Touchy Treyarch taunts critics

A forum criticising the lack of developer interaction between Black Ops 2 developers and non-Microsoft gamers has attracted a huge responses, including moody replies from Treyarch staff.

The thread, entitled BO2 on PS3: Lack of Developer Interaction and Dialogue, was posted on the official Black Ops 2 forums hours ago and attracted more than 200 replies before it was suddenly deleted.

Conversation in the thread centred on the way Treyarch treats the PS3 community, but escalated quickly when Treyarch's Game Design Director David Vonderhaar got involved.

A PS3 user orginally expressed the opinion that Xbox users got preferential treatment from Treyarch, asking the forum "…why the wall of silence, why the cold shoulder to this section of the community?

Various complaints about Treyarch's lack of community interaction followed, at which point Vonderhaar began to post responses – some of them reasonable, some bristling with rage.

"And you seriously wonder why I don't enjoy talking to you? You've been throwing me under a bus this entire thread," he wrote in his very first post. "It's fine. I am a big boy and a few of you are not so great at making friends. When you think about changing your ways; I'll think about communicating with you more often.

Although posts on forums have never been the height of sensitivity and articulation, you'd expect a slightly more measured response from a Treyarch high-up – it's certainly interesting to get a more-than-usually honest response.

Vonderhaar says that there are people assigned to directly interact with the PS3 community, however they rarely post because there is a strong sense of negativity towards Treyarch among users.

"Many developers, PS3 and otherwise, are on the forums," says Vonderhaar. "They lurk because they are not really supposed to post in the first place; and they lurk because of the negativity that can surround them when they make themselves known.

"If you want developers on the forums and better communication, then clean up and self-police your community better.

Although the thread has since been deleted, there are various links to screenshots available here.