SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT ACQUIRES LEADING ONLINE GAMES STUDIO -- SIGIL GAMES ONLINE

SOE Strengthens Portfolio with State-of-the-Art Development Studio & its Marquee Game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

May 15, 2007 San Diego, CA – Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE), a global leader in the online games industry, today announced that it has completed a transaction to purchase key assets of Sigil Games Online, Inc. Through the deal, SOE now owns Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Sigil’s tentpole property, a highly-successful massively multiplayer online game. The Sigil acquisition also builds on SOE’s successful strategy of cultivating game development studios around the world to further boost the company’s capabilities. The announcement was made by John Smedley, President, Sony Online Entertainment.

As part of the acquisition, a majority of the Sigil team will join SOE, integrating into SOE’s worldwide group of studios which includes offices in San Diego, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Los Angeles and Taiwan. The acquisition will strengthen SOE’s position as a leader in the online gaming space by expanding the company’s portfolio of gaming offerings.

“With an unparalleled team and exceptional product, Sigil has been a creative force in the online games space. We look forward to continuing the vision for Vanguard and to continue to deliver some groundbreaking game play,” said Smedley.

In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights and the two companies agreed to co-publish Vanguard. The MMO launched in late January of this year and has sold nearly 200,000 retail and digital units worldwide. Sigil CEO and Vanguard creator, Brad McQuaid will become a consultant with SOE as Vanguard Creative Advisor.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes takes place in the fantasy setting of Telon, a vast and ancient world of magic, intrigue and adventure where thousands of players from around the world have formed a steadfast community exploring the grandeur of a world crafted by the seminal fantasy artist Keith Parkinson. The game introduced many groundbreaking new features and an art direction second to none.

About Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) is a recognized worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online games, with hundreds of thousands of subscribers around the globe. SOE creates, develops and provides compelling entertainment for the personal computer, online, game console and wireless markets. Known for its blockbuster franchises and hit titles including EverQuest®, EverQuest® II, Champions of Norrath®, Untold Legends™, and PlanetSide®, as well as for developing Star Wars Galaxies™, SOE continues to redefine the business of online gaming and the creation of active player communities while introducing new genres on various entertainment platforms. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, with additional development studios in Austin, TX, Seattle, WA, and Taiwan, SOE has an array of cutting-edge games in development. SOE is owned by Sony Pictures Digital and Sony Computer Entertainment America.

SOE, the SOE logo, EverQuest and PlanetSide are registered trademarks of Sony Online Entertainment LLC. Untold Legends is a trademark of Sony Online Entertainment LLC.

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[Gori]

Acquired the titles rights in May of 06? Interesting.

[rabb1t]

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Sigil’s tentpole property, a highly-successful massively multiplayer online game.

“Highly-successful” ?!?! hehehehe Wonder who said it was “highly-successful”. From what I’ve heard they haven’t even passed the 250k subscriber mark yet. In fact, I think they barely passed 125k haven't they?

Originally Posted by Gori

Acquired the titles rights in May of 06? Interesting.

Yeah, when they left Microsoft. “In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights and the two companies agreed to co-publish Vanguard.” Note the bold/italic part.

[Gori]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

“Highly-successful” ?!?! hehehehe Wonder who said it was “highly-successful”. From what I’ve heard they haven’t even passed the 250k subscriber mark yet. In fact, I think they barely passed 125k haven't they?



Yeah, when they left Microsoft. “In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights and the two companies agreed to co-publish Vanguard.” Note the bold/italic part.

Kk. I think I gotcha. I was reading it a different way. For some reason I was reading rights to mean ownership.

[rabb1t]

I don't think so. From all the bla bla that surfaced at that time it was just publishing rights, not IP ownership type rights.

[RaekwonThaChef]

Brad lost another game to SOE lol sucks to be him

Knew this was coming but so fast? only been 4 months and they act like SOE is amazing at making mmorpgs, really their known for destroying MMO's i heard eq2 got better? now sure eq1 was great till SOe SWG.. amazing till NGE Well only 1 year till Warhammer then we will see if it will be

WOW and AOC or WOW and Warhammer

[Fong]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

“Highly-successful” ?!?! hehehehe Wonder who said it was “highly-successful”. From what I’ve heard they haven’t even passed the 250k subscriber mark yet. In fact, I think they barely passed 125k haven't they?


