SOE Boss: Non-Gamers "Have No Business In This Business"

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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SOE Boss: Non-Gamers "Have No Business In This Business"


Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley says that only people who play videogames should be in the business of making them.

Does Bobby Kotick play videogames? I don't know. What about John Riccitiello? No clue. Yves Guillemot? Maybe, but I don't see it. Yet they head the three largest videogame publishers on the planet. And while their performance on their respective thrones may be a matter of some debate, SOE President John Smedley says that if they're not gamers, then maybe they shouldn't be on them in the first place.

Smedley himself is a pretty hardcore EVE Online player, although he admits he's been distracted lately by other things. "The games I'm playing right now are Planetside 2, Dota 2 and EVE. EVE used to be the forefront game, but now it's the background game because I don't have a choice, I'm having too much fun in Planetside 2," he told Edge. "And Dota 2 I'm playing a lot with my kids right now."

"In my opinion, people that don't play games have no business in this business," he continued. "It should be the gamers-only club, I think. I can't stand people that don't know what they're talking about when it comes to playing these things."

You don't hear that kind of talk from a highly-placed executive every day and while it may very well be just a smart PR maneuver, it's still a fun little outburst. But do guys like Kotick and Riccitiello - or even Smedley - really need to be gamers to be good at their jobs? It's nice to think that they share some common ground with those of us who partake in their products, but at some point in the upper stratosphere of the industry hierarchy, where shareholder concerns have to be given priority over those of a more artistic nature, does it stop being relevant?

Source: Edge Online [http://www.edge-online.com/news/soe-president-john-smedley-people-that-dont-play-games-have-no-business-in-this-business/]


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Andy Shandy

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Jun 7, 2010
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I disagree with him, you do need some non-gamers perhaps to be involved as otherwise these passionate gamers would bankrupt all these game companies as they would take every single risk so long as it made a good game in their eyes.

However, I would like to see more "gamers" up at the top as well, we do feel we have "someone like us" up there who'll listen to us and perhaps greenlight some riskier projects (more than they do just now, but not enough that it'll kill a company).
 

Gabanuka

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Oct 1, 2009
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CEO of a company says something: "Time to disagree"

*thirty seconds later*

Now I want your game more, damn you.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Jan 22, 2010
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While I'm sure he has good intentions with that statement, I don't quite agree with him. To compare to something like writing literature, it is often encouraged that you read outside the genre you are writing in. So if you write fantasy, look at some technical books, or some biographies, anything to extend your areas of understanding.

I think the same thing could be applied to game development. It invites the bad, as we have seen, but it could also bring in new insights to keep the medium fresh.
 

WashAran

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Soviet Heavy said:
While I'm sure he has good intentions with that statement, I don't quite agree with him. To compare to something like writing literature, it is often encouraged that you read outside the genre you are writing in. So if you write fantasy, look at some technical books, or some biographies, anything to extend your areas of understanding.
pretty bad comparison.
 

Soviet Heavy

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WashAran said:
Soviet Heavy said:
While I'm sure he has good intentions with that statement, I don't quite agree with him. To compare to something like writing literature, it is often encouraged that you read outside the genre you are writing in. So if you write fantasy, look at some technical books, or some biographies, anything to extend your areas of understanding.
pretty bad comparison.
Elaborate would you please?
 

WashAran

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Soviet Heavy said:
WashAran said:
Soviet Heavy said:
While I'm sure he has good intentions with that statement, I don't quite agree with him. To compare to something like writing literature, it is often encouraged that you read outside the genre you are writing in. So if you write fantasy, look at some technical books, or some biographies, anything to extend your areas of understanding.
pretty bad comparison.
Elaborate would you please?
your exampels are all books, same medium.
 

Twilight_guy

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Nov 24, 2008
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Sure to be a developer you should be a gamer, the same way a writer also should read a variety of books, and a director should see lots of movies. If your not involved in the core part of development though, then you don't really need to.
 

Fappy

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Pretty sure I saw an interview with Riccitiello during one of the last two E3s where he was talking about playing through Mass Effect 1 & 2.

In any case I don't think everyone in executive positions needs to be a gamer, but you need to have the insight there in some regard.

Very few software companies are staffed by people who use the software themselves. Take the company I work for as an example. We make logistics software for labor management, transportation management, warehouse management, etc. for big retailers, grocers and other operations. We are not consumer-based, nor does our company use any of those products itself, yet we have a lot of happy customers out there. We have partners, consultants, etc. to share insight of those who have used the products first hand, but the people at the top have no need to ever use it themselves.
 

