Up until a few days ago, I’d never heard of John Smedley. But reading all the articles lately, turns out he’s the CEO of Daybreak Games. Every gamer knows Daybreak, with Everquest, H1Z1 and Planetside 2 being just a handful of their well known games.
(Sorry folks, but aside from very well known industry people like Carmack, Miyamoto, Reggie Fils-Aime etc….. I don’t follow who runs smaller studios)
It seems like Lizard Squad (LS) has been successful at just about anything against him….. swatting, a bomb issue at an airport, credit applications, DDOS attacks, you name it. It seems LS has the book on him whatever he does.
Interestingly, it seems he’s now gone public decrying LS. I don’t know about you guys, but it’s typically in poor taste to vent your anger publicly…. whether it’s personal info or corporate issues, especially against someone (or a group) which has been successful at repeatedly pinning you down. And very rare that a CEO will do that. CEOs are suppose to lead a company and show leadership and calm, not ranting on Reddit.
Check out John Smedley’s Twitter account and his numerous tweets on July 8, 2015.
Does he expect the courts or gamers to somehow all put on their shoes, walk over to his home or company and help go against LS? Is he looking for pity? Is he looking for resolution? Stating that he’s going to try to get involved in an overseas court case is literally begging for more conflict. If you’re going to do that, then do it quietly.
Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away and resolve things quietly. But it now seems he’s opened himself to being a bigger target.
I’ve worked in an office all my life. I’m sure companies get crap all the time from fraudsters, hackers, corporate espionage, companies getting sued by all kinds of people or other companies. I’ve never heard any of my companies publicly denounce anything. Trust me, there’s all kinds of weird stuff I’ve seen from legal letters being sent to everyone because something shady is going on, to auditors all over the place looking for evidence (there’s something on their minds). But leadership shows calm at every place. Just relax. It would be pretty stupid for the CEOs to post on the internet any troubles the company or any individuals are having at work, or his own squabbles.
When companies go bankrupt, do you see CEOs criticize banks for not floating them more money? Lash out at customers who aren’t buying their products? Or yell at retailers for being too greedy on costing? Nope. You just got to plug away and do it calmly.
Xbox Live and PSN seem to get hit with downtime frequently, surely some of it is from DDOS attacks. How often does MS or Sony go on the counterattack and post articles? Do they ever? Their reply is basically something canned like….. “We are experiencing issues and we are looking into it. We are working as fast as possible”. It’s probably not even hand typed by someone, but simply a cut and paste automated response. Do you ever see posterboys Kaz Hirai or Phil Spencer get on the bullhorn? Never.
PS: Yeah, I know, pretty lousy article pic! I just found that pic of a lizard online and merged the images to form a banner….. that’s what happens when all you know is Microsoft Excel drawing tools and Snipping Tool built into Windows!