Sony Online Acquires Vanguard Developer Sigil

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it has offically acquired all the "key assets" of Sigil Games, including the developer's "tentpole property," the MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. The spectre of the acquisition was raised in late April, when Sigil CEO Brad McQuaid has revealed via a forum post that the company and publisher Sony Online Entertainment were "going to become even tighter - much tighter," so that Vanguard could "both continue to be worked on and improved and debugged and optimized." According to an official press release, "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." McQuaid himself has become a SOE consultant as "Vanguard creative advisor." SOE acquired the co-publishing rights to Vanguard in May of 2006, with the game selling nearly 200,000 copies both in retail and through digital distribution channels since January of this year. [UPDATE: Speaking in a post on the official Vanguard forums, SOE's John Smedley has added some detail, noting: "As a part of this acquisition, we are bringing on approx 50 people from Sigil in order to insure that Vanguard continues to grow... Brad McQuaid will be consultant to SOE as a creative advisor for Vanguard. Dave Gilbertson will be the person directly responsible for the day-to-day management of both the Sigil Carlsbad office as well as Vanguard." Smedley also commented of the plans after the acquisition: "We do not plan on making any major changes to Vanguard. Any changes are going to come from the team itself... We do plan on spending a lot of time cleaning up legacy issues with Vanguard and making sure the game's performance improves." He also hinted at Sony Online's long-term support for the game, explaining: "Down the line we will of course be coming out with new expansion packs, but right now the focus is on making sure Vanguard is running the way it should be."]