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why did sigil buy back vanguard publishing rites?
angerr
Member Posts: 865
originally posted by Aradune Mithara
I talked long and hard with Phil Spencer at Microsoft and he and I ended up agreeing that it was best for Vangaurd, Sigil, and Microsoft if Microsoft allowed Sigil to buy the publishing rights from Microsoft and then seek another company to co-publish and distrubute the game. The departure was because of some shifting priorities and changes in the way Microsoft wanted to ship Vanguard. More details than that it would not be appropriate for me to get into and is between Sigil and Microsoft. http://silkyvenom.com/pages/devtracker/index.php#9
what does that sound like to you? sounds to me like they (Microsoft) tried to speed things up and ship earlier than brad and sigil wanted.
take it however you want, but it is quite obvious that is what happened to me.......thats as close as you could possibly get to saying "we left Microsoft because they wanted to ship before we were ready"
how many times have we seen brad stress the fact that he will do everything in his power to protect "the vision"? how many times has he said that he refuses to put out vanguard before it is ready?
this is all starting to make sense to me, disagree with me? thats fine but IMHO it is quite obvious now.....
read this http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1044304#post1044304 then come back and talk to me about the vanguard/soe fiasco.....
Comments
Brad had lots of options to choose from, he didn't have to choose Soe as publisher.
For example, I believe that NCSoft would have been quite happy to pubblish Vanguard to be quite honest.
NCSoft has the most diverse portfolio of games, and Vanguard is the kind of game they don't have yet.
Plus, NCSoft knows how to do the publisher and not to interfere with the development of a game, unlike Soe.
Plus they have a strong presence in the Korean/Chinese market as well.
But I believe Jon Grande(the biz guy) is not aware of that, he is too busy eating burgers and destroying the comunity in the official forums, instead of doing his job.
I believe Brad has been a bit lazy, he just went for the easy option.
I hope for him it will paid off, although I strongly doubt it.
for all we know, NCsoft wasn't intrested....maybe he did go for the "easy option" but i really don't think they would jeopardize 4 years of hard work just because it was the easiest route, especially given the fact that there are so many soe haters.
yeah either way it is speculation why they went with soe other than the reasons he gave in the faq.....but regarding Microsoft dumping sigil....because of what has been posted i respectfully disagree, as it is obvious to me by what brad has publicly stated.
read this http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1044304#post1044304 then come back and talk to me about the vanguard/soe fiasco.....
knowing Microsoft they probably got greedy and wanted either an Xbox 360 version or wanted it to be playable on Vista only (to try and push people to upgrade faster), and Sigil probably told them no.
I am happy that SOE picked it up. Verant and SOE played well together at first with EQ1. I just hope it is added to the All Access Pass.
for all we know, NCsoft wasn't intrested....maybe he did go for the "easy option" but i really don't think they would jeopardize 4 years of hard work just because it was the easiest route, especially given the fact that there are so many soe haters.
yeah either way it is speculation why they went with soe other than the reasons he gave in the faq.....but regarding Microsoft dumping sigil....because of what has been posted i respectfully disagree, as it is obvious to me by what brad has publicly stated.
I agree, that Soe is better than having the game canceled, I don't wish any developer to have their game canceled, unless it's called Morning of course.
What I don't believe is that it was so difficult to find another suitable partner.
So nobody was interested in Vanguard?
Are you kidding?
This game had a potential to draw at least 500K subscribers making it the 4-5th most popular MMORPG after WoW, Lineage 1-2, Ragnarok.
Do you really believe no one else was interested in a game almost finished, with such revenue potential and made by a team of expert developers?
Brad tells you what you want to hear, like the time he said that Sigil had total control on the game and MS didn't have any voice in the development of the game and they wouldn't have rushed the game.
Now he is telling you that Soe is better because they have more control????
Didn't they have enough control already, like Brad said several times?
Probably they didn't have so much control after all, probably it was another spin just like this last announcement.
Mhh........... sorry which planet are you from?
