John Smedley takes time of from Daybreak!
Daybreak Games confirms that John Smedley will be taking some time off from the company for the near-term and transitioning to a different role to be determined. Upon finalization of his plans, further communication will be provided.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/changes-at-daybreak-game-company.230254/
Also:
He has also had some issues with a hacker group since they diverted his plane with a bomb threat. He spoke out on twitter threatening them and in turn they threatened his life, defaced his father's grave, stole his financial information, DDOS attacked the game servers and generally harassed him. so that may be part of it.
Ive also heard thats just the way of the investment firm, get rid of the higher ups so you can bring in your own leadership then keep the real 90% workforce.
Makes me wonder if EQN will survive or what is to become of the everquest franchise.
It might not be for necessarily negative reasons.
As far as EQ Next's survival, it's been 6 years of promises and so far all that anyone has seen is Norrathian Minecraft. It's like Blizzard's Titan fail, except without WoW's small nation GDP subscription money covering the bills. And last I heard, all of the great minds that made EQ1 great don't work for Smedley anymore, and at least one of those old timers is making some crazy niche game called Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen or something? Not a Smedley bash there, just a simple reality that EQ1 and EQ2's hardcore populations are what keeps the lights on, and EQ Next is vaporware that the community has moved on from.
That again does not mean his stepping down was reactive or negative or anything, but I doubt very much EQ Next's survival, or lack thereof, is dependent on Smedley one way or the other. Then again, after more than 10 years of broken promises, FunCom did finally release the full blown graphics update to Anarchy Online...so maybe in 4-5 more years, Daybreak will release an EQ Next or something and I'll have to do a mea culpa. Chances are good I'll be maxing my 4th alt in Pantheon by then, but you never can tell. =)
sajbear said:
John Smedley takes time of from Daybreak!
Daybreak Games confirms that John Smedley will be taking some time off from the company for the near-term and transitioning to a different role to be determined. Upon finalization of his plans, further communication will be provided.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/changes-at-daybreak-game-company.230254/
Also:
So he's taking some time off. I was expecting to hear that he was gone eventually, just seems to be how things work. I have not investigated this new company that took over ...and I don't know whether they will be a good influence, or more of the same...bean counting over good gaming. Guess we'll have to see.
EvilPigBoss said:
John Smedley is an awesome character. He truly appreciates games and the gaming community. I am always keeping an eye on his twitter, he seems like a guy who's genuinely dedicated. Excited to see what he's going to do!
I don't really disagree with this. I've been in countless discussions with Smed on one dev forum or another, and he's a gamer with a gamer's heart, mind and soul. Dude straight likes games, wants to make them, play them, etc. That said, games are business, the industry has evolved into something nobody could see in 1998-9, and we are where we are. This again is not casting stones at Smedley, just throwing out the reality of things.
EQ Next, imho, is guilty of something many games are...it wants to do too much too soon too unrealistically. Be faithful to the EQ1 and EQ2 hardcore players, be new to them, be groundbreaking to the entire genre, and exceed the wild expectations your press releases and the media buzz has put on your project. A wonderful dream, but making it a reality? Yeah, that's where it gets tricky. And again, not everyone has $150 million PER MONTH from WoW to cover the bills while the latest dream is being developed. But again, that is not Smedley's fault. Gamers want cool games and gamer CEOs want to be in charge of making cool games. Never going to fault a gamer for wanting his game to be supermegaWTFBBQawesomesauce...but again, there's how we want it, and how it ends up being.
I hope Smed lands somewhere and a cool game is the result. But like I said, I'll be maxing my 4th alt on P:RotF by the time EQ Next ever becomes a reality. And honestly, P:RotF is my EQ Next. I gave up on Ver...SO...err...Daybreak years ago. If I want to play a game with Brad's Vision (tm), then I'll wait and play one of Brad's games. No disrespect to Smed here, but EQ1 sucked after Velious for a reason.
Obviously I'm not going to talk about recent events, etc. I honestly haven't hung out with Smed for a while. So I definitely don't have an 'inside scoop' or anything like that (and, even if I did, it still probably wouldn't be appropriate to comment). Drama, rumor, half-truths, etc. rarely accomplish anything memorable or of worth, and if you're somebody who has chosen to create games, especially MMOs, you really don't have time to dabble in that sort of thing at all; rather, you've got so much work to do that your concern shouldn't be popularity or fame or approval. Instead you need to be careful to not lose sight of or ignore the more permanent things, like friends and family. That's the real challenge: figuring out how to balance your life, pursuing what you're passionate about, but also not letting that pursuit engulf and entirely define you.
Instead I'll share a bit about the man I know, who I worked with closely for years. First, if you are strong willed enough to stand up, lead if necessary, and believe in something, it's not an easy path, and most certainly everyone is not going to like you. I know this from personal experience and and Mr. Churchill summed it up nicely: "You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life." But he has also earned the respect and friendship of many people over the years. And for good reason.
Of course I wish Smed nothing but the best and great luck in wherever his adventures take him next! Smed is a friend, a mentor, someone who believed in me and gave me fantastic opportunities, and as I've said in the past, something everyone should know: without Smed, there would be no EverQuest. He wanted to make a graphical online RPG and most people thought he and we were crazy. We were even pushed out of Sony so they could focus on the next console. Somehow, through hard work, passion, stubbornness, and faith he kept the project funded and supported (I later, after the game shipped, was told it was almost canceled a couple of times -- something he kept from me, probably rightfully so, fearing that it could affect my morale). Even when many were skeptical that a 3d MMO could even be built, much less be successful, he was there, doing whatever he could to make it happen. And, whatever you think of EQ itself (I remain quite proud), there is no denying its key role in the emergence of an entire genre.
