Q&A: SOE's John Smedley on the kinder, gentler Galaxies

By Curt Feldman, GameSpotPosted Dec 9, 2005 5:31 pm PT

You say it's not the same Star Wars Galaxies? The game's developer explains why--and talks about what's ahead for the MMORPG space in general. Part 1.

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Last month, Star Wars Galaxies developer Sony Online Entertainment and publisher LucasArts put the marquee title through a number of significant changes.

Central to the strategy was the goal to make the persistant world game more inviting to the hundreds of thousands of Star Wars fans who may have felt the game presented too high a barrier to entry. While estimates of subscribers remain north of 200,000, even at two, three, or four times that figure, it's a tiny percentage of the millions of people who are enamored with the Star Wars backstory.

In a move designed to tap that underserved market, the game's developer and publisher released an update to the original 2003 title last month. The changes include a slimmed down number of professions a gamer can assume, a revamped and simplified "early" or "new player" experience, fewer obstacles to becoming a Jedi, and a streamlined pay model--offering users a chance to download the update for free, as well as free play in the game's first 10 levels.

What's behind the strategy, and what's ahead from the game's maker? GameSpot spoke with SOE president John Smedley.

GameSpot: Tell me a little bit about the process that goes into this kind of product management and repositioning in the marketplace. How do you get to that point?

John Smedley: I guess this all started when Jim Ward became president of LucasArts. [As a group], we asked ourselves what could we do to significantly improve Galaxies. Star Wars is a big mass-market IP and we always felt like we had underdelivered on the Star Wars experience.

I think the numbers that we had, while they're OK for the MMO space, could be a lot bigger, given the amount of people that know about Star Wars.

GS: How did you drill down to know what aspects of the games were right for a change?

JS: We spent quite a bit of time and money doing product research. We did a number of focus groups and talked specifically about changes that we could make to the interface, to the combat, and to the overall gameplay experience--to make it a lot more fun. We also did surveys asking the current user base what was missing, what were things we could do to make the game better.

GS: How does the internal team participate?

JS: One of the things that we do is that everybody, literally everybody in the company, from our legal department to our finance department to our development group, gets into the game.

GS: And what did you find out after all that playing with the game?

JS: Star Wars never hit that excitement level around here. It never got--there never was a critical mass of people here that wanted to play it. So we knew we could do way better. And I guess as much out of a love for making these kinds of games, even though that sounds corny, though it's true, we wanted to make this game better.

GS: How influential was Jim Ward, really, in getting you guys to rethink the SWG formula?

JS: What Jim brought to the table was a renewed desire to work with us. I think that's the biggest thing. It brought our companies a lot closer when Jim came on board. They became really serious and strong partners and very enthusiastic partners.

A lot of people don't realize, but in addition to running LucasArts, Jim also runs all of marketing for all of LucasFilm. This guy knows Star Wars like nobody knows Star Wars. He knows this brand and what it's capable of delivering. Jim has been a great partner and has been working with us really closely.

GS: One thing you didn't change was the revenue model. Now, when I think of you, I think of you as a keen observer of what's happening in the Asia markets... Do you see anything happening in the future with products at SOE that might build off of the billing and pay-model trends building in Asia?

JS: What I'm seeing over there is a trend toward more the upsell model. You can play a game without subscription, but maybe you're buying cosmetic items, or maybe you're purchasing a cheap subscription with a kind of "behind the velvet rope" [gamespace]. We've been trying to adopt a variant [subscription] model for an upcoming game we have coming out next year--I can't really give you details about it.

But we're also considering adding other models for the current set of games. We think the best strategy is to get these games into the hands of more people. We believe that the social bonding that occurs really makes them like the experience and want to come back for more. Then getting gamers over that subscription hurdle is--gotta be job number one for us after making great games.

So we think that [free-to-play] model could easily apply to other games. Is that going to happen to Star Wars? We have no plans for that, but let's put it this way, if we're very successful with this [upcoming] model, we could see making radical changes across the board. But we'll just have to see.

GS: And you'd have to wait for that game to be released next year, right?

JS: Yes.

GS: Which is going to be a game that carries the more creative revenue model?

JS: It's going to be a major new release from us next year. We [haven't announced] time frame or anything like that, or what the game's about, but it's been in development for quite a while now and I can't wait to reveal it. I'm excited about it, and my colleague in PR here has given me the sign to shut up about it!

GS: OK. Another thing that they do differently in Asia is that a lot more people play a single game.

JS: Yes.

GS: What's it going to take for a Western MMO to replicate the number of users that Asian MMOs are tallying?

JS: Part of the reason is a cultural thing. Let's take Korea, for example. When you go to Korea you will see 18-year-olds and 12-year-olds in PC cafes. And if you turn on a TV, rather than Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, you're going to see Starcraft being played, or other games being played--on national television. People dress up in costumes [based on game characters]. These things would be very, very foreign to us here in the US. So, I think part of that is cultural.

