Former Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley, will be leading Amazon’s new game studio in San Diego.
Smedley made a name for himself in the 90s when he was tasked to help create a persistent online universe for Sony. By 1999 his development team was ready to launch Everquest, which was a huge success and could be considered the game to bring MMORPGs to the masses.
He continued to lead projects for Sony Online Entertainment, including Star Wars: Galaxies, Everquest II, Planetside 2 and H1Z1. He even stayed on to help SOE transition to Daybreak Studios, after many of his colleagues and projects went to the chopping block.
Stepping down from his position at SOE coincided with a heavy dose of harassment from the cybervandal group Lizard Squad. The conflict between a prominent member, Julius Kivimaki and Smedley came to a head with a bomb threat that landed the CEOs plane.
Whether the harassment and his career transition are related or not is unknown, but it appears he won’t be backing down with his new position at the head of Amazon’s new Studio. Smedley has always been an innovator, and his team is already hard at work using Amazon Web Services Cloud and Twitch to create a new gaming world.
