The Short and Morbid Tale of Sigil Games OnlineThe axe finally fell. It was only a matter of time, I suppose. And while many of you may try to spin this to make SOE look bad, apparently this wasn't really their doing. You see, SOE doesn't own Sigil. It doesn't own Sigil now and they won't own them tomorrow. But they do own Vanguard. What fate awaits that game? I don't know. Don't particularly care either.But I do know that at approximately 4:30PM today, Sigil employees were told to meet outside. At which point they were terminated. On the spot. By whom? Doesn't seem to have been Brad McQuaid, if it was, nobody is talking. But that doesn't seem like something he'd do. But I suppose the executioner is irrelevant since most folks secretly want it to be SOE and it wasn't. As it stands, people were told to come back tomorrow to do their paperwork and some may get hired by SOE.I contacted SOE since I'm not in the business of burning bridges or spinning news and they had this to say:"...an announcement is forthcoming tomorrow."Update: There's some debate over this being ALL employees or just some of them. Obviously, it's not ALL of them - after all, someone had to do the firing. Let's just say that - from what I've heard - they don't have enough employees left to update a casual game... like Snood.
Brad McQuaid Abandoned Vanguard, SigilThis is the blog post that I hoped I would never write. I recently became aware of some "things" about the internal goings-on at Sigil, but for the sake of the people that I know that work there I've kept them to myself. Or should I say "worked" there. According to f13.net, "at approximately 4:30PM today, Sigil employees were told to meet outside. At which point they were terminated. On the spot." You can see the article at www.f13.net.I was able to get confirmation on this tonight from a couple of very reliable sources. So the company has now officially been driven into the ground. Here is what most people don't know, outside of Sigil.Brad McQuaid has been an absentee manager at Sigil for months. Not only has there been a leadership vacuum at Sigil, with the employees there left twisting in the wind, but I have been able to confirm that Brad hasn't even bothered to be at the office.Since last year.Reliable sources confirmed to me that Brad hasn't been at the Sigil offices save a couple of brief visits since December of last year. Whether or not he was supposed to be the creative force behind the game as we were lead to believe, he was the leader of Sigil and at a time when the game was under a deadline and his people (many of whom left promising or lucrative positions elsewhere to hitch their wagons to his star) were left to fend for themselves. That's right. When the shit was hitting the fan, and the game was under crunch, Brad went all Brian Wilson on his people. I'm not sure what the psychology of that was, or whether the producers there didn't want him around. Whatever the case, he wasn't able to show the leadership to rally the troops, or even to keep them up out of the dirt. To their credit, the people working at Sigil remained professional even in the face of the lack of professionalism from the top.As a fansite operator, I can testify that Brad wasn't around for us either. As a matter of fact, Brad never showed support for the affiliate program. Whether you believe that the Affiliate Program was a good idea or not, the CEO of the company should probably support it. When we challenged Brad on his record of (lack of) support for the program, he let us know that he thought it was better spending his time posting on sites like FOH and MMORPG.COM, to evangelize the program. Evidently that took a lot of time, or it just wasn't possible to cut into his Hero-Clix schedule.It would be amusing how fast the denizens of FOH are throwing dirt on Sigil's grave were it not so tragic for the lives and careers he's irreparably harmed. Irony at it's finest.The bottom line for me is this;I can't believe that the CEO of the company can't make an appearance at his own company for 4 or 5 months if to do nothing more than lend moral support. I have heard that Brad is worthless for anything important, and a lot of people probably found him an irritant. I know that most of my later interaction with Brad wasn't positive. His fansite presentation at E3 2006 left me cold. Jeff Butler had a ton of energy and told us a lot about his vision for the game, but Brad couldn't have looked less interested in being there. On one of my visits to Sigil, Brad was overheard telling someone in a customer/community position not to give an answer to a question, and if someone asked why, just to "tell them I'm eccentric." The best he had to contribute was dismissive. So Mr. Eccentric, how does it feel to have a mud-hole stomped in you by effing Turbine?In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm pissed that I wasted 2 years on developing a community at my site for a game that is nothing more than a steaming pile of shit. I'm pissed that the good people (and good developers) that I care about at Sigil are now in the street, and Brad still has millions and Jeff Butler a job. I'm also pissed that the game was so badly mismanaged and allowed to get to this point. I'm also pissed that the good people at my site have dedicated so much time to help each other only to see this happen.I truly hope that all the good people at Sigil will land on their feet. I also sincerely hope that no one ever gives Brad another cent to make a game or to start a company and put other's livelihoods at risk. It's evident that Brad lacks the skills, dedication, or maturity to handle that situation.In the end, this game may someday be good. Tomorrow, when this news is announced a lot of the SOE haters will just jump ship, whether SOE had anything to do with this game failing or not. Fact is, it has (failed.) And fact is, it's not SOE's fault. The blame for this one falls squarely at the desk where the buck should stop. The CEO's office. The empty one in the corner.
