The addition of an in-game Theater mode to the original Black Ops sought to take advantage of the growing influence of Youtubers and Twitch streamers. Making it easier to create and upload videos encouraged people to share their favourite moments online, and helped to develop online communities for the game based around these videos and their creators. Now these platforms have a large part to play in the industry and so Treyarch surely must take them into consideration when developing Call of Duty: Blacks Ops 3.
Dan Bunting, the multiplayer director, stated in the latest edition of Official Xbox Magazine that “I’d be lying if I said that [the emergence of video platforms such as Twitch and Youtube] didn’t factor into Black Ops III’s design. Now, we have to think not just about whether our game is fun to play, but also what it’s like to watch.” With all the proposed changes to gameplay and AI in Black Ops 3, it makes sense that they are seriously considering the impact that Youtube and Twitch will have.
Mark Lamia, the studio head of Treyarch has expressed similar thoughts on the subject. He believes that content creators need only be supplied with the proper tools; “our goal is to give the content creators out there better tools so that it’s democratised and then it’s up to the content makers to make compelling content that attracts their audiences so that’s what we’re focused on… developing better tools, more accessible tools and then getting it in their hands and seeing what they do with it.”