Yeah, when they left Microsoft. “In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights and the two companies agreed to co-publish Vanguard.” Note the bold/italic part.

When you pull in over $1.5 million a month in revenues.... It is a succesfull endevour. Not EVERYTHING has to be by WoW's standards. Less EQ, AC, UO, EQ2, Ryzom..etc would all be considered flops.

Vanguard IS the best game that has come out yet. Yes, it has problems and certain issues. But those are not game breaking and superficial to the game itself.

They game world supports more players than a typical server/shard. Sigil opened the game with toooo many servers, thus spreading out the populous to much. The in-game community was sparse. To me, thats what killed alot of the gameplay...... not the game itself, but the back-end managment decisions.

Brad's a great Game maker, but his business sense is a tad skewed. The first 20 levels should be crude, rough IN YOUR FACE pace until people spread out and make a name for themselves and join guilds. Where they can now start to distance themselves from the newbs.

Vanguard was tooo cloistered early on.






-Fong

[rinweth]

Best? Hardly. But it did have the greatest potential, though. The mechanics were all there, they just had to put them to good use. Sadly they did not. This doesn't come to me as a surprise at all, I knew this was coming from the day SOE entered into the equation. I just didn't expect it to be so soon.

I realize now that SOE does not destroy games. If anything this will be Vanguard's last chance for success. Brad may have been charismatic when he formed Sigil, and his reputation from EverQuest certainly helped his illusion, but now I don't see how anyone can trust him with a game anymore. He was not the reason EverQuest was a success. It was a fluke, and he took the credit, but he is definitely not the "father of MMOGs" that so many peoplve have bestowed upon him.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Fong

When you pull in over $1.5 million a month in revenues.... It is a succesfull endevour. Not EVERYTHING has to be by WoW's standards. Less EQ, AC, UO, EQ2, Ryzom..etc would all be considered flops.

I suppose it's true that even at 125k it surpassed the 30-50k most of those launched at, or hit within the first 3 months, but "highly successful?!?" Sorry, I still wouldn't qualify any MMO as "highly successful" until it has either surpassed 250k subscribers, or survived 1 year or more with ~50k.

I'd count CoH/CoV as "highly successful" before I'd say VG was, and CoX hasn't surpassed 50k subscribers ever to my knowledge, though they have survived 3 years up against some very heavy competition.

I guess I've just gotten used to seeing higher and higher numbers each launch. Hearing ~125k these days, to me, does not equate to "highly".

They game world supports more players than a typical server/shard. Sigil opened the game with toooo many servers, thus spreading out the populous to much. The in-game community was sparse.

Not sure what info you are going off of, but typically a MMO will hold 10-20% of the total players on a server at any given time. If I recall there were 12 servers. They were expecting to peak around 250k subscribers. (250,000 / 12) = 20,833 players per server * .15 = 3,125 players during peak times. This is not more than other current MOGs. I don't have the link anymore, but EQ, DAoC, WoW, and several other games were referenced as handling around 3,500-5,000 players during peak times. VG, by these calculations, is no different.

However, it is true that at launch, with less than half of their expected target, they would be hitting half that peak figure, or ~1,250 players vs. the average MOG's figure of double that. Add on the fact that they are spread out over large landmasses and that makes it seem even more sparse of a population.

[serrathen]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Brad - Either you are a complete moron or this was your plan all along. Either way hopefully you never get funding ever again to produce any more crappy MMO's with overhyped promises, your poor quality leadership, excuses, and spin. You f*cked your community again, and again, how could anyone trust you now? No wait... the real question should be with 30+ million dollars how could you have f*cked up so bad? Go play on your little dirt bikes and fast cars, hell I even remember you saying you would love to design cars... please do something else cause you have lost whatever touch you had at one point.

