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kudos to Smed
royalpenalty
Member Posts: 312
even tho the NGE is the biggest POS ive ever had the displeasure to experience....
i have to give props to the Smed-man. no other exec has ever cost his company over 150k subscriptions and still kept his job. i am truly impressed. and i mean that sincerely.
any ideas on how exactly he is able to keep the NGE's failure from his bosses? how is it that the stockholders in SOE have not slit his proverbial throat? i am simply stunned, flabbergasted, and simultaneously disgusted & impressed by the events of the last 7 months. simply staggering.....
King-Smed, here's to you...
/unknown salute
(you ignorant son of a bitch)
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Comments
Its not his fault...
The blame goes to the silent majority...
/sarcasm off
Xcathdra
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars..
Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons...
Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
I remember when he said that. I laughed my ass off!
SWG's problem from launch to now has been gross mismanagement. Senior managers, Smed and Torres haven't changed since launch. It was they who pushed the game out 6 months too soon (it never should have launched before vehicles and cities at the least, and to be honest shouldn't have launched without JTL either...), it was they who wasted their time on Jedi revamps, and it was they who decided on a radical combat "upgrade" rather than what everyone wanted, a REVAMP of what we had, and it was they who 5 months later scrapped all that to release a LESS than half done NGE...
If SWG had spent the last 3 years fixing bugs and adding content to the ORIGINAL core game as they should have, I seriously doubt we'd be here today talking about plunging subscriber numbers and more people who despise SOE by name than play their games.
It doesn't matter if they reverted to pre-CU tomorrow, so long as Smed and Torres remain in charge, nothing will ever change or be done right. At the end of the day it's the captain of the ship who is responsible, who gets the credit or the blame. In the case of SWG, our captains have repeatedly ran the ship aground, into icebergs, and indeed, sank it twice and are running around waving their arms and rearranging the deck chairs as the third one sinks even faster than the first two...
It's LONG past time for Smed and Torres to GO.
Yes he has a teflon exoskeleton, nothing sticks. But he has a weakness, a metal whisk, or spoon.
SOE lost (conservativly) 350k SWG Sub's in one year. Based on average Sub Plans, that's about $54 MILLION dollars a year in Sub's, while spending at least 20 Mil in developement costs (of the CU & NGE) & Advertising. Add into that the $17 Mil in expansions they didn't sell to those subscribers. Those things themselves, nevermind the horrible performance of SOE's other games, loosing 2 of 3 VP's & the incredible negative press, its amazing he's still employed with SOE.
Simply put, he is on-the-out as they say. No company would EVER tolerate that type of performance. Why he's not gone already is a question best left to Sony Corp.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
Based on his performance alone, well, I don't think any of us could fail so miserably at our own jobs and not get fired.
We're sitting in our offices thinking of ways to upset our paying customers. I think were on track to meet that goal.
John Smedley
Then remind him that "we're going to give WoW a bloody nose" (if you can manage to say that without laughing at least)
*********************
So, you all sat in camps and that was fun?
*********************
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
At least Smed succeded in building EQ. He's failed at everything else, but at least he has THAT to hang his hat on.
lots of ppl agreeing w/ me here, but i honestly wonder how he has been able to keep the smoke screen up for over 2 years now w/ regards to SWG.....
someone on the first page gave some pretty staggering numbers in terms of subscription revenues lost. how in hell is he able to retain his title? what is so different about the gaming industry that gross incompetence and customer abuse is allowed to go on unchecked for so long?
honestly, when i first logged into the NGE i figured it would last a month-TOPS-and then be scrapped due to player uproar and (justifiably) abysmal reviews in EVERY pertinent gaming media.
how does he do it?
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Take the blinders off there. LucasArts is part of the friggen problem. Or did you forget that Torres is a LEC employee?
They share the blame pretty much 50/50... actually I give more blame to LEC because they could have prevented most of the problems the game has experienced. They have VETO power over every aspect of the game. Therefore they've, at least, sanctioned every single change, update, buggy patch, etc. that has ever gone into the game.
LEC + SOE = buggy and mis-managed SWG
LEC + Better Dev = Mis-managed SWG but maybe a little less buggy.
Yah I'd prefer the latter too... but it doesn't absolve LEC of responsibility for many of the issues in the game.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Take the blinders off there. LucasArts is part of the friggen problem. Or did you forget that Torres is a LEC employee?
They share the blame pretty much 50/50... actually I give more blame to LEC because they could have prevented most of the problems the game has experienced. They have VETO power over every aspect of the game. Therefore they've, at least, sanctioned every single change, update, buggy patch, etc. that has ever gone into the game.