Lineage 1 = 1 million subscribers
Lineage 2 = 1.5 million subscribers
Cov+Cov = 400K subscribers
GW = No subscribers but the game was one of the best sellers of 2005
Auto Assault = New game but it looks like a popular game already.
Tabula Rasa = Made by Richard Garriot (Ultima series and Ultima Online)
No not impressive at all.
All the 5 Soe games put together don't even get the same numbers of Lineage 1 alone.
And by the way, although some people might not like some of those games, they are all very well done games for their targeted players.
Mhh........... sorry which planet are you from?
Lineage 1 = 1 million subscribers
Lineage 2 = 1.5 million subscribers
Cov+Cov = 400K subscribers
GW = No subscribers but the game was one of the best sellers of 2005
Auto Assault = New game but it looks like a popular game already.
Tabula Rasa = Made by Richard Garriot (Ultima series and Ultima Online)
No not impressive at all.
All the 5 Soe games put together don't even get the same numbers of Lineage 1 alone.
And by the way, although some people might not like some of those games, they are all very well done games for their targeted players.
Lineage 1 and 2 are big hits in the asian market but largely irrelevant in the western market, Sigil is aiming for the western market so we cannot count those 2 games. In addition, the suscriptions in the asian market are counted differently so the real numbers are much smaller.
If we look to the western market we can see that they have only one big hit: CoH/CoV and the numbers of suscribers to those games are much smaler than the numbers of suscribers of SOE games.
So if we focus on the western market, SOE is a better choice than NCsoft.
m_dave
http://twitter.com/xmcgraw
you bring up some valid points but since we are speculating what happened what if ms didn't have any say in it after all? what if ms got impatient after 4 years of development and went to brad and told him we either need to get this title out by summer or we are going to have to work something out?
is it really that hard to believe? if you want to believe that brad was just lying all along and knowingly went with Microsoft even though he knew eventually they would be pressuring to release vanguard before it is ready, that is fine by me.
but i don't think that is what happened at all, the one thing that this does prove weather you agree with me or disagree is that brad and sigil will not be pressured into abandoning "the vision" if Microsoft a very rich and powerful company cant force sigil to ship to early and abandon "the vision" what makes you think soe can?
as far as other companies being interested in vanguard......you have a point but but just because vanguard has potential to be a gold mine doesn't mean any company would jump at the chance to publish it.
for all we know sigil could have offered them a deal that they were not interested in, thats what i meant when i said they might have not been interested. i will agree with one thing, brad does tell us what we want to hear as does every single other game developer out there, hell every manager or ceo for any business for that matter.
again i don't like that soe is publishing the game now, i agree NCsoft would have been a better choice but oh well they went with soe.....and like i have said before sigil deserves at least one chance in my book, if they screw it up and everything the soe haters are saying does indeed come to pass....i will just quit and move on.....no big deal to me lol
read this http://www.vanguardsoh.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1044304#post1044304 then come back and talk to me about the vanguard/soe fiasco.....
Ok, You really need to do your homework on this, you don't have a clue.
1. NCSoft is a Asian Company, starting out doing games for Asia, so I guess their few games were for Asians. Ok, fine, but that is by no means a reason to discount them. Kinda stupid.
2. The have recently deversified and are marketing "Western" games, and are VERY good at it. Look at Guild Wars, CoH/CoV. Very good job doing so. So it's a new area for them, they sure did a great job with those titles.
3. You're right about subscriptions being counted differently in Asin, but it actually scews the numbers the oppposite direction. Alot of games play in coffee shop invoronments, so the actually number of subscribers is actually more than is reported. You realize L1 and 2 make up 30% of the market share?
4. You go and compare 1 (CoH/CoV) to every thing that SOE has as far as subs?! Jesus, that really stupid. Try comparing 1 game to 4. Wow, that was freakin' genius.
I understand what you are trying ot do here, trying ot convince yourself this was a good thing. But you ought to just face reality, it was a desperate move.
