Longtime San Diego video game executive John Smedley, who developed the EverQuest multiplayer franchise for Sony, has launched a startup game studio that’s building a new pixel art role-playing computer game called “Hero’s Song.”

Pixelmage Games has raised $1 million in seed funding from a private investor and has turned to Kickstarter in hopes of raising an additional $800,000 to finish the development of “Hero’s Song,” which the company plans to release in October.

“The reason we went to Kickstarter isn’t actually for the money,” said Smedley. “It’s for the community building. Kickstarter is a fabulous place to kickstart the community, not just the funding.”

Hero’s Song is the first game from John Smedley’s PixelImage studio. (PixelImage)


Pixelmage employs 13 workers. Smedley ran Sony Online Entertainment in San Diego for years, and has been in the local video game scene since 1993. The studio was known for its massively multi-player online games, including EverQuest, PlanetSide, DC Universe and others.

Sony Online Entertainment was sold to a private equity firm in 2014 and renamed Daybreak Games, which produced the multiplayer zombie survival action game H1Z1.

Smedley left Daybreak last summer to start the new studio. “I had a game in mind for many years,” he said. “I finally pulled the trigger.”

“I could have never have made this game at Daybreak,” he continued. “It is too indie, and there is too much risk. When you are working with a company with a $100 million revenue line, you have to think a lot more carefully about the type of games you make. You are not as free to make any game you want. This is a passion product for me.”


Hero’s Song is a 2D pixel art fantasy role playing game. Bill Trost, lead designer and co-creator of the EverQuest franchise, and Patrick Rothfuss, author of “The Name of the Wind,” are working on the project.

“A lot of people don’t know that long before I tried to write a novel, I tried to write a computer game,” said Rothfuss in a statement. “So when John asked me if I wanted to be a part of the project, I was flattered and excited. I’ve been playing games forever, and I know how stories work.”

Hero’s Song can be played individually, or online with hundreds of others. The company’s player hosted server method allows players to better control the fantasy worlds they create.

“This is similar to games such as Minecraft where you can create a random world to be in,” said Smedley. “We have made that the single biggest part of the game. We simulate 3,000 years of history. Your character has a grandfather and a great, great grandfather.”


Pixelmage aims to remain a small, independent studio, said Smedley. He thinks there is plenty of video game talent in San Diego, with about 2,500 game developer jobs in the region.

“The goal is to build a company that makes super handcrafted games,” he said. “We want to stay indie, but we want our games to reach a wide audience by pricing them right and making them the type of games that audiences want to try.”