Robert Bowling

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Robert Bowling
Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling
Aliases	Fourzerotwo (402) Stealth Clown
Nationality	American
Affiliations	U.S Army Infinity Ward (formerly) Midnight Society (formerly)
Rank	Former Creative Strategist (Infinity Ward) Co-Founder (Midnight Society) Studio Head (Midnight Society)
Gender	Male
Status	Alive
Birth	May 3
Hair	Brown
Eyes	Blue

"FUCK YOU LAST STAND!"

— Bowling in regards to Last Stand's removal

Robert Bowling, also known by his username fourzerotwo or 402, is Infinity Ward's former Creative Strategist and Community Manager. Any official information regarding Infinity Ward's games in the Call of Duty franchise was released through him. Robert Bowling has mentioned that before getting involved with video games, he worked in Music and Print; starting up his own company at the age of 14, creating a magazine and playing games with a friend. In 2003, he had also enlisted in the U.S. Army before getting involved with Infinity Ward. On November 7th, 2008 before the release of Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War, Robert Bowling made a post on his blog demanding Senior Producer at Activision Noah Heller to stop comparing Call of Duty: World at War to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare during interviews, explaining that the game "can stand on it's [sic] own merits". Bowling was also annoyed by Heller's remark that in previous Call of Duty games, bolt-action rifles never killed in one hit - something that Heller claimed Treyarch to have rectified in Call of Duty: World at War. Bowling explained that bolt-action rifles "are one hit kills in every Call of Duty we (Infinity Ward) made", referring to him as "Senior Super Douche Noah Heller", and urged interviewers to "talk to someone who actually works on the Dev Team at Treyarch and knows what the fuck they're talking about." He resigned from his position on March 26th, 2012, and later admitted in a response on Twitter that he was unhappy with the slow evolution of the series, saying "Too much 'pew pew' not enough new new". Later on Robert would be vocal against issues surrounding Activision's brutal stance towards community mod projects like H2M, claiming that much of the talent from Infinity Ward also used to be modders.

On December 14th, 2021, Bowling announced the founding of a new game studio, Midnight Society, with former Sledgehammer Games developer, Guy Beahm, also known as Dr. Disrespect. The studio would launch a promotional campaign involving a free collectible NFT known as a CLAW Patch, tying into the lore for their unannounced project. They would then allow users who minted a CLAW Patch & linked their socials to essentially pre-order the game via a paid drop of collectible NFTs known as Variants. After this, Midnight Society invited minters of the Variant NFTs to come to briefings about the company to learn more about their debut title before announcements went public. Eventually the game was titled DEADROP & it was meant to be a battle-royale style game with a twist, a focus on vertical gameplay, & the loot you carry out with you could potentially inherit some real world value due to it's NFT integration. DEADROP released via early access on their website & the game would recieve a few playable updates available to those who had purchased a Variant. They also released a few batches of DLCs that added more collectible NFT skins & loot boxes for players to open to mint even more unique collectible NFT skins. However, the game never really took shape, it never had proper pay2earn mechanics, & it never had proper trading outside of certain niche crypto spaces.

Eventually Midnight Society decided to cut ties with Guy entirely & removed a DLC package in DEADROP containing a license plate with his streaming moniker, as well as his iconic Lamborghini. They offered refunds to anyone who bought the package hoping to support Guy & the response was overwhelming enough that it caused substantial issues for the studio finances. The lack of content & losing a prominent creative director such as Guy meant that the core audience who came from his streams had eroded. Some fans who remained loyal to Robert & the other prominent AAA developers part of Midnight Society stayed aboard but eventually Midnight Society would announce that DEADROP would cease development with the studio closing. Currently, the website is still accessible, hosted by BoomTV seemingly on behalf of Sumit Gupta, but the domain expires on December 27th, 2026. Some users have been able to transfer their collectible NFTs away from Midnight Society services into their own crypto wallets, but these NFTs have no inherent utility with the cancellation of DEADROP. Robert's reputation is undoubtedly tainted from this event, he is currently suspended from X & with Midnight Society no more the people who have not been able to transfer their crypto contents away from Midnight Society services will likely never receive support.

Gallery

Trivia

• Robert Bowling's username, "fourzerotwo", is based on the number 402 - his roster number when he served in the military.
• The first verse at the beginning of the song "Deep and Hard" is voiced by Robert Bowling.
• An interview with Robert Bowling on the Resurgence Map Pack had him state that he was a "stealth clown", due to him successfully hiding behind the cut-out clown on the map Carnival. This became a short lived meme among players.
  • The Clown in Training achievement of the campaign remastered version of Modern Warfare 2 is in reference of the meme.
• Robert Bowling does the voice of one of the basketball players on the basketball court in "S.S.D.D.".
• In the Family Guy episode "April in Quahog", he is seen playing a game of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 against Peter Griffin and his friends (under the name of fourzerotwo) when Peter buys an Xbox 360. He kills Peter with a sniper rifle after he keeps jumping up and down.
• Robert Bowling's username can be seen briefly in one of the starting screens of Call of Duty: Black Ops.
• Robert Bowling, under his Gamertag "fourzerotwo", has appeared at the end of four gameplay trailers for both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 showcasing a new weapon:
  • He appears in the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's "Customized Killstreaks" trailer being killed by a Semtex.
  • He appears in the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's "Capture the Flag" trailer being killed by a Throwing Knife.
  • He appears in the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's "Spec Ops Survival Mode" trailer being killed by an IMS as part of a sneak peak into the game's multiplayer.
  • He appears in the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's "Tango Down" trailer being killed by a Reaper.

See also

• Tina Palacios - Former Infinity Ward's Community Manager
• Josh Olin - Former Treyarch equivalent
• John Rafacz - Treyarch's Director of Communications.
• Guy Beahm - Former Sledgehammer Games equivalent.

External links

• Robert Bowling's blog
• Robert Bowling's Twitter userpage
• Robert Bowling's Facebook account
• Robert Bowling's LinkedIn profile