Also, broadband penetration, which is at a much higher percentage than here in the US, is contributing to a big shift in online gaming. It started as kind of a cultural phenomenon and now it's becoming a part of their cultural identity.

GS: What do you see in the other Asian markets?

JS: The same thing is happening in China, where for years, entertainment has [consisted of] pirated movies and things like that. There's never been any real gaming industry because nobody can rent games--so you haven't been able to make money over there. Well, online gaming has changed that. You're starting to see an explosion of Asian-based online games with an Asian cultural influence.

GS: It doesn't sound as if we could ever get to those high numbers, though.

JS: I don't think that's true. When you look out there and you see the amount of people that are actually playing online games at any given time in the US, it's pretty amazing. The difference is, we have much broader games than they're playing.

GS: What does your research tell you?

JS: If you look online at any given time you might have 120,000 to 150,000 Counterstrike Source players, then another 75,000 regular Counterstrike players. In Battlefield 2, another 40,000 or 50,000 people there total. You add up everybody else and the EA stuff, and then start adding in MMO games like ours, and World of Warcraft and many other MMOs out there, and you're getting to the numbers.

GS: Which is what?

JS: I think the number of online game players at any given time in the US during most nights is probably about 1.2 million. Seeing those kind of numbers really gives me hope that we can see that kind of explosion. Just two years ago, those numbers were in the 600,000-700,000 range. At the rate that it's growing, we are going to see that number get to 5-6 million people online at the same time within a few years.

No one game may have as many as in Asia now, but one day, there will be some massive titles that everybody just has to play.

GS: And the winner will be...?

JS: Years back it was us. Right now World of Warcraft is certainly owning a lot of online play. And we have some big stuff planned, so as time goes on you're going to see the interest here climb.

[Read part 2 of our interview with SOE presidient John Smedley next week.]

83 Comments

  • MindFever

    Posted Mar 6, 2006 10:37 am PT

    I remember when SW:G was coming into the market... I was quite astonished of the features.Though i dont have a credit card, i never actualy wanted to play a game ,just to pay it every month.But, let me point this out: THIS ONE THE ONE it really made me rethink my philosophy of "what's worth playin'". I saw the features, it was mind bogging.Finaly ,i said, A game that lets you explore your own potential and can let you develop your own character as you see fit (in a virtual world of Star Wars even!). I said, Finaly a game that doesnt make you ADJUST to the gameplay,but rather YOU adjust the GAME ITSELF how it plays out.
    Then, after a year or so ,i gave it a go ( this was last year)... I expected depth and everything it promised years back (32 classes and all...). I downloaded the TRIAL VERSION , made an account and i was all happy to try it out - becoming a potential buyer.
    Ofcourse i realised that the real world we live in , has dissapointments ofcourse (for example:maybe the game is not so great as they say...i took this into account) ... but this was too big to expect.I never expected such lowsy and boring gameplay from this game.It totaly dissapointed me.When i started to read the forums, it became everything clear: SOE is not trustworthy. I played this game for 1 hour - maybe ... and immediately quit.It was THAT bad - i even played EARTH AND BEYOND for a week !!
    This is my experience...
    SOE must understand that by doing such things: replacing quality with QUANTITY (quantity as in attracting new players), they are really really short-sighted.This is NOT a long-term investement.
    Ok,so i never payed a penny for this game.I tell you : WHAT A BLESSING!
    Now people, immagine folks who played this game when it was still "OKAY".BAM! New changes and everything screwed up - i admire your patience people, since you didnt boykot this thing right away.This is allmost as bad as the "Derek Smart - Taco Commander" fiasco.
    Cheers - sorry for my long "statement",but i truly needed to say this

  • molivers7

    Posted Feb 9, 2006 7:02 am PT

    Look how long these comments are, smed. The reason, you are a liar. SOE does not listen to the gaming community and the gaming community is turning its back on you. Have fun trying to find another job when the SOE higher ups fire you. Your resume will be filled with many accomplishments......not so much.

  • AdmiralJedi

    Posted Dec 19, 2005 2:08 pm PT

    What really cracks me up is Mr. Smedley's picture. Seriously, that picture just SCREAMS OUT, "I sneak off to play golf at lunch time." Does he PLAY the game? Nobody should be the president of a gaming company who doesn't PLAY the game. Straight up.

  • goremyka

    Posted Dec 17, 2005 10:26 am PT

    Online game is not an online game without all the Doomsayers. I like the changes and I've been here since the beginning but most people only get to hear the negitive comments.

  • ibanez_slinger

    Posted Dec 14, 2005 3:22 pm PT

    Ahhh, just another reason for consumers to get a World of Warcraft account.

