SOE’s John Smedley Commented on Project Copernicus

amalur

This is a very annoying and tragic thing to read, I must say. It would appear that, at some point prior to its cancellation and the attendant shuttering of 38 Studios, Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley had the opportunity to check out Project Copernicus.

He evidently loved it.

And he even took to Twitter recently to defend it:

When pressed for details, he offered a bit more:

He also defended Curt Schilling somewhat:

And he evidently doesn’t think much of Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee:

Smedley also expresses no surprise that the IP wasn’t bought up in the recent auction, and his comment above about how the IP was strong because of the people making it is relevant to that observation as well. There’s a programmer’s adage to the effect of “hell is other peoples’ code”, and that would likely be nowhere more apparent — or more painfully true — than in the case of another team taking on the remains of Project Copernicus and attempting to pick up where 38 Studios left off.

Which, in turn, means that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will likely never have the sequel it so richly deserves. Alas.

There was a fair bit of speculation a while ago that Governor Chafee had it in for Copernicus and 38 Studios. Smedley’s comments lend a bit of credence to that speculation, although I suppose we ought to wonder just how direct Smedley’s knowledge of that was. Then again, if Schilling had been shopping the game to Sony and Smedley, it stands to reason that he might have had access to 38 Studios’ financial data…

At any rate, Smedley was evidently motivated to speak out because he heard about Curt Schilling’s recent cancer diagnosis and the surgery the former pitcher had to undergo resulting therefrom.

(Hat tip: Infinitron Dragon)