John Smedley interviewed
The president of Sony Online Entertainment have been interviewed by gamesindustry.biz. Smedley share information about some of their upcoming titles such as The Agency and he explain how it's like to acquire a title like Vanguard.
How is work coming along on the PS3 titles?
John Smedley: Work's coming along great - we've been very careful to keep our games playable as much as possible all the time. We're using the Unreal 3 engine for DC and Agency, and because of that we're a long way along on those titles.
Q: How would you characterise the change that has undergone SOE in the past few years, in terms of working with partners?
John Smedley: One thing that's happened quite often is that we've been able to work with some great partners. We've worked with the LucasArts guys for years, and right now we're working with the Warner Bros team on DC Universe, so for us partnerships are what it's all about.
And we also launched the Pirates of the Burning Sea game with Flying Labs, so we're always out there looking for people to work with.
Q: How do you approach those partnerships? What level of involvement do you have in development, or marketing? What's your ideal partnership?
John Smedley: The ideal relationship is that we look at everything from the game first - like with Pirates of the Burning Sea, a high quality game, a very good developer. We work with people we like and want to work with, that's important too. There's just not enough hours in the day.
We all love what we do, so we want to work with people we care about, and on games that we want to play.
Full interview is available here.
