A while back, someone in our comments laid down a spicy zinger for MMO developer John Smedley, whom MMORPG fans surely know best as the former president of SOE and then Daybreak. Smed always took a lot of flak for being the kind of game exec who’d wade into the trenches with smack talk. He took the brunt of the blame for the NGE whether it was mostly his fault or not; he got blamed for the sale of SOE; and he’s still eating shit for things like suggesting nobody wanted to play Uncle Owen or telling Star Wars Galaxies fans they could finally come home to H1Z1. I get it.
But I also know he doesn’t need to be here still working on MMOs, and that counts for a lot in my book. The dude should probably be retired to a fishing boat or something. For all the hilarious loudmouth stuff he said on social media, he also figured out a way to keep a lot of MMORPGs online past their due, he did wrangle a future for SOE, he fought back against toxic internet clowns, he refunded everyone on Kickstarter when Hero’s Song went south, he brought his whole team to Amazon, and when he left, he went right back to making MMORPGs, and not because he needed money or fame. That matters way more than shitposting to me. Guys, the people who want to make MMOs until they die are dying out, the pre-techbro generation of MMORPG devs – and they’re not coming back.
There’s more stuff I can’t even print. The point is I think most of the grumbling about Smed is old and often unfair, and I wish the genre could move on.
Is there an MMO developer you think is unfairly maligned?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
