I just don't understand why so many adult gamers act like angst filled teens. Treating devs or studio heads like their estranged father who missed their 16th birthday.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I just don't understand why so many adult gamers act like angst filled teens. Treating devs or studio heads like their estranged father who missed their 16th birthday.
Well when you build a certain reputation for yourself, these things happen, that is part of being in the adult world.
What by making business decisions? Most of this angst is based on changes to a game folks didn't like. Yet they act like it was a personal slight against them individually. Adults understand difficult decisions must be made in the business world, decisions some folks aren't going to be happy about. As well as decisions that often involve more than one entity. It's nonsensical to say the least how emotional folks get...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I was going to write a long winded response to this news but instead ill just say this, How anyone can defend,sympathize, or even support this con man is beyond me.
The New World, or whatever their MMO is called is dead to me
He's not working on that or either of the other two announced games. He'll be working in a new studio on an unannounced game. So we'll have to wait and see, but New World is safe. The devs we know already joined Amazon last year and before have been pretty good.
If they put profit first they wouldn't have hired Smed. They also wouldn't have hired him if they wanted to put creativity first. There's really no reason to hire him other than he's a big name, but he's a big name for all the wrong reasons.
Smedley was behind H1Z1 which is arguably DBGs more profitable game right now and doing okay in its own right.
EQ2 was in a lot better shape under both Smedley and Georgeson. Longdale has driven that one into the ground, her choice or not, it's still on her.
So what is there for anyone to learn here?
Yeah, wow. Saying the guy has no creativity is just blind hate. He quite possibly had more of a hand in bringing creativity(or keeping it alive) into the genre than anyone else in the industry.
I would argue that he often went a little too far pursuing creative dreams, at the cost of profitability. There's an entire list of unique and unusual, less-attention grabbing games that they either created or revived.
Did he make some bad business decisions along the way? Definitely. And, while I might not be interested in all the same designs that he is, pretty much all of the games they took part in, under Smedley's reign of terror, were fairly unique.
I was going to write a long winded response to this news but instead ill just say this, How anyone can defend,sympathize, or even support this con man is beyond me.
There's no reason to sympathize, support or defend; people's forum posts aren't going to change this.
That's what makes the emotional reactions pointless. In the grand scheme of things what smed did at SOE is head a studio that changed the mechanics of a few games in a failed attempt to broaden their appeal. Everyone knows the story. There's nothing worthy to defend about that story. The only real issue is far too many treat it as though it was a wartime atrocity. .. It's not sympathizing with the guy to look at the past with a deadpan stare as if nothing really sinister happened.. His career went on for years after those events, now he opens an Amazon studio.. What kind of sympathy does he really need?
Besides...Watching the fallout of SWG and the reaction for years after, was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen TBH.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
From a business standpoint John is a known quantity. He has run a major studio before and Amazon can trust him to get the nuts and bolts into place. It's easier for them to take a flier on him than someone we haven't heard off. Also in the grand scheme of things while all of us have heard of him about 95% of the people that Amazon expects to buy whatever game he is going to make probably have no idea who John Smedley is versus a Smedley Butler.
Smed worked fine when he was themed up with Brad, once Brad left things went south.
So if they team him up with the right guy, fine. If not I fear we are in for SOE 2002-2015. Then again, maybe he learned from past mistakes (like basically every game SOE did after EQ2 and NGEing SWG without discussing if the players wanted it first or not).
They already have Amazon game studios set up but haven't produced a playable game even though they said last year that betas would start by the "end of the year". We have heard very little about the progress of any of their games especially New World but hear about the smallest changes in Crowfall almost every week, so what's going on? Rather than ask "Why Smed, why?" maybe we should be asking "Why did Bezos feel the need to hire Smed?" even though his bad rep with players is basically common knowledge in the gaming world. He may be looking for someone with his experience to tell him what's what and the bad rep is something that can be overlooked because he has something that he really needs. A kingdom without a king is a chaotic mess of nobles and power grabs or in this case maybe certain people taking advantage of Mr Moneybags because creating games isn't his area of expertise.
They already have Amazon game studios set up but haven't produced a playable game even though they said last year that betas would start by the "end of the year". We have heard very little about the progress of any of their games especially New World but hear about the smallest changes in Crowfall almost every week, so what's going on? Rather than ask "Why Smed, why?" maybe we should be asking "Why did Bezos feel the need to hire Smed?" even though his bad rep with players is basically common knowledge in the gaming world. He may be looking for someone with his experience to tell him what's what and the bad rep is something that can be overlooked because he has something that he really needs. A kingdom without a king is a chaotic mess of nobles and power grabs or in this case maybe certain people taking advantage of Mr Moneybags because creating games isn't his area of expertise.
Major AAA game studios never tell anyone about their development until they're almost ready for testing. Sometimes they'll announce a game is in development and then say nothing until beta. The only reason why games like Crowfall say everything is because they're crowdfunded and that marketing is the best way to gain more money. But a studio like Amazon is swimming in cash so they don't have to share, and that's generally the best way to go.
In terms of the beta, all they said was that one of them would go into Alpha and it did.
Or alternatively, they might be being devilishly clever, after all, if things don't work out and the games fail, they can always pin the blame on Smedley, its not like it wouldn't be believed.
Good for him! He made some bad choices when WoW was launched and rocketed into popularity, I feel like that will always be around his legacy. However when he was given reign to do things the way he wants on his own time, I think he can do some great work. He clearly loves the genre, so hopefully Amazon won't put to much pressure on him to get a quick buck and let him take his time with designs.
Comments
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The New World, or whatever their MMO is called is dead to me
It's a trick, don't fall for it...
Ah, I understand, sarcasm. Nice one.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Aloha Mr Hand !
I would argue that he often went a little too far pursuing creative dreams, at the cost of profitability. There's an entire list of unique and unusual, less-attention grabbing games that they either created or revived.
Did he make some bad business decisions along the way? Definitely.
And, while I might not be interested in all the same designs that he is, pretty much all of the games they took part in, under Smedley's reign of terror, were fairly unique.
That's what makes the emotional reactions pointless. In the grand scheme of things what smed did at SOE is head a studio that changed the mechanics of a few games in a failed attempt to broaden their appeal. Everyone knows the story. There's nothing worthy to defend about that story. The only real issue is far too many treat it as though it was a wartime atrocity. .. It's not sympathizing with the guy to look at the past with a deadpan stare as if nothing really sinister happened.. His career went on for years after those events, now he opens an Amazon studio.. What kind of sympathy does he really need?
Besides...Watching the fallout of SWG and the reaction for years after, was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen TBH.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
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I liked Free Realms, Smedley ran SOE when it was alive;
Therefore, I like Smedley.
So if they team him up with the right guy, fine. If not I fear we are in for SOE 2002-2015.
Then again, maybe he learned from past mistakes (like basically every game SOE did after EQ2 and NGEing SWG without discussing if the players wanted it first or not).
In terms of the beta, all they said was that one of them would go into Alpha and it did.
The rest either don't care - majority, or acknowledge his qualities as a business person.