  • Hydrolix

    Posted Dec 14, 2005 3:17 pm PT

    I'd like to see the numbers of subscribers they lost due to these changes. Nearly all 100+ people in my guild quit because of them.

  • Omega-Protoman

    Posted Dec 14, 2005 8:30 am PT

    Sounds like the game was pretty radically changed. I wonder why Gamespot hasn't reviewed it yet. Yeah I know its not technically an expansion but it may as well be.

  • nikgrid

    Posted Dec 13, 2005 11:26 am PT


    Hey I'm not sure if people realise this, but SWG was NEVER released in Australia and New Zealand, hell I'm not even sure if it was released in the U.K.
    This shows tremendous confidence in a game that Smedley says they want to get out to All the Star Wars fans.....Hey guess what there are Star Wars fans WORLDWIDE john! Myself and my friends had to import SWG ourselves, so we're even more pissed about them screwing it up with thw CU and the NGE. Now we have a useless F%#king game sitting on our shelves!

    Damn! Hopefully Lucas sees the numbers this crap is making and gives the licence to someone competent.

  • chrisdojo

    Posted Dec 13, 2005 9:51 am PT

    i've had enough of star wars.

  • mastergamerandy

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 12:31 pm PT

    We got survey's? From a player of 2 years never seen the survey.

  • SirChuckalot

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 11:59 am PT


    As you can see, This is a touchy subject. Two things: One, I hope gamespot is prepared to ask tough questions unlike the softball stuff that other online sites are asking Mr. Smedly and company. They shouldn't be let off the hook that easy.

    Second, What new players have to realize is the fact that many people spent a lot of time and money in this game. I like to refer to SWG as more of a hobbie than a game. Imagine spending 2 years on a project and in one swift move that was not expected, your work was wiped out. Imagine taking Half-life or Civilization and changing it to an adventure game or a cheap 2d scroller. You bought one game, but wait, the producers want to change it to another. The idea of taking a game which had the same gameplay and operation for 2.5 years then COMPLETELY changing everything is just a dumb thing to do. NGE is the worst thing to happen to SWG. The refunds they gave for the latest expansion tells you that they knew they did something wrong. The fact that Smed is here pleading his case and all the TV/media ads they are running tells you they know they did something WRONG! Funny how SWG never needed advertising for over 2 years...just print ads. Since the Combat Upgrade, you see, or have seen TV ads all over. Also, this is not about "uber" players that got their characters' "jewels" cut off. I wasn't a high end player and I just can't stand the "diablo", FPS(really a 3rdPS), so-so rpg thing that they dumped on the community. If you read the forums, or better yet, go online and in the game, the population is devastated. Will they get their numbers back? Doubtful. World of Warcraft is a popular game because the other game "Warcraft" was popular for years and the idea of "living" in that universe appealed to that fanbase first, then word of mouth and great reviews drew more people in. If Blizzard completely gutted that game, there would be a mass exodus by that userbase as well.

    Jumping on the bandwagon is never something people respect and for the SOE team to do just that is shameful and just shows a lack of original thinking on this current team's part. It's obvious that they have copied the best elements of WOW and other mmorpgs out there but have failed in a big way. I read a comment from SOE that said that is was too difficult to keep track of 32 professions which tells you that this current team isn't as skilled as those who were the original creators of SWG. They did fine for a long time.

    If you are curious, go ahead and try it. But I would read all the forums on the swg website, the reviews here on gamespot, pcgamer, ign, amazon and others and you will see that less than 12% of people accept the NGE as good. I am a HUGE star wars fan and had been a player since September of 2003. Now, I wouldn't play Star Wars Galaxies with the NGE even if it were FREE! As it stands now, you pay $15 a month to BETA test and in some cases it's no better than an Alpha test. Look, I'm not a hater.....the people who are flaming are people who loved this mmorpg and have been wronged by the deceptive practices of Sony Online Entertainment. If someone could get the old code from LA.SOE and start a few new servers, they would fill up a lot faster and have more subscriptions than this "New" swg ever will. NGE=Nail in the coffin for Star Wars Galaxies. Suck it up, Smedly....roll it back before it's too late.

  • DBReilly

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 11:29 am PT

    It seems that SOE can't decide what they want SWG to be. They first seemed to want a mix of Ultima and EQ which allowed people to be in a community and fight and level grind if they wanted too. But now SOE has looked at WOW and other combat focus MMOs and decided thats what they want. They saw Ultima doing terrible and EQ doing badly but as Sony always does they think its not their fault but people wanting something new. What they don't realize is that Ultima needed a true sequel not another expansion and EQ should be hardcore player only not designed so its noob friendly. I haven't even talked about customer support which like most things from Sony is bad, they don't care about bugs unless enough people complain about it. They don't care about their subscribers as long as they get their money. Compare them to ArenaNet and Guild Wars where there is no subscription fee and ArenaNet relies on people buying their game and the expansions. They have the best support period even though they already have your money. They also care about their fan base and listen to their people. They have fansite fridays where a site can ask questions about GW and get answers from lead developers and programmers. When you compare GW to SWG you can see that SOE does it for money and Arenanet does it for love of the game.

