Jack Hoppus, son of Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus, appeared in a recent video on the making of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, in which he’s credited as a technical designer.
The video shows Hoppus providing his input after employees at Infinity Ward, the developer behind the Modern Warfare series, went through a multiplayer play test.
Hoppus also spoke about the benefits of working at the studio and how the lessons he has learned will make him a better designer.
In the bio of his Instagram account, Hoppus labeled himself as a designer for Modern Warfare 4 developer Infinity Ward. Per his LinkedIn page, the 23-year-old has been working at Infinity Ward for two years, starting off as an associate technical designer before becoming a technical designer a few months ago.
In a January episode of Danielle Fishel’s Teen Beat podcast, Mark Hoppus said his son told him as fourth grader that he wanted to be program video games when he grew up.
The 54-year-old songwriter and performer admitted that he felt like his own father upon hearing the answer, openly expressing doubt about his son’s chosen career path.
“When my son came to me, and was like, ‘I want to program video games for a living,’ I’m like, ‘Yup. Great. Not gonna happen. But you keep that dream alive,’” he recalled. “But he worked his ass off, went to college, did a double major, has always studied how games work, and it’s more than just like, he likes playing video games. He looks into the mechanics of it, and gets into the programming.”
Hoppus shared that one of his favorite memories while raising his son involved playing video games, particularly The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
“He couldn’t really control the game too much, so he would sit next to me on the couch, and we would play video games together, and it was such a great memory,” he said. “I credit video games with teaching him spatially learning, and math, and reading to some extent, and logic. The games that he was playing helped his development and helped him become a smarter person.”
Hoppus said he still plays video games with his son and that there was even some tension during a game of ARC Raiders over the holidays.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is scheduled to be released on Oct. 23.
