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

[TheDrunkNinja]

Perhaps he meant it in such a way as "Games should not be made by non-gamers exclusively," as in a group of screenplay writers have no business starting up a game studio, and goddamn, am I giving this guy the benefit of the doubt.

I mean, that's the only perspective which I would understand where he's coming from even if I would still disagree with that statement.

Other than that, I have no clue why it would be wrong for an expert in a specific field of media to have a desire to get involved in a game design project.

 

[faefrost]

He's got a somewhat valid point. at the heart of it, the people ultimately in charge should have a reasonable experience in being able to judge if a game is in fact "fun". Otherwise you end up with EA.

 

[Something Amyss]

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?

The head likely won't have much of a hand in the day-to-day. As such, I don't care if any of them are anti-(insert medium here).

Would I trust my mixing to someone who hates my music? No. But perhaps I would trust it to someone with a good ear for sound, even if they didn't listen to music.

Would I trust my book to someone who didn't read? If they were going to market it, fuck yeah.

Same for the movie publisher who hates movies, though again "hate" is a little stronger than "doesn't game."

Since gaming involves more than one medium, it's even more apt to have people outside "the biz" involved. Artists can understand art and aesthetics without knowing games. Games try and be like movies; wouldn't it be awesome if we had scripts that were better than a Jerry Bruckheimer flick? Or even just better than porn?

And when you get higher up the ladder, does it matter at all? A CEO who is a complete moron when it comes to games will still try and make money. It's not like he's going to spend billions of dollars to tank the industry or something.

 

[Razorback0z]

One small problem. This is Smedley talking. Im not sure from the comments how long a lot of you have been around but this is the guy who singlehandedly destroyed SWG and has been instrumental in driving massess of players away from SOE games for over a decade. Frankly with his abomination of a record as CEO, Im very surprised hes still in the job.

If his assertion is "only gamers know how to make games" then he is provably wrong because the products turned out under his administration have ranged from utter garbage to semi competent rippoffs of other designers ideas, combined with buying up other failures to pad out SOE memberships.

Im sorry John but you blew any credibility you had with gamers many years ago. You took pains to adress us in forums and talk to us like spoiled children for having the gaul to give up our own time posting hints and tips on how to improve your products. At one stage I recall you make a post in SWG saying that basically the player base were a bunch of whiners who wouldnt know what was good for them anyway.

So all I can say is.... save it... you might seem like someone worth listening to for anyone who started gaming last tuesday, for the rest of us, your just the suit we love to hate mate and the sooner you make the move to playing Dota with your kids fulltime, the better both the industry and SOE will be for it.

So there.....

 

[Something Amyss]

If the people doing the jobs you mentioned would've played a few games, they might've taken these things into consideration.

Might, but not necessarily. It's nice to speculate, but those could come down to bad programming, bad sound mixing, or in the case of cutscenes, convention of THIS MEDIUM.

They could probably come down to this medium just as easily as not, really. With cutscenes, probably more.

 

[nexus]

His past discretions aside, what he said is mostly true. Also, he's being taken to task for saying what appears to be a "derogatory" statement, but it doesn't look like he intended it to be that way.

I feel like we're approaching a new era with how video games are made. It's almost as if we had to endure a AAA "Money is all that matters" phase, and a lot of games suffered for it. Now we have a company like Obsidian opening up a Kickstarter project, and pledging to "return to the roots" of the games that we all love. It succeeded. Tremendously. There is no publisher.. just a game for gamers, by gamers.

 

[NiPah]

One of most well respected Roller coaster designers in the world couldn't ride Roller coasters because he had a queasy stomach. While I want to agree with Smedley, results is the only thing that matters.

 

[Razorback0z]

Comments like that piss me off because they come across as very smug, elitist and assholish.

There is a good reason for that, you have basically just described his persona in a nutshell. He has always been the "Mr Knowitall" of gaming and obviously still considers himself to be so. Between him and John Romero you basically have the two worst examples of people in this industry for not listening to players.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Comments like that piss me off because they come across as very smug, elitist and assholish.

I agree, Smedley seems to come off as arrogant but he somewhat has a point.

If Bobby Kotick played video games he'd know that 23 spin-offs of Guitar Hero within 5 years would kill the series.

If Reggie Fils-Aime played more video games he might come to understand localization and the need for 3rd party support a bit better.

Granted you don't NEED to be a gamer to make games, but I think that a CEO should surround themselves with at least some executives that play games.

 

[mronoc]

Upon reading this article...

Spoiler: ...this was the first thing that came to mind.