OGDC '07 Interview - Alan Crosby on CommunityI had an opportunity to sit down with Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, the Director of Global Community Relations for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), for a chat about gaming communities. We were joined by Craig Dalrymple, SOE’s EverQuest II community manager. The gentlemen shared their thoughts on managing expectations, dealing honestly with players, and fansite communities. We also discussed Vanguard: Saga of Heroes--the MMORPG that SOE co-published and launched in partnership with its developers, Sigil Games Online--and the stories and rumors circulating around claims that SOE is about to become “more involved” with the forward progress of the game.First impressions of Alan Crosby suggest a good-natured, genuine and funny man; Crosby is one of those people easily classified as a “nice guy.” But speaking with him reveals this nice guy knows his stuff when it comes to building and wrangling gaming communities. Facing the Vanguard CommunityNaturally, with my attachments to the Vanguard community, my first question to Crosby was regarding the future of Vanguard given the impending increased SOE presence. As you might expect, Crosby was unable to discuss the details. Still, he offered that some information could be heading our way the week of May 14th. I asked Crosby about the challenges SOE would face in confronting a restless Vanguard community. After all, there’s a potential for significant new developments in a game about which players already have many opinions and expectations.Alan Crosby, Director of Global Community Relations, Sony Online Entertainment“When people become attached to an idea it’s actually worse than becoming attached to an IP,” said Crosby. “People might get upset about red squirrels versus grey squirrels in a game like Lord of the Rings Online, but they’re usually willing to be somewhat forgiving. But when people are attached to a vision, they’re a lot less forgiving. It’s the ideas and not so much the content they’re attached to, and when those ideas change, that’s very upsetting.”And we talked a bit about those changing ideas and ideals and their effect on the community. It’s obvious that Crosby still feels the weight of the much maligned Star Wars Galaxies NGE (“New Game Experience”) hanging over his head. He mentioned, after a discussion panel just prior to our interview, that he’d been waiting for the NGE to come up during the roundtable. “It always does,” he quipped. So how does a community manager deal with an increasingly hostile crowd, particularly one, like the Vanguard community, harboring fears that their game is about to be messed with, not to mention some gamers who are still carrying a grudge over SWG and the NGE?“If I was going to manage that situation,” Crosby said, “I would be honest with the players. I would open up discourse and stop talking about names and visions and start talking about practicalities.”“Are you going to be able to sell that?” I asked.“I think it’s going to be a tough challenge,” Crosby replied, his expression resolute. “But games, as much as our fans want them to be [something else], are still a business. The audience at large is a different audience than there was 8 years ago, and you have to acknowledge that and make the best decisions for the good of the game while still keeping its integrity.” He went on to clarify, “That doesn’t mean that you go in and you remove the death penalty or something…you stick with the game’s core…but you improve upon it.”At this point, EQ2 community manager Craig Dalrymple jumped into the conversation. “Even if it’s not ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ type news, if you’re being forthright and honest [with your community], I think people respect you more,” he said. “When it comes to EQ2, and I have to make some announcement I know isn’t going to be popular, I never lie. Or if I don’t have an answer, I’m honest about that, even if it makes me look foolish to say, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’” On EverQuest IIThis gave us an opportunity to talk more in-depth about EQ2. Through community chatter, I’ve had the feeling a good many people left EverQuest II to play Vanguard. I asked Crosby if there was an exodus from one game to the other. “There was not,” he answered.