My gut feeling is that MS felt Vanguard was a stinker. There have been a lot of leaks of Vanguard being poorly recieved in beta. I just don't think MS would let a game they've funded go, if they thought it would generate a lot of money. Brad said MS was concentrating their efforts on the XBOX360 and forgetting about MMO's, than the next week MS turns around and provides funding for Age of Conan on Windows Vista? Doesn't make a lot of sense. MS dumped Sigil, forcing Brad to turn to the darkside.
Mhh........... sorry which planet are you from?
Lineage 1 = 1 million subscribers
Lineage 2 = 1.5 million subscribers
Cov+Cov = 400K subscribers
GW = No subscribers but the game was one of the best sellers of 2005
Auto Assault = New game but it looks like a popular game already.
Tabula Rasa = Made by Richard Garriot (Ultima series and Ultima Online)
No not impressive at all.
All the 5 Soe games put together don't even get the same numbers of Lineage 1 alone.
And by the way, although some people might not like some of those games, they are all very well done games for their targeted players.
Apparently you are from Asia. Since L1/L2 are majority Asian, In the North American / Eurpoean / Aussie markets, SOE has more subscribers than NCSoft. Vanguard will most likely be majority North American / European / Aussie.
Ok, You really need to do your homework on this, you don't have a clue.
1. NCSoft is a Asian Company, starting out doing games for Asia, so I guess their few games were for Asians. Ok, fine, but that is by no means a reason to discount them. Kinda stupid.
2. The have recently deversified and are marketing "Western" games, and are VERY good at it. Look at Guild Wars, CoH/CoV. Very good job doing so. So it's a new area for them, they sure did a great job with those titles.
3. You're right about subscriptions being counted differently in Asin, but it actually scews the numbers the oppposite direction. Alot of games play in coffee shop invoronments, so the actually number of subscribers is actually more than is reported. You realize L1 and 2 make up 30% of the market share?
4. You go and compare 1 (CoH/CoV) to every thing that SOE has as far as subs?! Jesus, that really stupid. Try comparing 1 game to 4. Wow, that was freakin' genius.
I understand what you are trying ot do here, trying ot convince yourself this was a good thing. But you ought to just face reality, it was a desperate move.
You lost all credibilty with saying Lineage has 30% share. Because you were like double off.
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Check share by MMO. L2 has little under 16%, L1 not even listed since it's so low now. WoW has nearly 40%. SOE has the third highest total share, second highest in North America/Euro/Aussie, behind Blizzard.
Apparently you're wrong.......again. They have more subscribers over here....for now. But I bet that wont last long.
And I'm from the US, pretty much a "heinz 57". Just pointing out that facts.
Ok, You really need to do your homework on this, you don't have a clue.
1. NCSoft is a Asian Company, starting out doing games for Asia, so I guess their few games were for Asians. Ok, fine, but that is by no means a reason to discount them. Kinda stupid.
2. The have recently deversified and are marketing "Western" games, and are VERY good at it. Look at Guild Wars, CoH/CoV. Very good job doing so. So it's a new area for them, they sure did a great job with those titles.
3. You're right about subscriptions being counted differently in Asin, but it actually scews the numbers the oppposite direction. Alot of games play in coffee shop invoronments, so the actually number of subscribers is actually more than is reported. You realize L1 and 2 make up 30% of the market share?
4. You go and compare 1 (CoH/CoV) to every thing that SOE has as far as subs?! Jesus, that really stupid. Try comparing 1 game to 4. Wow, that was freakin' genius.
I understand what you are trying ot do here, trying ot convince yourself this was a good thing. But you ought to just face reality, it was a desperate move.
You lost all credibilty with saying Lineage has 30% share. Because you were like double off.
http://www.mmogchart.com/
Check share by MMO. L2 has little under 16%, L1 not even listed since it's so low now. WoW has nearly 40%. SOE has the third highest total share, second highest in North America/Euro/Aussie, behind Blizzard.
Ok, take another look at the pie chart, Skippy. You'll see a big, fat, red pie piece next to the big yellow L2 pie piece. You know that one that is just as big as the L2 one, but doesn't have a name or %, becaue it got cut off? That is Lineage 1, bub. 15%+15%=30%
Ok, You really need to do your homework on this, you don't have a clue.