  • melkior13

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 11:09 am PT

    Honestly, I think the pre-NGE SWG was a very good MMORPG for hard-core players. This is exactly where I think SOE & LucasArts messed up from day 1 - appealing to hardcore MMORPG gamers. I have to agree with their theory that if we have so many Star Wars fans why can't we grow the number of players?
    I remember several years ago when the game industry said MMOG was the wave of the future and everyone would be trying to do it - mainly because they were attracted by the monthly user fees. And then many MMOGs did come out - and many of them died or linger on with shrinking user bases. Why? Because all of these games are way too similar and have failed to grow the number of MMOG players in the US. The first game to get it right since the inception of the idea has been WoW. As far as I can tell, SOE blew their chance with SWG - it is marginalized - as is EQII - why do you think you can get a station pass subscription to both? That wasn't how it was when the games first came out. WoW is dominating this market here now and SOE is finally trying something new - which they should have done in the first place. In order to get those huge numbers of extra players you have to cater to casual players, not hard core MMOG players. Unfortunately from an internet press perspective - the hard core gamers are much more vocal than the casual players. I do agree with the sentiment that they have put out just a little bit of good content and then it just lingers after the new intro stuff - but this is exactly how they released the game in the beginning.
    Maybe they should have just made SWG2 - but I'm sure they don't want to support both.

  • DFalcon999

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 8:41 am PT

    SWG is actually the fault of many. It's SOE's fault for not making a good Star Wars game with an action-packed combat system in the first place. It's Raph Koster's fault for making it into a Player Merchant game instead of a Star Wars Game.

    Frankly, I feel that people leaving SWG now are justified in doing so and more power to them. They've had to deal with radical gameplay revamps at least 2 times now, that's definitely disenheartening.

    However, as a Star Wars fan from an early age, I have to say the game is closer to being Star Wars than it ever has been before. Granted, it would have been better if they made this game so that it had been set in the Old Republic or in the New Republic (shortly after the movies) but what there is now is still alright.

    People that have never played SWG before and enjoy Star Wars in general will probably like the new game, the vets however, have already left. I'm probably one of the last launch people still playing the game at all, though it's only because of my guild that I play.

  • Komok

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 8:32 am PT

    Gamespot just lost itself 1 reader.

  • jaefrmbk2k

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 7:21 am PT

    i love easy games

  • flaknugget

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 6:40 am PT

    One major handicap SWG has always had. And something I've never seen addressed in any of the dozens of post-mordems I've read about it, is the crippling economic drain designed to make players constantly work just to maintain what they already have. Building 'maintenance', item decay, dissappearing factories and harvestors, etc. I played SWG for a year, and I can't tell you how many people quit because they took a week off from playing, and lost every item they owned because their house dissappeared. Also it's left no incentive for former players to return to the game. It's a huge slap in the face actually... I personally had millions of creds worth of items when I cancelled my subcription. All that stuff is simply gone now, and if I re-opened the same account I have already spent a year playing, I would have no items, short of the creds in the bank... and with this NGE I wouldn't even have any experience or profession ranks. That is the major hurdle to making SWG a success in the future. Anyone who spent anytime playing it before probably doesn't want to come back and have to spend months just getting back to where they left off. Just short-sighted MMO design at it's worst.

  • Igiss

    Posted Dec 12, 2005 3:08 am PT

    "...everybody, literally everybody in the company, from our legal department to our finance department to our development group, gets into the game."

    This passage explains clearly why they screwed up the game. It's not easy to please legal department. But absolutely necessary when you prepare to defend against outrageous fans.

  • geldonyetich

    Posted Dec 11, 2005 10:44 pm PT

    There's a lot of claims that Star Wars Galaxies NGE has left the game without any subscribers. Established players, discovering that their game has been radically restructured out from under them really want to believe this - that SOE isn't going to get away with swapping their paid subscriptions for something else entirely. Yet, I have to wonder how true it really is. Smed isn't kidding when he says Galaxies was never as popular as it should have been, and for good reason. Is the NGE, despite what it's done to its existing players who had grown accustomed to teh old game, a step in the right direction?

  • threx808

    Posted Dec 11, 2005 10:31 pm PT

    Patmacfad, dont kid yourself, and dont lie to us. You have not been playing since the beginning or pretty much the beginning. because if you had, you would not even give them a chance to redeem themselves. After all this time and we are still testing their game.

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