Ex-Daybreak President John Smedley took to Twitter last night to throw his support behind MMO emulator projects. While most studios publicly ignore or condemn these fan projects, it was a well-known secret that Daybreak held a favorable attitude about them.
“I’ve been asked recently about my feelings on emulators like SWG Emu and things like Project 1999,” he posted. “Now that I’m no longer at Daybreak/SOE I can speak my mind. Truth is I’ve always respected the hell out of the people that work on the emulator stuff. Good for them. I would love to have turned over the source code for older games as long as it’s handled properly. Anyone that has that kind of passion and backwards engineers a server is someone I respect highly.”
Smedley clarified his position while hinting at how his new job as head of an unnamed studio could be openly friendly toward such projects: “I’m not a big fan of [emulators]Â charging since that’s a can of worms licensing-wise (most game companies use third-party tools). But as a rule I’d like to be supportive of efforts like that in the future. At my new company that’s what we are doing.”