1. NCSoft is a Asian Company, starting out doing games for Asia, so I guess their few games were for Asians. Ok, fine, but that is by no means a reason to discount them. Kinda stupid.
2. The have recently deversified and are marketing "Western" games, and are VERY good at it. Look at Guild Wars, CoH/CoV. Very good job doing so. So it's a new area for them, they sure did a great job with those titles.
3. You're right about subscriptions being counted differently in Asin, but it actually scews the numbers the oppposite direction. Alot of games play in coffee shop invoronments, so the actually number of subscribers is actually more than is reported. You realize L1 and 2 make up 30% of the market share?
4. You go and compare 1 (CoH/CoV) to every thing that SOE has as far as subs?! Jesus, that really stupid. Try comparing 1 game to 4. Wow, that was freakin' genius.
I understand what you are trying ot do here, trying ot convince yourself this was a good thing. But you ought to just face reality, it was a desperate move.
i dont have to convince myself, since i know that they did a good thing.
Lineage 1 and 2 are very strong in korea but they dont have a lot of suscribers in the western market.
Since the previous statement is true we cant compare lineage's sucess with SOE games.
Lineage 1 and 2 suscriptions are counted differently, that's again true, therefore the number of real suscribers is smaller than the numbers shown in mmogchart.
Not matter what you believe, the fact is that NCsoft is the best company to publish a game in the asian market(in fact SOE sold the rights for an asian release of EQ to NCsoft), but they are not as good as SOE for the western market.
L1 and L2 are games designed for the Asian market, no wonder they are not a big hit in Western countries, everybody knows that.
Never than less L1 and L2 are the 2nd and 3rd MMO with more subscribers in the world, after Warcraft.
NCSoft is the 2nd Publishers with more subscribers after Blizzard, and they are light years ahead of Soe.
These are facts.
Stop trying to use the numbers just to suit your arguments.
The point is that NCSoft is a smart Company.
L1 and L2 have been designed by them to appeal the Korean Market, and they achieved that.
But they knew that in order to appeal the westeners, probably they should have allowed western companies to develope the games.
And that's what they did.
GW, AA, COH and TR are developed by studios based in US.
NCSoft gives plenty of room for the development teams to implementent their "vision" on the games they are developing.
Soe should learn to allow their development teams to implement their own "vision" for the games instead of imposing "Soe vision" on the teams, changing the game experience every 6 months or so.
Let's see for how long Brad will be able to carry on with his "vision", before "Soe vision" sets in.
i dont have to convince myself, since i know that they did a good thing.
Lineage 1 and 2 are very strong in korea but they dont have a lot of suscribers in the western market.
L2 has alot of subs, L1 wasn't marketed here at all.
Since the previous statement is true we cant compare lineage's sucess with SOE games.
Why not? Because it makes all your points invalid?
Lineage 1 and 2 suscriptions are counted differently, that's again true, therefore the number of real suscribers is smaller than the numbers shown in mmogchart.
Just the oppostie acutally, they have more subscribers that shown in mmogchart.
Not matter what you believe, the fact is that NCsoft is the best company to publish a game in the asian market(in fact SOE sold the rights for an asian release of EQ to NCsoft), but they are not as good as SOE for the western market.
Explain? What does SOE do better? Certainly it isn't reputation. When Guild Wars and CoH came out, big, effective advertising campains. It was very hard to miss their products, and how they were presented was very appealing. Very effective. Actually I dare say that SoE is less effective. EQ2's marketing was not impressive. They really botched it trying to compete with WoW.
Just because someone has been in a paticular market doesn't mean they do a better job. You're making that assumption, and you know what that does.
If, as some nay-sayers are speculators are saying, Microsoft dumped Sigil (an unfounded assertion) then the lament will be all Microsoft's.
It is much more likely that Sigil found that SOE would allow them to stick to their own development schedule without interference -- something that the SOE-detractors would not like to admit.