LEC + SOE = buggy and mis-managed SWG
LEC + Better Dev = Mis-managed SWG but maybe a little less buggy.
Yah I'd prefer the latter too... but it doesn't absolve LEC of responsibility for many of the issues in the game.
i agree, i always thought of Lucas as a shrewd and intelligent business entity. marketing geniuses one might say. they also have turned a blind eye to their fans here. you are right, they should share the responsibility. in fact, since it is their IP, they should be the first ones out there trying to rectify this situation, starting with firing or demoting Torres.
then getting some classic servers out asap. everyone wins. what the fukk is so wrong with making your customers happy? i just cant fathom how this has gone on this long.
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Kai
Actualy i think they did a great service. I am no longer addicted to swg. I have been free of swg ( except for the here fourms of course)
Another surprising turn of events i gave up betaing other offerings as well. Just found i do not have the desire to deal with game play may change . As a result not only saved my montly fee , but also didn't purchase dark & light, and ignored a few other betas too, which ended up saving me in the long run as well.
I found that what happened there did affect my ability to enjoy get into other mmorpgs. All in all not a bad thing. From this point of view.
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Damn byotch dat aint no friggn moon fool, dat be a friggn space station byotch.
Actually it's quite simple as Smedly is over all of Sony's online games not just SW:G. Hence as long as EQ1/2 are thriving, MxO, Planetside and any other game that falls under the SOE stamp make a profit the loss of revenue from one title does little to blemish his image within Sony (this isn't to say that outsiders don't view Smedly as a complete failure as a CEO). Aside from this even with the obvious drop in active subscriptions Smedly can always fall back on the Station Access accounts as being part of the "active" subscribers to SW:G. He's mentioned before that they don't have any method of differentiating those who actively play SW:G via Station Pass and those who don't play SW:G so as long as SOE has 100k active Station Access accounts SW:G will always be considered a moderate success.
Further, Smedly like any other good CEO probably has a few other tricks up his sleeves that will if nothing more insure he stays in his job for a few extra months. Likely candidates would be hyping PS3 and Station Pass as well as this Restuss circus that's coming up and in the near future the release of Vanguard to which will add even more players to their Station Pass. In addition to this he also can count on the numerous vets who keep yo-yoing back to SW:G to "check things out" as they can't break the addiction.
Aside from all of this not only does Smedly deserve getting the boot but so does Torres, McIntire (worst PR line used that I've seen about why they don't want anything more than an "kill, loot, repeat" mindset from their playerbase) and about 3/4s of the development team (including the art, creativity and storyline members)for SW:G. Smedly may be the head of the beast but that beast will not change if all the problems are not addressed.
as im sure you know, SOE does not release sub numbers (unless it suits there purpose at the time). i base that number on estimates given before the NGE (250-350k) and recent estimates on mmorpgchart.com and other sources. most have current subs at less than 100k currently. of course if you log into the game it feels like much less than that.
*as a sidenote, SOE also uses their station pass accts, trial accts, and prepaid accts to pad the numbers.
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE
Actually it's quite simple as Smedly is over all of Sony's online games not just SW:G. Hence as long as EQ1/2 are thriving, MxO, Planetside and any other game that falls under the SOE stamp make a profit the loss of revenue from one title does little to blemish his image within Sony (this isn't to say that outsiders don't view Smedly as a complete failure as a CEO). Aside from this even with the obvious drop in active subscriptions Smedly can always fall back on the Station Access accounts as being part of the "active" subscribers to SW:G. He's mentioned before that they don't have any method of differentiating those who actively play SW:G via Station Pass and those who don't play SW:G so as long as SOE has 100k active Station Access accounts SW:G will always be considered a moderate success.
Further, Smedly like any other good CEO probably has a few other tricks up his sleeves that will if nothing more insure he stays in his job for a few extra months. Likely candidates would be hyping PS3 and Station Pass as well as this Restuss circus that's coming up and in the near future the release of Vanguard to which will add even more players to their Station Pass. In addition to this he also can count on the numerous vets who keep yo-yoing back to SW:G to "check things out" as they can't break the addiction.
Aside from all of this not only does Smedly deserve getting the boot but so does Torres, McIntire (worst PR line used that I've seen about why they don't want anything more than an "kill, loot, repeat" mindset from their playerbase) and about 3/4s of the development team (including the art, creativity and storyline members)for SW:G. Smedly may be the head of the beast but that beast will not change if all the problems are not addressed.
i hear ya. good points. however i contend that the recent price increase to the Station accts is a direct reflection of the NGE's failure. no one can convince me otherwise on this point. i wonder how the EQ players feel about having to pay for the NGE's failure to bring new subs.
SWG ADDICT...clean since the NGE