What happened to developer SMOKE?
A few months ago, Vita scene developer SMOKE sent me a “farewell” message to publish here. I didn’t do it at the time, mostly because he had been “away” from the scene in the past, then had come back. So I wasn’t sure how permanent his leave would be. However, several people have been recently asking me what happened to him, and since he apparently hasn’t come back, I feel it’s high time I published his message.
Some of the things he mentions are probably water under the bridge right now, so for those who don’t want to dig into the details: SMOKE left the scene back in September. He also stopped activity on his scene related accounts on social media and the like, which probably explains why his twitter account got recently suspended.
Among other things, Smoke had developed simple but very useful tools for the Vita scene in its early days, such as Memcardswap, and a mod of MolecularShell to access all partitions (something that VitaShell now does out of the box). Before his days as a scene dev, Smoke had been a moderator here on wololo.net, overseeing in particular our tutorial contest for several months.
Below is Smoke’s message:
To the PSVita scene:
Scenes are all about having fun doing whatever you wish with your devices, yet still I repeatedly make it very unfun and pretty miserable for some over the past 4 years. I became over invested in this to the point that all I ever wanted to do was scene related things. All day, every day. That has been my life for the past 4 years. At some point I even developed a small group of friends, people I trusted to share almost anything with. I’ve come to realize that it’s very hard to trust someone you’ve never met in real life. Especially when you have a hard time with mental disorders. But either way, I’m the only one to blame here. Haxxey is a pretty nice guy all in all, he didn’t deserve the hate I spewed towards him, the same goes for everyone else I’ve attacked in the past.I’m sorry to have caused so many problems throughout the years. I’m sorry to everyone I’ve hurt throughout all this. I’m sorry to everyone that believed in me. I’m sorry to Nzaki, the man that was generous enough to make me a custom painted Vita, even though I didn’t deserve it. Please know that I will cherish that Vita forever.
Thank you to everyone that’s helped me in the past, be it programming help, encouragement and support, or even just sending me a silly meme that made me laugh.
It’s time for me to go, once and for all. Don’t expect to see me ever again, especially under my current name. I’ve trashed the name SMOKE far too much at this point.
Goodbye everyone.
It’s always sad to see a memeber of the scene go, but if that what’s best for him, we can only send our support…
well… “SMOKE”, what do you expect… is a kind of gas or something like that…
GET OUT!!
Dang, well I always liked SMOKE, sent him some memes sometimes and some support, definitely will be missed in the scene.
For those who haven’t seen Wololo’s Twitter status about this, Smoke is doing really well. I’m a personal friend of his in real life. He hit a rough spot in his life a while back, but he’s turned it around and is doing a lot better.
Tell him we want to paint him another Vita!
send me a painted vita, cause why not?
smoke you will be missed. Thank you for all your hard work and for everything you released. Hope to see a return from you. Best wishes for you in scenes and in life.
there are more other talented people who dissapointed us in someways… i dont wanna give names… because i respect them for very hard work in modding scene in general
Thnk you from México
A veces quisiera poder conocer a personas como Smoke en la vida real para agradecerle, pero es difícil ¿verdad? así que por éste medio agradezco a Smoke por sus aportes a la comunidad Vita y le deseo éxito en todo lo que haga 🙂
Saludos!
Thnkz you from México
A veces quisiera poder conocer a personas como Smoke en la vida real para agradecerle, pero es difícil ¿verdad? así que por éste medio agradezco a Smoke por sus aportes a la comunidad Vita y le deseo éxito en todo lo que haga 🙂
Saludos!
Maybe he’ll come back under the name VAPE
We’ll miss you, Smoke…SMOKE….SMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE 🙂
Man, that’s rough. SMOKE, I’ve been following the scene for years and all the hard work you’ve put in has really done a lot for people out there. You’ve accomplished great things and we’ll all miss you, no doubt about it. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say thank you for everything you’ve done for us throughout the years. Whatever you choose to do now, make it great, brother
Farewell smoke , i hope that u find what u are looking for in ure life , i know , mental disorder is really a pain and sometimes fun 😀 and sometimes u dont care at all XD , but i hope that u will find ure way in life , Love from Iran
D; Good bye SMOKE, I hope you are doing well. You really were a major part of the PSP/VITA scene almost sad to hear you go. I seriously can’t even count the number of times I’ve used something you created or modified on my psp. Your programming will continue to live on for future PSP/VITA Users to enjoy. I thank you for your contributions to the scene.
Sometimes you give too much and a piece of yourself gets lost along the way. Don’t be too hard on yourself Smoke, people understand that you were just in a bad place.
Hahahaha Sony 1 – Scene/Smoke 0
Thanks you leave, now we can relax a bit more and stop pulling your loving “stability updates”
TheFlow. You are the next
i find your scoring system funny, sony – 0 scene – wins. The Vita is already hacked lol
Funny only 3.60 is hacked go ahead. Hack the next firmwares. Or better, try to downgrade. That will be very funny, I’ll laugh at you
Sounds like you enjoy sitting on $ony’s pony…..why comment here? your mouth should be filled with with the pony’s ballz at this time…..
f00d has been hacked, we now have complete control over the Vita. Get rekt, son!
I think hes want some scene for him, it´s just soo fakin emo, man go away if you want don´t need to make this a whole scene….
Lol he sounds like a teenager, he probably is, so cringey
Yep, I think you are also a kid. Continue with your kiddy nintendo when you grew up you will be able to play better games and you will be able to pay for a ps + suscription by yourself, no need money from your parents.
yeah sounds super angsty
udar para portuguêsSmoke, thanks a lot for all the support and support for the psp and vita scene! The life of those who dedicate themselves to winning a simple thank you must be very stressful.
Leave the past in the past, for those who have always followed the scene will be eternally grateful for all of their work.
I and many others wish you a very happy life!
Greetings ! Brazil !
A pair of toxic people break all the scene and they leave us in nothing. Thanks for all Smoke, and thanks to all good people who make the scene a good place to be…
Pretty sure he and another developer that “left” are still around under different names. Not that it really matters though since they stopped releasing stuff publicly.
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