Interesting news - how will this effect us...?

http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/22/d...medley-steps-down-as-chief-executive-officer/

Discuss.

Agh, my stomache turned a bit when reading that.

<3 to the Smed, may he enjoy the rest of summer

Not much, but that depends on who takes the spot.

I don't know, I wasn't here for the crapstorm from years ago that made Smedley hated by just about everyone playing eq, but I hope he can at least get the peace of mind he honestly deserves after all this lizard squad bs.

Best of luck to you, John Smedley.

/sigh. The terrorists win.

Plain and simple John Smedley did what he felt he must do, and not always popular. Some may have serious issues with him, some love him.

Above all else, I respect him even when I disagreed with him. We weren't in his shoes, and we weren't being threatened personally physically by jerks.

Despite what some say, I believe he wanted and continues to want the very best for Daybreak, and is hard to deny that passion---it is sorely needed.

Don't flame on him folks- even your not happy with him, thousands have, the only ones winning right now is those Lizard Squad brats, this is far from a victory seeing him step down, and I think we are worse off.

I will miss him as CEO

Dreekenail

Just as a reminder, we will as always been moderating. If you can't post constructively, I'm going to ask you refrain from commenting. PM me with questions regarding moderation.

Hopefully this passes moderation. I'll personally never forgive him for the "we're not selling power" comment back when the rmt started. He promised only cosmetic items and not to worry about the idea of a slippery slope. The second that lon tear appeared and later exp pots I lost all respect for the man. In my opinion he ruined EQ and good riddance.

Good luck John Smedley. After all those problem he had with Lizard Squad, i understand why he had to do that.It was like they had a personal vendetta against him. Hopefully they gonna leave him alone now that he's not a public figure anymore.Hope you get the peace that you need John Smedley and good luck on wherever the future hold for you.

I say Kudo's to js, he is at point in his life he doesn't need the bs and the safety risk to his family, go enjoy ya life and put this crap behind ya. good luck man!

Going to say it has little or no impact to EQ. Anyone who takes the reins is going to be looking to the future rather then doing "what should have been done long ago" for EQ. EQ is what it is at this point and you either love it for that or move on. Holding on expecting them to funnel money back in or suddenly go back to what made this game great isn't realistic imo.

Now had this change happened 5-7 years ago when there was money and a bigger population to appease we might have been in business. $med soured on making the game his consumers wanted in favor of chasing the next new big break game. The bleeding of EQ money in other games and projects at the rate it was rather then making EQ bigger and better simply won't be recovered from when the company that now owns it wants a return on investment in the short term not lots of cash now for a possible pay off a few years down the line. We are feeling the hurt from those choices now but hindsight is 20/20.

I disagree about "having no effect on EQ". I'm going to give anyone that steps in the benefit of the doubt.
And John, if you're reading this, do what ya gotta do man. A lot of us do understand that you were personally attacked and don't hold ill will towards you for it. May you find peace and may you find whatever else you are looking for.

THE SKY IS FALLING!!



I hope the move puts you out of the spotlight John, I doubt being targeted by international terrorists was on the job outline.

Don't forget about us EQ'ers!

2 possible things...
a) Smed knows the ship is sinking and jumps over board (bad news for Eq...obviously)
b) he was canned or left for the reasons we all know (good for Eq, he didn't give a about mmorpgs anymore he said so himself)

Let's just hope it's b)

c) Lizard Squad had begun to dox other DGC employees and threaten them as well so for the safety of everyone at DGC he has stepped down

At least he was replaced with a long term SOE/Daybreak employee and not some new Hatchetman from CN, Russell Shanks has been around since 2002 or so and knows the company.

Sorry for John if this was not voluntary. I hate the though that the cyber terrorists are winning too. No mater why John left they will see this as a win and be emboldened by it.

All the best John I hope this works out for the best for you in the long run.

Sucks he isn't completely gone, is how I feel. This guy has squandered away so much money (>$120 million) on projects that never worked instead of sticking to the core games that were generating revenue and rejuvenating and reinvesting back into those games.

I don't know if this was a public move by CN to have him gone for a little while and then put him back in the same position to let this Lizard Squad ordeal die out, and he might return in the same positon? -- that is left to be seen.

Either way, lets hope he has little say on the vision of the DGC company going forward, cause he's lost direction about 8-9 years. Hopefully, Russel Shanks, the interim CEO doesn't loose sight and reinvigorates the core games like EQ1 with the resources it needs.

Also had hoped they had brought new blood from outside the company to take CEO position (which would have been the right move), but guess we are left with Russell Shanks, which could possibly mean he'll just keep churning the same vision that DGC has had the last 10 years or so. New blood would have meant newer ideas and possible a newer vision going forward.