Hero's Song is the first game from John Smedley's PixelImage studio.
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Hero’s Song RPG is the first game from ex-Sony Online chief John Smedley’s startup

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

John Smedley, the former head of Sony Online Entertainment, has unveiled Hero’s Song, the first game from his new studio PixelImage Games.

Smedley served at Sony Online Entertainment for 20 years and was its leader for 15. He spun the maker of massively multiplayer online games such as PlanetSide 2 out of its Japanese parent company in February, 2015. He became the CEO of the renamed business, Daybreak Game Company, but stepped down from that role in July 2015. By October, he started his new company, PixelImage of San Diego, Calif., and started work on a title that was announced today. Smedley is launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise $800,000 for the title.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.