Zeetchmen

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Smedley, The Lord of Lies is just as bad as the rest. Regardless if he happens to play a few games.
 

Zombie_Moogle

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I'm inclined to agree with him, based on observation. Valve succeeds in many realms where EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. fail because they know who they're selling to (themselves)
How can one run a functioning business when they have no idea what their customers want or, in many ways, who they even are
 

Pebkio

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Nov 9, 2009
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On the surface, this statement seems silly. But, well, I live by the Golden Rule. So, in the spirit of equality, let's do some comparing:

Would you trust the head of a record label who doesn't listen to music?
Would you trust a book publisher who doesn't like to read?
Would you trust a movie publisher who hates movies?

I tried to come up with specific reasons why it would be stupid to exclude non-gamers from the game-making process... but I couldn't. People in charge of providing games should damn well be playing those same games.

Mr. Smedley might well be a moron, but morons CAN make good points. I am curious, though, as to what made him spout words from his cake hole about this. Has anyone actually come out and professed that, while they DO decide what's approved for holiday release, they think games are a waste of time?
 

Timedraven 117

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I agree with him partly, indeed the top dog should have at one time been a consumer of games. That way they know if they made shit or not, or if what they are doing is fair for gamers. But not everyone needs to be a gamer, (As already stated; artist, musician, voice actor.)
 

BrotherRool

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I'm pretty sure they released some stuff about Kotick and his Guitar Hero love (rather lol considering what he did to the franchise :D) at some point.

Also the guy plays DoTa 2 with his children?! Are we talking about the same Dota here? (Defence of the Ancients) Because if so, that guy has some hardcore kids.

Then again, they're spawn of an EVE player, so it probably goes without saying
 

lancar

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"Need" is a strong word here.

I'm thinking more that the top dogs should, at the very least, have someone very close to them that is a gamer in order to provide the insight needed to make the right decisions. In the end, this IS a business, and skill in it isn't directly connected to the product you're making. Not to mention the fact that heavy personal investment into the product can blind you to reality. It's happened before, and It'll happen again.

Basically, while being a gamer would be a very desirable trait for the job, it ultimately more depends on the personality of the person than what he does on his free time.
 

cerebus23

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Well when you got bobby kotex saying he wants to take the fun out of games and loves to ride every good franchise they got into the dirt, i think its safe to assume he has never played a game in his life or he is the worst gamer in history.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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Soviet Heavy said:
While I'm sure he has good intentions with that statement, I don't quite agree with him. To compare to something like writing literature, it is often encouraged that you read outside the genre you are writing in. So if you write fantasy, look at some technical books, or some biographies, anything to extend your areas of understanding.

I think the same thing could be applied to game development. It invites the bad, as we have seen, but it could also bring in new insights to keep the medium fresh.
A writer is not a game company exec. And writers usually write their own material and only have editors (who are also readers and thus part of the audience in a sense) to deal with once their writing project is approved. Also, writing companies generally have better sense (sometimes) in their approach with writers being more "hands-off" unless there's a major issue with said book or even novella. Usually this happens when a writer has passed a deadline (and writers are usually paid some gratuity to write).
A game company exec that isn't a programmer or artist or technician or any of the other things that comprise a game's development. A game company exec that is a former developer (knows the process of creation) and has a background in games has a better shot at not bulldozing a decent game with unwarranted actions or unreasonable demands placed on the dev team.
A good example, I used to work in web development, my boss was a lawyer and also held an MBA but had no real clue about how websites work. He would come into my office and throw web buzzwords at me like "Javascript! We need that, get on it." And walk out. Never told me what he wanted it for or how he wanted me to apply it. Apparently this is also a problem in the game industry, with exec's wanting a game to have a lot of features that are either unreasonable or time consuming to program in, and really don't have a clue on what makes up a good game.
1. Because they're not gamers.
2. Because they're not developers.

And thus are born the games that look good in alpha (or the launch trailer) and look nothing like they would have after release. Game is rushed due to execs = bad game. Game is stuffed full of half-programmed features and bogged down by bugs because execs don't listen to developers feedback = bad game.
Thus is why I feel that anyone involved in making the game, including directing the marketing should at least have knowledge of the game market. They don't have to be hardcore players, just have SOME experience in game playing and a cursory knowledge of design capabilities and the limits of code and hardware.
And they should know that shiny does not = better game.