As far as what this means for the actual community and Vanboi's and Vangirls out there... if SoE doesn't rehire Talisker and Tagad, and places entirely different and competent directors and leadership in place of this great things may indeed happen, still there is alot of fixing to do, and re-release, re-marketing, etc ahead for SoE. SoE has a good track record of fixing bad games, and maybe Smedley's genius will prevail here.... Hell maybe he will even make it free with ads... lol.

Its a sad note this had to happen, cause truthfully it didn't. If Brad and Co would have listened to their hardcore testers telling them WTF 2 do during early beta 2-2.5 this game could have been much better. But again leave it to a moron who put out a questionaire with a backasswards rating scale, leaving them with what I strongly believe to be crappy information, along with listening to the wrong people... and here lies where Vanguard stands today. Furthermore if they would have just done ONE and only ONE island FULL of ENJOYABLE content (think Thestra) and released with just that they might have been able to pull off a great POLISHED and FUN game. Instead due to what I personally believe to be Brads overpromises and just plain talking out his ass, you have a game that should still be in Beta.

If I were SoE I would disconnect the continents, fix Thestra, fix gameplay, fix ALL the bugs, polish the game up, re-release it when its DONE. Furthermore I would drop the subscription fee to FREE with Station Pass for the time being and retarget this game to the hardcore market which I still believe should have been the target market the entire time. Make Vanguard about raiding, cause truthfully the ideas and concepts back in Beta when Ascension was doing raid testing were simply AWE INSPRING. Raiding should be the name of the game in Vanguard, cause again their raid ideas were just simply f*cking awesome. Furthermore entire chunks should be almost 100% raid content. Get people up in level fast and raid, raid, raid. Make the game fun again, cause I promise you it was at one time WAY WAY WAY back when.

To those devs I truly had / still have respect for (Jerrith [good luck on your new project], Cylus, Nino, Avair, the Tarr's, and those I forgot to mention) I wish you the best of luck and you worked your asses off to try to make this game great, yet your "leadership" set you all up to fail. And Smedley - you have alot of work to do, and its not gonna be as easy as it was with EQ.

I'm still wondering what does the Vision mean anyway....... well I hope we never know.

Dink Dimbwinkle
Aggro Magnet
Proud Member of Ascension
www.ascensionguild.com

[RaekwonThaChef]

I hear alot from the community brad this but brad that.

Sure brad can think and help make great games but thats half the job. Blizzard proves this. WoW Easy and simple mechanics easy pick up arcade style MMORPG it would never be as big as it is now with out blizzards marketing. They marketed the game very well, VG didnt. ONly reason i knew about it cause i was waiting for it since it was announced but besides that i would of never heard of it.

I respect brad for his Imigination and game dev skills but besides that he fails cause he doesnt finish the job.

but like mama said you dont learn till the third time someone beats it in you cause Mama said knock you out

[Napolleon]

Originally Posted by Gori

Acquired the titles rights in May of 06? Interesting.

yea they sold out a long time ago, this is just the public announcement lol. sigil = ftl

[Lord_Phoenix]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

I'd count CoH/CoV as "highly successful" before I'd say VG was, and CoX hasn't surpassed 50k subscribers ever to my knowledge, though they have survived 3 years up against some very heavy competition.

City of Heroes had 200k subscribers last January, about the same amount EQ2 had at the time, not sure what it is now.

Ah, it's gone down, which appears to be a common place thing amongst MMORPGs since WoW came around, according to the wikipedia article on it. It had ~140k as of March 2007 according to NCSoft financial reports.

[RaekwonThaChef]

When it comes to sucess in a MMORPG i think it depends on the PLayer base screw the money the company makes if im not making it, it dont count imagine vanguard the way it is now with 8.5 Million subscribers that would be Highly Sucessful very high

[RaekwonThaChef]

Originally Posted by Napolleon

yea they sold out a long time ago, this is just the public announcement lol. sigil = ftl

Naw they didnt sell out then, cause SOE was just co publishing. They didnt own anything in the game and had no say in what would happen but NOW they do so lets sit back relax and see Vanguard come out with 10 expansions in the next 10months

and every class get nerfed down so nothing will be able to get done with its population

[malum]

Originally Posted by Nólaquen

[Sigil CEO and Vanguard creator, Brad McQuaid will become a consultant with SOE as Vanguard Creative Advisor.

