H1Z1

Smedley came to prominence in the mid-1990s when Sony put him in charge of its Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA) development team. He was charged with the creation of a role-playing game that would enable people to go online to adventure together at the same time. That project would eventually turn into EverQuest, which many consider as the game that truly kicked off the massively multiplayer online revolution.

In 1999, Verant Interactive (which formed after SISA spun off a few studios), Smedley finally launched EverQuest in partnership with Sony. It immediately exceeded expectations, both in financial and critical terms. The MMORPG won numerous awards, and it brought in hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Over the next decade, Smedley would continue his work at Sony Online Entertainment and help the studio publish major MMOs like Star Wars: Galaxies, EverQuest II, and The Matrix Online. While those games were able to generate some excitement, SOE quickly lost the title of MMO king when publisher Blizzard Entertainment launched World of Warcraft in 2004. For years following the release of that game, most SOE MMOs (and MMOs from other companies) have been unable to match Blizzard’s success.

But SOE never disappeared — and it even managed to carve out a substantial niche over the last half decade. And that is directly attributable to Smedley, who started trying to turn SOE into a new direction in 2007. He started asking his development teams to think beyond the traditional MMO players and the subscription-based payment model.

Smedley’s early efforts started the effort at SOE that would publish successful games like DC Universe Online (a comic book-themed MMORPG), PlanetSide 2 (a shooter MMO), and H1Z1 (a zombie-survival MMO). The company is preparing to release a new EverQuest game that has fans of that classic franchise excited.

Then, in February, Smedley guided Sony Online Entertainment during its transition to Daybreak Game Company. The private-equity group Columbus Nova purchased SOE from Sony to operate the publisher as an independent company.

And coming out of that acquisition, Daybreak was looking strong. The aforementioned games like DC Universe Online and PlanetSide 2 were not only performing well on PC, but they have found renewed audiences on the PlayStation 4 console — a significant achievement for free-to-play games. And H1Z1, which is still in its “early access” phase, is growing larger.

And Smedley was hands-on and trying to make a better product right up until he stepped down.