John Smedley hired by Amazon to produce MMOs

zero_name

zero_name

Golden Knight of the Realm
165
166
Amazon hires John Smedley to lead new San Diego studio

Third time's the charm? Smedley hired by Amazon's San Diego studio.

"I think we're seeing the evolution of the MMO into a lot of different forms. I look at Destiny and I think it's an amazing MMO, but it's nothing like WoW. I think we're also seeing the realization that content is incredibly time consuming to make, and keeping up with the players is a difficult thing to do," he said.

"For someone trying to make a WoW-MMO they have to deal with 12 years of content. That's going to mean a focus on more player-owned systems and games that are more open ended (Day Z or H1Z1 are great examples of this) where other players are the content. We'll still see great MMOs, we're just going to see them evolve from what they are now."
 
Last edited:
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users
DickTrickle

DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
12,914
14,816
It must nice to be able to repeatedly fail without consequence.
 
  • 11Like
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 11 users
Shonuff

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
5,538
790
DickTrickle said:
It must nice to be able to repeatedly fail without consequence.
Click to expand...

Everquest 1 was not a failure. If there was a failure on his part, it's not by reigning in the devs. For years, I'd ask him why this or that dev could make a retarded decision. He'd tell me he was giving them leeway and didn't want to stem creativity. He's really not a bad guy.
 
Muligan

Muligan

Trakanon Raider
3,213
893
If Smed has good people under him and can keep his nose clean in social media he'll probably be fine. He's a little volatile at times and I really don't know how in touch he is with the MMO community.

I'll say this... i'm not going to get a game just because his name is on it. I really don't know if there is anyone out there right now that holds that honor though either.
 
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 1 user
Reht

Reht

Molten Core Raider
1,115
317
It sparked, i wouldn't say defined...else there would be 100's of EQ clones instead of WoW clones.
 
Breakdown

Breakdown

Gunnar Durden
5,808
8,019
Reht said:
It sparked, i wouldn't say defined...else there would be 100's of EQ clones instead of WoW clones.
Click to expand...

Whatever. Would you rather be the guy who designed t he 747 or the Wright Brothers.
 
  • 7Like
  • 1Worf
  • 1Picard
Reactions: 8 users
Reht

Reht

Molten Core Raider
1,115
317
No it's not, Smed wasn't responsible for the first MMORPGs, Meridian 69 and Ultima Online predate EQ, so one of those titles are the "Wright Brothers" of the MMO industry. EQ caused the first real explosion of popularity but i wouldn't say it defined it by modern standards, 10-12 years ago, yes i would agree.
 
Soygen

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,325
43,161
Do I smell Pantheon's publisher(or is that just the mozz sticks)?!
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users
Breakdown

Breakdown

Gunnar Durden
5,808
8,019
Reht said:
No it's not, Smed wasn't responsible for the first MMORPGs, Meridian 69 and Ultima Online predate EQ, so one of those titles are the "Wright Brothers" of the MMO industry.
Click to expand...

Stop being a contrarian faggot. Just suck it up, The guy had a great success. Sure hes been shit since then, no one is disputing it. But when your success is as massive as EQ you will keep getting chances.
 
  • 3Like
  • 2Salty
Reactions: 4 users
Reht

Reht

Molten Core Raider
1,115
317
I am not disagreeing with his success or that he hasn't earned a shot elsewhere. At no point have i said otherwise, however your statement was just as fucking stupid as you are.
 
  • 4Salty
  • 1Like
Reactions: 4 users
iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
After looking at the consecutive clusterfucks of Vanguard and Pantheon I have to believe that Smed was in fact the driving force behind EQ's success. That and it was just a cultural outlet.

Maybe three monkies and a typewriter could have done it. But since then, Smed has been much more reliable than McQuaid. Not that THAT'S saying much, either.

Smed is competent at least. And that counts for something.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
E

Elidroth

Trakanon Raider
539
1,245
IMO this could be the death knell for DBG. Everyone with talent at DBG will leave and go join Amazon.
 
  • 4Like
Reactions: 3 users
E

Elidroth

Trakanon Raider
539
1,245
I disagree. Smed has had some mis-steps, but overall he's made a hell of a lot more money for his bosses than he's lost. I hope he succeeds in a big way, if for no other reason than I love games, and Smed doing well in the future means there are good games coming out of Amazon.
 
  • 6Like
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 6 users
zero_name

zero_name

Golden Knight of the Realm
165
166
His success stories under the SOE banner are limited to his early years where EQ was the MMO champ. It's been many years since then and based on what I know, SOE has been tanking hard for years and it was something Sony wanted to get rid of a long time ago. His move from DBG to Hero's Song was incredibly ugly and it showed a lack of awareness. Why he'd staff 25+ with an extremely tight budget, particularly on a game with two failed crowdfunding attempts (the second could hardly be called successful).

Maybe he'll right his wrongs. He seems like a good dude and his intentions are right. But he's been fucking it up pretty hard over the past however many years.
 
Fight

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,565
5,370
Congrats to him. Amazon getting into gaming with Twitch and a new studio is pretty awesome.

I wonder if he would ever team up with Brad again and become the publisher of Pantheon. With that kind of monetary backing and publicity, they might have a chance at actually shipping the game and getting more than 30k players.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
606
Fight said:
Congrats to him. Amazon getting into gaming with Twitch and a new studio is pretty awesome.

I wonder if he would ever team up with Brad again and become the publisher of Pantheon. With that kind of monetary backing and publicity, they might have a chance at actually shipping the game and getting more than 30k players.
Click to expand...

Yeah lets team up two people who couldn't fund their games via Kickstarter and light some cash on fire
 
  • 3Like
  • 2Worf
Reactions: 4 users
You must log in or register to reply here.