A little bird told us yesterday, but Sony issued the official press release today: Sigil games has been purchased by SOE. According to the fine print, a majority of the Sigil team will join Sony Entertainment Online (50 people according to the VGNecro forums). I bet the peeps that got fired outside the Sigil offices yesterday are relieved to hear they don’t have to go stand in the unemployment line just yet.
The plan is to keep Vanguard more or less unchanged, with focus on cleaning up legacy issues. Brad McQuaid will be a consultant to SOE as well as a creative advisor for Vanguard. The press release reads like a bit of Cyrano DeBergerac, featuring such fine snippets as “With an unparalleled team and exceptional product, Sigil has been a creative force in the online games space.” I guess they must have missed those crickets dying of boredom around launch time.
As great as it would be to hear the real story of what went down, we’ll have to gossip about what we have for now and hope for better dirt down the line. Does anyone think this change will have an actual effect on Vanguard’s success (or lack thereof)? What would they have to do to the game to make you care? Would my life be better if I had a pony?