Sigil bought the rights to Vanguard back for one reason and one reason alone -- they are going to make a boatload of money from those rights and wanted it all for themselves. Naturally.
Sorry SOE-haters, Vanguard will probably be "the" game to play when it releases this winter. For all those who jumped ship when they heard "SOE," I truly hope we won't ever see you in the game.
~~~
May 11, 2006 - When one of us scruffy game journalists gets a demo of a game, it's typically orchestrated by the game's producer, maybe with a lead programmer in tow and a public relations representative hovering over the proceedings. So it's unusual to walk through a game beside the president of the company who made it. But Jeff Butler of Sigil Games Online is not your typical company president. Working his way up from customer service at Verant Interactive (now Sony Online Entertainment), Butler is both a gamer and game creator at heart, with perhaps an ambition to match the most adventurous minds in the business. Sure, this may sound like breathless enthusiasm, but listen to this: There are forty thousand craftable items in Vanguard's database. Going far beyond mere equippable gear, a carpenter or blacksmith can craft virtually every piece of furniture in an already huge virtual world. Beds, tables, chairs, benches and more for your house. Or your guild hall. Or your place of business. And whichever building you erect, it has its own plot of land near which nothing else can be built. No ugly sprawl or obscured view as other homes pop up around yours, ever. It looks like Sigil has a plan.
Armor is also equally flexible -- literally. A Sigil artist can create one set of armor that automatically molds itself to any body type. No more having to make human versions, elf versions, dwarf versions, gnome versions, et cetera. The iteration and implementation phase is massively reduced, allowing the team to create content at a much faster pace. Or they can take much longer to create cooler-looking stuff.
The weather system is similarly impressive. There is a game entity that spawns meteorologically accurate weather systems with specific sizes, wind speeds, wind direction, intensity, visibility, and probably some other properties. A storm may follow you across the land, and traveling into the mountains will transition the rain into snow. When sailing around in your customizable boat, you'll want to pay attention to wind speed and direction.
Aside from all these impressive technical innovations, there was a game to be shown. Butler guided us through several different areas on the continent that's currently in closed beta. The first was Trendle Keep, a vast castle in an advanced state of disrepair, with huge meteors floating above it. The entrance is also large enough to accommodate a flying mount, so you can dive right in if you like. We had a longer stay at Hillsbury Manor, an estate in some foothills that's been overtaken by vampires. The surrounding property looks about the size of the building itself, and within lie crafting plans, a trio of female vampire bosses, secret sliding doors, sweeping balustrades, zombies, and blood suckers of several types and levels of power. And when you kill the three bosses, you gain access to the "shadow plane" version of this dungeon, effectively doubling its size.
If this sounds like a daunting enterprise, what till you hear this: Sigil has documented every addition to the game they want to make… for the next seven years. Every race, every town, every building, every item, and every beast of the world. In fact, Butler tells us that it very likely won't all fit into "Vanguard One." He went down a long, long list of continents and locations that might never make it in to the first installment. Land masses twice the size of the biggest one we'll see at launch. Entire continents populated by an unusual choice of denizen. One wonders how someone could possibly see it all within the proscribed level cap. Then Butler tells us that's the games mechanics are designed to scale to a theoretically unlimited character level.
He also tells us that the character creation tool is so deep that several people came up to the Sigil employee giving the creation demo, asking him if they could license his development tool; Butler claims that it's on the level of Maya, at least in regards to shaping faces and bodies. Far beyond height, weight, skin tone and other large-scale considerations, one can apparently define physiology to the point where race distinctions blur.
I've been saying for a while that a true threat to World of Warcraft must be more than really good. It must do something that WoW simply does not, and with authority. Vanguard looks like a good place to start. Look for it this winter.
~ Ancient Membership ~
from what i gather, microsoft either A) wasnt happy with the BETA .. or
wasnt happy witht he projected release date ...
and started to pressure sigil .. sigil responded with buying back the rights and letting SOE take over
I think that this pretty much says it all.
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