Another one gone: On the night from Wednesday to Thursday, John Smedley, the controversial head of the MMO studio DGC, announced his resignation.
The reasons are not known; one can only speculate what exactly led the industry veteran to vacate his seat.
A few days ago, when he publicly announced his withdrawal from Twitter and reddit, he said something like: “Life is too short to be distracted from your goals. I just wanted to make games.” Maybe that’s impossible when you are scapegoated for your company’s game servers being under DDOS attacks. And that, from the fans’ perspective, is “only” because you vented your anger on Twitter and publicly declared war on a cybercriminal.
His parents need to be held accountable for his actions in addition to his going to jail. @what_security – So I’m coming for you Julius.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) July 8, 2015
It is not even clear why the group of cybercriminals chose Smedley as their enemy number 1 last year. Maybe because he was the head of “Sony Online Entertainment” and they hastily concluded: He must be responsible for Sony’s internet security! Let’s make an example of him, let’s really hit him!
The fact that Smedley had nothing to do with PSN, but led an MMO studio within Sony that focused on PC games, might have escaped the underage cybercriminals. The consequences are known: A bomb threat forced a passenger plane to make an emergency landing, SWAT teams were dispatched, personal documents were released online, photos of Smedley’s father’s grave were defaced with obscenities and posted. All this has left scars on Smedley, who took pride in being a president that was approachable, someone who remained accessible and relatable despite all difficulties for the fans.
One of the Lizard Squad cybercriminals gave an interview to Sky News…
No, the reasons for Smedley’s resignation are not known. Maybe he just got up one day and thought: “Why am I putting myself through this?” And he’s not the first one to do so. Markus Persson, the former mastermind behind Minecraft, is considerably more conciliatory and less controversial than Smedley. But even Persson eventually lost the desire to be the big figure, the front man, the one that everyone could rub against, the one with expectations. He didn’t want to be a symbol anymore; it wasn’t about the money for him, as he said when leaving Minecraft, but rather about his soul, about his mental health.
Persson left all the commotion behind after watching a video on YouTube about Phil Fish.
The controversial indie developer Phil Fish is on the other side of the scale, even more aggressive, even more controversial than Smedley could ever be. The indie developer liked to argue with opponents, especially publicly, seeking friction, enjoying it. Until he became too prominent. The number of opponents he provoked to the boiling point grew so much that among them were people who seemed willing to do him personal harm by any means necessary. And that is possible today, as Smedley learned, from the shadows and anonymously.
Following the motto “Many dogs are the death of the hare”, it eventually became a biting comment, a public attack, one mockery too many. Fish, who even his fiercest critics considered a talented game developer, withdrew from the public eye.
Phil Fish was examined in this internet documentary as a prime example of an “Internet celebrity”…
Women are facing very similar problems online. And they don’t need to have the alpha male syndrome or a big ego. Two things that one cannot deny either Fish or Smedley have. Women get in trouble online when they irritate. Uncomfortable women get in trouble. Women with challenging views who want to talk about questioning the portrayal of women in video games. They irritate the wrong people, the ones who have nothing to lose. And in 2015, that can lead to bomb and murder threats. The most prominent example is certainly Anita Sarkeesian, who has faced various attacks with her series “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games“. The mildest of them being that she lacks gamer cred…
It’s a strange world we live in. Every form of culture, every movie, every video game, every TV series shows us how important it is to speak up, to be brave, to stand out from the crowd. We cheer for heroes who do exactly that. Those who refuse to duck, those who show their colors: They get our full sympathy… in the cinema or on the couch.
We demand people with edges and corners. We are done with flimsy platitudes, with peddlers who avoid every position. We are fed up with people who never want to ruffle any feathers. We demand opinions, want to be taken seriously, want to be heard.
Smedley has done all that: Over a year ago, we watched John Smedley communicate with players, how he clearly stated what he thought, how he admitted mistakes, approached fans, and spoke with them. And we wondered. Since when has Sony been this cool?
Anita Sarkeesian in conversation with Stephen Colbert in his role as a right-wing conservative media eater…
But in practice, it is precisely those who do this, the controversial types, the bothersome ones, those who annoy us, those who provoke us to think, those who talk to us, who serve us something different than thin PR-talk, exactly those are subjected to attacks from an anonymous mass that wants to set them straight, that wants to show them boundaries, that tells them: If you do that, we will finish you off. If you say something that doesn’t suit us, then you will regret it. Exactly these people are vulnerable, wear themselves out in endless skirmishes, they are played unfairly and harassed.
The aggressors see themselves in the role of David: They are individuals who want to take down a Goliath, a person of influence, using any means at their disposal. Because what does he think he is? What does he think who he is? We’ll show him! And thus, we become someone too. We are the ones who have influence, who must be paid attention to.
How do we want our public figures? Strong in opinion, communicative, approachable, but always composed and noncommittal? Do we want them to be loved and liked by everyone? And what if not? What if their nose doesn’t fit the wrong people? If their ideas clash where people are not too polite, where they do not value exchange of opinions, where they nurture other methods of communication, sending death threats or SWAT teams instead of arguments?
Should they really be silent and duck away?
And what if not? Do we then demand them to be statues, to silently endure? To be above such things. A death threat here, some published private documents there, pages of hate mail and midnight calls… What does it matter to the proud oak when the boar rubs against it?
No, we cannot demand that. They are not statues. They are people who one morning wake up and say: “Why am I putting myself through this?” And maybe fewer of these people will get up if it’s more comfortable not to be vulnerable, to refrain from certain things, to have more self-control.