From there he built Verant, and then SoE. His leadership resulted not only in the development of many MMOs, but also the opportunity for many new to the industry to join the company and to pursue their dreams of working on these games. I'm talking hundreds of people! Most of whom, especially early on, had no prior industry experience. He believes in giving people a chance, even a second chance. And he is willing to take risks, too, where so many larger companies and executive staff are quite the opposite: very risk intolerant. So his legacy is worthy of respect. So, also, his role in the MMO genre, especially in the early days, when he believed in something most others did not. He played a key role in this genre's inception and credit is due where credit is due. Although I highly doubt his work is done -- his belief in and love of online gaming is part of his core being -- this is a big change for him. And he should look back with pride, because he's earned it. And anybody willing to stop for a moment and consider the big picture, the whole picture, should also have respect for him and what he accomplished.
I did mention we don't talk as often as I'd like -- we did come to a point a few years back where we disagreed on something pretty fundamental: He believes the MMO genre has not only changed, but the audience has changed, and that to make successful online games, the 'old' approaches are obsolete. I had to respectfully disagree. I believe the MMO gamespace has grown so tremendously that there are now a lot of people who, while they are interested in MMOs, want fundamentally different games. But I don't believe people's tastes in gaming fundamentally change over time. I will certainly admit that the gamespace now, arguably more than 10 million strong, consists of players with widely different tastes and playstyles. And I'm fine with that, but I'm not ok that the 'old school' gamers have been orphaned, or considered irrelevant, or told that they are now too small to matter. And because I would never work on a game that I wouldn't personally want to play, and because my taste in MMOs is in that same group, I can do nothing else but try to make another MMO that is modern, has new ideas, but that fundamentally is still about long term retention, community, working together as a team, etc. But Smed is not me -- he's most certainly a gamer, but he is also more business oriented than me. He wants to stay current, to make games for players that are relatively new to MMOs, and he sees really opportunity there. I think he is also more driven to succeed in a big way not once, but as many times as possible. Sure, I have some of that in me too, but if I worked on an MMO that targeted more solo oriented gamers, gamers who typically don't want to play one game for a long time, who aren't bothered by revenue models that, ultimately, evolve into pay-to-win, I wouldn't be working on a game that I would want to play. So our paths forked because we are different people, nothing more, nothing less. And while the unwavering faith and support and leadership he provided back in the early days is something I'll never forget, our vision for MMOs has, slowly but surely, over time, drifted in different directions. On a personal level, sure, that's a bummer, but I cannot be critical of this drift in any real way. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe one day we'll somehow work on something together again. Stranger things have happened. But my respect and admiration of him will always remain strong and I really am excited to see what he'll end up doing next.
I hope this resonates with gamers, old gamers and new gamers. I hope I've brought some perspective and more attention to the big picture, the past and the present. If not, as someone who worked closely with him for many years, I have at least stood by him and affirmed he is a good man, a kind man, a generous man, and someone who has worked very hard (and been very successful) to be and stay in a position that allowed him to provide opportunities to hundreds of people, not just paying jobs, but a chance to chase their dreams.
-Brad
EvilPigBoss said:John Smedley is an awesome character. He truly appreciates games and the gaming community. I am always keeping an eye on his twitter, he seems like a guy who's genuinely dedicated. Excited to see what he's going to do!
One comment on what Brad wrote, because it's been an MMO forum background discussion since EQ1 was king and the UO people were griping on EQ1 being too easy (yes, that was actually the case in 1999 and 2000...EQ1 was too easy...lol), and that's the divergent path of "do I make a cool game that I want to play, or do I make a big bag of money like Blizzard?" And in a lot of those forum discussions, Brad and Smed have been recurring characters in dramas neither created but got assigned to, and all the way back when, it was clear from an analytical perspective that neither was right/wrong, just different.
This niche that a P:RotF/EQ1/VG fanboi would fall into...it's small, at least compared to the rest of the gaming population. But like 4x strategy or hex based wargaming, it exists, it has players, and they are fanatic, loyal and not just a bit opinionated. :) Take Smed and Brad out of this particular debate, and the fanbois find two other actors to fill those roles. I want my EQ1 like Velious, now and forever!! No, I want my EQ1 to be like WoW!! No, I want it to be like Rift, with some AO and GW2 thrown in!! Rinse repeat, ad nauseum.
But even way back when, the forum casuals said Smed only cared about FoH and Afterlife, and the hardcores said Smed only cared about casuals. On any game forum in existence, the devs are the bad guys and the suits are the worse guys. Smed was a dev and a suit, so no shock much of the gaming forum world considers him a singular evil. But that's forums and that's gaming. Everyone thinks their thing is THE thing. I stand by my appraisal of EQ Next, but not to bash Smed, rather a reflection of this genre and its realities. I don't fault him for wanting to revolutionize or innovate within the genre, I kinda blame the genre's fanbase for being resistant to it, myself included.
Toughest gig in the world of programming, imho. Nothing but love for the folks willing to put up with my crap and all the other hardest to please consumers in the computing world. Again, I hope we have not seen the last of Smed, and I hope EQ NExt proves me wrong, and that gamers keep making games. Guys like Smed are the ones thinking up the stuff we play, so we need him and we need more like him.