer to what you came from. Um, and that's kind of how you have to set your mind to it. What do you mean by your three games away? So, you know, your first game is going to be even though you've learned a lot in in your past life or whatever your career has been, um it's going to be very different and it's going to be a lot of headache. Um you're setting up your your tech base, you're setting up your processes and pipelines. You may have new tools that you're using that didn't exist before. You've got maybe different people in the mix. There's less people. Um you probably don't have all of the advanced, you know, like build systems that help you optimize your build processes and QA processes and all the things that can

basically drive efficient game development. And so, you have to rebuild all that stuff. And it's never going to happen in one game. It's going to be like I mean, that's like I generally think three games is about the the time it takes to get to a much more stable place where where your systems are refined, your people are much more comfortable working together, and you're just kind of firing on all cylinders. It's interesting. Yeah, I I was com- I'm coming from the publishing uh angle and I was like, "Three games? Like That's too many games." Yeah. We need it now. I know. That's but it it and I think it's important for publishers to understand that, you know, there it's a messy It's a messy business. How do I'm curious your perspective on just the difference between venture capital funding and publisher funding? Like uh are you think there's merits to both or what do you think the funding model for the future is?

Um everybody's going to Everyone's trying to figure it out right now. Um everyone's going to have hot takes about this. Um I you know, I I don't want to give you a my hot take per se, but I can talk about kind of what the landscape looks like. Um you know, basically it breaks down into two categories. You have equity and you have debt. That's kind of how Those are the two ways that you can finance any of these ventures. Um VC is always focused is ten been focused on equity. You know, which means that you're you're you're buying stakes in a company early on, which then gives them money to fund their development, to bring the product to market, blah blah blah. You hope that down the line there's going to be an acquisition or an IPO, some kind of exit event. Um that's the only way that VC exists. That's the only That's the only thing that makes sense for equity at all. Um so I think for that model um to actually work better in our industry, um we need more M&A activity. So we need

the the industry itself needs to mature where there's enough big players out there that are competing at the highest levels um and are opportunistically going out and and and buying teams that are going to complement their uh brand or product lineup or skill set or technology. Um and I feel like at the moment and and you know, I'm not tapped into every single like M&A activity in in the industry like some of the later stage folks are, but um there are uh from my perspective, there's not enough M&A um to sustain the influx of venture capital that's that's come into the games in the last call it eight years. Mhm. Um maybe it will get there eventually. I think we're definitely not in a place for it right now, but I'm hoping in the next few years you'll start to see it spin up again. Um so that's that's the kind of like the venture capital equity side. Then on the debt side, you have, you know, various

models. You've got, you know, publishers will, you know, do um dev fun dev financing, which is basically just uh you know, like a rev share deal. Like effectively, it's a loan. It's like, "Here's a bunch of money. Um we're going to take it back first out of your out of your first sales until we get to a a recoup point, and then, you know, you're going to have some sort of trailing percentage beyond that of of how much, you know, revenue share you get. Um that model is the is the the longest and most standard in our industry, right? Um and I think that in the past though it's it's been not very developer-friendly, which is why you see so many developers trying to spin out and do their own things. Um And so the marketplace needs to be more competitive. I think there needs to be more publishers. You you are seeing a little bit of this happening right now where there's there's sort of micro publishers coming out. There's different models of publishers coming out. There's shadow publishing like, you know, what Midwest is games is has been doing and talking about. Um there

know shadow publishing. What is that? Well, it's it's a it's sort of like uh um publishing for hire. It's not about rev share. It's about services. Okay. If that makes sense. Um And so um I think that that model needs to evolve, but it's not going to evolve from some, you know, grand, you know, person saying this thing. It's it's going to evolve because there's competition in the marketplace. Um and so I I do hope that there's more publishers that can start up. That more publishers can be effective at different scales and they can, you know, like I I love seeing when small publishers can have a big outsized hit. I mean, you look at kind of like Black Myth this last year. Um and um you know, PM games is is hot right now, right? Like growing. Um Just talked to them the other day. It was very cool to kind of like hear their journey and how they've gotten to where they are. Um And so I think that you need to have a a much more competitive publishing ecosystem for for all of that to, you

know, kind of be a healthier industry. Um I think what you're seeing between those two models is and it will it also there's other things like, you know, venture debt and other kind of financing models that are, you know, like credit or whatever, but um those are the basically the two. You're seeing a little bit of experimentation on both sides. Um, so publishers are being more having making more strategic investments. Um, it meaning like they're buying an earlier equity stake with the uh, in in as a part of that deal, they will take first right of refusal for publishing. So they kind of you know, that's sort of a a way for them to uh, protect the the long tail upside while also um, making sure that they're bringing in capital return in the short term. Um, and then you see some VCs that have pivoted to you know, dev financing or more like a publishing model. Um,

and I think really what the fundamentals are is that you just to get investment in games and game studios, you have to return capital. That's basically, you know, that's like the bottom line. And are you returning enough capital at a good enough pace to where people are interested, you're bringing in a lot of outside investors or the the capital's flowing, there's more and more investment. And so, you know, we need to find a model as an industry where we're returning value to investors on a much more regular basis. Um, and um, you know, there's a number of ways to do that. You could start to do blended deals like I mentioned where, you know, a publisher might make a strategic equity investment and then they do a publishing deal for for rev share. Um, VCs can do that as well. They can blend, you know, if if they if they set up a model where that's that's kind of that blended model is how they operate, that would I think return could could return a lot more value to investors. Um, I think companies need to issue dividends more, um, which I don't you know, I haven't talked to many folks that do that, but maybe it's out there.

Um, so I think that like, you know, long term we have to we're going to all have to kind of evolve a little bit. I don't think that venture pure venture capital in the traditional sense works very well in games, at least not right now, because there's not enough M&A to to justify all of these venture bets. Well, now I just want to know what your hot take is, but I won't I won't force you to to tell us. What's the best way for for folks to follow you and and follow your journey from from here then? I mean, I mostly I don't do a lot of social media, honestly, but LinkedIn is is where I probably deal most do most you know, communicating with the industry um at large. Awesome. But I'm I'm not a I'm not a very I'm not a frequent poster, so just heads up on that. offended if he takes a while to get back to you. That's right. Oh my god, it's my inbox, my messages are a nightmare. Um it's like 20 a day. I can't I just can't

keep up, you know. Well, it's been a privilege to have you on the podcast. I'm glad you responded to my email to to be on this and thank you so much for having me. Thanks for teaching us all of that Call of Duty today. Yeah, I mean, I just I you know, my my goal and what I enjoy doing at this point in my career is helping other people. And that's it. So um I just you know, I love to be able to share whatever stories I can that are going to help other people uh be more successful in their careers. Awesome. So if if uh if you're listening, make sure to share with as many people as possible so they can get all of the the juicy insights that Dan shared with Thanks. If you enjoyed today's episode, whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app, make sure to like, subscribe, comment, or give a five-star review. And if you want to reach out or provide feedback, shoot us a note at [email protected] or find us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Plus, if you want to learn more about what Navic has to offer, make sure to check out our website www.navic.co. There, you can sign up for the number one games industry newsletter, Navic Digest, or contact us to learn about our wide-ranging consulting and advisory services. Again, that is www.navic.co. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you in the next episode.