“The EQ2 forums quieted for a little while,” added Dalrymple, “but that’s normal when anything new comes out, whether it’s a game or a new expansion. People are curious.”I put forth my opinion that EverQuest II is a much better game now than it was at launch, but that the improvements came only after a good many of EQ2’s players had unsubscribed. “How do you get those people back?” I asked. “Can you?”“It’s a challenge,” said Crosby. “In my opinion, it’s not marketing, it’s word of mouth that brings players back. You have to get people talking. Get guilds talking. When you have a game like EQ2--which I think is the best MMO out there right now--word gets around. We can’t go out there and say, ‘Hey, this is the best MMO out there,’ because people won’t believe it, but when you can get the players talking they’ll get people back.”“It’s not about slick marketing and buzz words,” added Dalrymple. “You’re a gamer, so you love games, and you go out and you talk to people. ‘Hey, we’ve got this coming down the line. I think it’s really cool.’ It’s about communicating as a gamer to other gamers. If you’re enthusiastic, that shows.”Fansites (Huh!) What are They Good For?During the panel on community earlier in the day, Crosby had remarked that doling exclusives out to fansites might not be the best way to for developers to go when it comes to building community. “That doesn’t bring players to [a game’s official] site,” he said. Other panelists disagreed, so Crosby clarified. “It’s not that I don’t like fansites; I love fansites.”Later, during our interview, I decided to get a better take on Crosby’s stance. “Doesn’t traffic to a fansite ultimately result in players to a game?” I asked. “Don’t we have similar goals; to provide information to players about an MMO?”“Absolutely,” answered Crosby. “It’s a symbiotic relationship. But community deals with retention. And when I give you an exclusive like an interview, that’s going to reach current players and increase retention, but it’s not going to bring new players to the game.”“That doesn’t mean you won’t get exclusives and interviews and dev diaries and such,” he quickly added. “There’s a mountain of content waiting to be shared with the fansites. Even with a game like Toon Town, which is the simplest of games, aimed at kids, there’s a huge amount of content to talk about.”“And in a game as big as EQ2 or Vanguard,” added Dalrymple, “you’ve got things like game mechanics and quests and character development and on and on. There’s really no end to it.”The Future of VanguardWhile Crosby was unable to enlighten us as to how SOE will become more involved with Vanguard, he did offer reassurances.“Vanguard isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “The game will go on. And there will be no NGE, or NVGE, or whatever. Vanguard will still be Vanguard, only, we hope, better.”The next few weeks should prove to be interesting as news of SOE’s increased involvement with Vanguard becomes official. In uncertain times, one thing seems clear: Alan Crosby is a voice of reason and knowledge when it comes to community matters.
Brad McQuaid Abandoned Vanguard, Sigil...I should tell you that I'm pissed that I wasted 2 years on developing a community at my site for a game that is nothing more than a steaming pile of shit. ...
Das mit Olnigg warauch mein erster Gedanke.
Zitat von: Skeltem am 15. Mai 2007, 15:37:43Das mit Olnigg warauch mein erster Gedanke. Schließe mich euch beiden an Aber ist schon krass. Was man so gehört hat, war das Spiel doch angeblich DIE Alternative zu WoW bzw. das Anti-WoW. So richtig versteh ich's nicht, wieso sich das mal so überhaupt nicht halten konnte. Wann wurde das released? Vor nem halben Jahr?
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Thema: Bezüglich Vanguard, SOE & Brad McQuaid...and more (Gelesen 18105 mal)