That's rich, he won't even work for SOE. This makes the second time you've done this, Brad ... the first was with Verant Interactive.

[Nostalgix]

Originally Posted by RaekwonThaChef

...
WoW Easy and simple mechanics easy pick up arcade style MMORPG it would never be as big as it is now with out blizzards marketing. They marketed the game very well, VG didnt.
...

If SOE had marketed VG as they should have, they wouldn't have gotten the chance to buy it as they just did

[Matt-Kire]

Originally Posted by serrathen

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Brad - Either you are a complete moron or this was your plan all along. Either way hopefully you never get funding ever again to produce any more crappy MMO's with overhyped promises, your poor quality leadership, excuses, and spin. You f*cked your community again, and again, how could anyone trust you now? No wait... the real question should be with 30+ million dollars how could you have f*cked up so bad? Go play on your little dirt bikes and fast cars, hell I even remember you saying you would love to design cars... please do something else cause you have lost whatever touch you had at one point.

As far as what this means for the actual community and Vanboi's and Vangirls out there... if SoE doesn't rehire Talisker and Tagad, and places entirely different and competent directors and leadership in place of this great things may indeed happen, still there is alot of fixing to do, and re-release, re-marketing, etc ahead for SoE. SoE has a good track record of fixing bad games, and maybe Smedley's genius will prevail here.... Hell maybe he will even make it free with ads... lol.

Its a sad note this had to happen, cause truthfully it didn't. If Brad and Co would have listened to their hardcore testers telling them WTF 2 do during early beta 2-2.5 this game could have been much better. But again leave it to a moron who put out a questionaire with a backasswards rating scale, leaving them with what I strongly believe to be crappy information, along with listening to the wrong people... and here lies where Vanguard stands today. Furthermore if they would have just done ONE and only ONE island FULL of ENJOYABLE content (think Thestra) and released with just that they might have been able to pull off a great POLISHED and FUN game. Instead due to what I personally believe to be Brads overpromises and just plain talking out his ass, you have a game that should still be in Beta.

If I were SoE I would disconnect the continents, fix Thestra, fix gameplay, fix ALL the bugs, polish the game up, re-release it when its DONE. Furthermore I would drop the subscription fee to FREE with Station Pass for the time being and retarget this game to the hardcore market which I still believe should have been the target market the entire time. Make Vanguard about raiding, cause truthfully the ideas and concepts back in Beta when Ascension was doing raid testing were simply AWE INSPRING. Raiding should be the name of the game in Vanguard, cause again their raid ideas were just simply f*cking awesome. Furthermore entire chunks should be almost 100% raid content. Get people up in level fast and raid, raid, raid. Make the game fun again, cause I promise you it was at one time WAY WAY WAY back when.

To those devs I truly had / still have respect for (Jerrith [good luck on your new project], Cylus, Nino, Avair, the Tarr's, and those I forgot to mention) I wish you the best of luck and you worked your asses off to try to make this game great, yet your "leadership" set you all up to fail. And Smedley - you have alot of work to do, and its not gonna be as easy as it was with EQ.

I'm still wondering what does the Vision mean anyway....... well I hope we never know.

Dink Dimbwinkle
Aggro Magnet
Proud Member of Ascension
www.ascensionguild.com

my only comment is Raid content????

bah.... /zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I work with enough people all day...

spending countless hours having to "deal" with them in game is boring to me


and no MMO doesn't have to be about grouping or raiding... just simply interacting...

[Renekal]

All the people on the this and other boards that are so pissed off about stuff should just go make their own game.

[Miron]

Originally Posted by Fong

When you pull in over $1.5 million a month in revenues....

But when you're ~$30 M in debt from producing the game and still have weekly paychecks to write $1.5 M a month takes you a long time to get out of debt.