John Smedley Explains Recent Interview Comments
The president of Daybreak takes to Reddit to explain a recent comment about old school MMOs.
During a recent interview, Daybreak President John Smedley was quoted as stating the following:
"I firmly believe the days of the WoW-style MMO are over," Smedley said. "And that means we have to change with the times. Luckily, we were kind of early on that bus as opposed to late. But we're changing what we're making. Look at H1Z1. Is it an MMO? Sure, by definition, but I would consider it a session-based online game with a lot of people. And I say that because the average life expectancy in H1Z1 might be 45 minutes, and that's what today's gamers want. How many people do you still know that are still raiding in WoW every night, or EverQuest and EverQuest II? It's just the time commitment necessary has changed so much. That means we need to change with the times, and we are. So we're getting interested in a broader array of games and gaming styles."
Today he took to Reddit to explain the above. The full response is after the jump; here's the main point of it here:
"I was asked in the interview about what things we're doing differently for our new games going forward and that's when I said we're focused on shorter session times because not many people have the time anymore to spend on a 4 hour raid.
"Don't mistake that comment for me not believing in raiding or knowing that there are a ton of people that play MMOs that still absolutely love to do it! We also plan on continuing to support EQ, and EQ2 for the very long haul and providing exactly the kind of cool content our players have expected. None of that is changing."
Posted April 30, 2015 on Reddit:
"I've read some of the threads about my comments in that interview. I wanted to clarify what I was talking about. I was asked in the interview about what things we're doing differently for our new games going forward and that's when I said we're focused on shorter session times because not many people have the time anymore to spend on a 4 hour raid.
"Don't mistake that comment for me not believing in raiding or knowing that there are a ton of people that play MMOs that still absolutely love to do it! We also plan on continuing to support EQ, and EQ2 for the very long haul and providing exactly the kind of cool content our players have expected. None of that is changing.
"However, when we're choosing what new games to make we're focused on games with shorter average session lengths. Why? Because that's the way the gaming world has evolved and we need to adapt. That's precisely why we aimed so high on Everquest Next. We know we needed to change our aim on these games. We can't just expect our users to want to grind through an epic 8 hour raid encounter or treat these games like it's a second job. We need to make sure our games are just as fun in smaller time increments.
"That's the entirety of what I was talking about. It's not a comment on today's games. It's a comment on today's reality and where we are aiming at least some of our games.
"We remain majorly committed to producing great content for our EQ and EQ2 players for a long time to come, and rest assured there is going to be plenty of content for EQN players as well including raids and all the stuff players have come to know and love in these games."
Smed