 

[runic knight]

there is a certain logic in what is said. You want people who understand the product to be the ones making it and making decisions because the end result will more likely be better for the customer. There are aspects where non-gamers can be just fine, but when it comes to the ones who pull the parts together in the game and make them all fit together, it is that guy or gal who really has to be a gamer. A non-gamer might be very good at making game music. A non-gamer might be very good at making 3d models or texturing. A non-gamer might be very good at user interface. But I think only a gamer can really understand how to get all those pieces together in a way that compliments them right. Otherwise you'll probably end up with music drowning out voice, sound effects feeling out of place, anti-intuitive controls or user interface integration, or a lot of other issues. Pulling it all off when you don't understand what it is you are pulling off in the end just seems a monsterous hurdle for those who want to do that.

 

[4173]

No one should tell him about professional sports. It would probably make his head explode.

 

[Razorback0z]

Upon reading this article...

Spoiler: ...this was the first thing that came to mind.

Absolutely 100% spot on. Thanks for posting that, Frank distilled my thoughts(as he always does) into a nutshell.

Great post.

Lets not forget this.....from MMORPG.com
------------------------

Yesterday, Warcry?s Dana Massey published an interview with Sony Online Entertainment?s CEO, John Smedley. In the interview, Smedley apologized for the New Game Experience released into Star Wars Galaxies in 2005. The move, which has been a perpetual thorn in SOE?s side ever since, was made without input from the game?s players and with little to no warning.

The article quotes Smedley: "With the NGE, I'm sorry about the mistake we made," he told us. "We screwed up and didn't listen to the fans when we should have, and it's not a mistake we're going to make again."

He goes on to say that the mistake was ?not bringing the fans into the mix?, which he described as the ?cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming....?
-------------------------

This leopard doesnt change its spots, it just markets them differently to the new demographic.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I've always felt this way. It'd be like asking some suit who went to school for business skills and told him to make a movie.

He'll look at what's popular and demand imitations. That's pretty much what many game companies are doing now, because of people like that.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

You don't need to be a gamer to make music for games. You don't need to be a gamer to write for a game. YOu don't need to be a gamer to voice-act for a game. And you don't need to be a gamer to sit in the management of a game related company. You need a MANAGER.

No. But I imagine it helps immensely if you know about what you're contributing to create.

Obviously. But, like with cars, you don't need to know how to drive one to be able to fix one. You've seen people drive, you've probably been a passenger at one point or people can tell you how it's supposed to feel like and how it feels like now.

Ah, good old car analogies. Easy to come up with and usually not quite appropriate for any situation. We need some more variety: You don't need to have a vagina to be a gynecologist. There we go.

What were we talking about again?

 

[Kargathia]

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.

Quite so. Making enjoyable games is not a CEO's top priority. His top priority is to make money. Making quality software, and keeping your customers happy directly contributes to that main goal, but does not supercede it.

On the whole I'd think he might be somewhat right - having a first-hand knowledge of your companies product can certainly help improve the product (and thereby improving profits), but it by no means is a requirement, and can arguably even be a detracting factor.

For a CEO it would be a bad thing to do anything "for the love of the game" without so much as the reasoning of it being a strategic risk, as that would mean he performs worse at his main job description of "make shareholders money".

Edit: On the whole I'd say he's pointing in the right direction, but not yet handing out any hard-and-fast rules. Right now it appears that many triple A game devs are performing admirably on the short, and medium term, but seem to be heading towards decided decline in the long term - and much of this decline can be directly attributed to an over-heavy focus on short-term profits over long-term viability.

Valve is the somewhat over-used, but ever so true example of this: their closed investment structure allows them to plan for the long term, and right now that's paying off in spades, while EA's share prices have been taking a dive.

 

[Spartan212]

I don't think the upper management of a game company needs to be a gamer. They just need to know that the creative process of making a game is not their strong suit and should keep their fingers out of it. A non-gaming manager shouldn't be making the calls on gameplay, art direction, controls, etc. That should be left to the professionals.

The problem lies where most CEOs tend to be extremely narcissistic and think that they can make all of these decisions, regardless of their inexperience in the field.

CEOs should be making decisions on budgets, funding, marketing, personnel and the like. Know your strengths

It would be like a CEO who has never seen a movie going up to Steven Spielberg and telling him which scenes to cut

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Without giving an actual opinion, Riccitello certainly does play video games. I remember him mentioning how susceptible he had been to microtransactions while he was discussing paying to reload your gun.

Really though, I think writers in particular shouldn't necessarily be gamers, but otherwise, I see no disadvantage to having people who care about the culture a little more than profit.

 

[Sanunes]

The question is SOE any better considering their CEO is a gamer? I really don't consider them to be, they all still seem the most interested in making the most money for the least amount of effort and upfront costs.

 

[luckshot]

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

and in one fell swoop a company that rivaled ea/acti/ubi for lack of respect has switched postions...conditionally, they have to keep this sentiment in mind