Sigil Games Online
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired by Sony Online Entertainment |
| Founded | January 2002 |
| Founder | Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler |
| Headquarters | Carlsbad, California, United States |
| Products | Vanguard: Saga of Heroes |
Sigil Games Online, Inc. was a computer game developer based in Carlsbad, California founded in January 2002 by Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, key development team members who created EverQuest, the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game before World of Warcraft. McQuaid and Butler left Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), the publisher of EverQuest, and formed Sigil Games Online to develop "the next big thing". McQuaid told the video game website IGN, "I find myself much happier at the results of assembling an all-star team of MMOG developers and focusing on making one ground-breaking, unprecedented project, as opposed to being spread thin like I was as VP/CCO at Verant/SOE.". Sigil released their only game "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" on January 30, 2007 after several well publicized delays and a last minute switch from publishing with Microsoft to publishing again with SOE. On May 15, 2007, SOE announced that they had completed a transaction to purchase key assets of Sigil Games Online. As a result, SOE now owns Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, described as Sigil's "tent pole property".
McQuaid and Butler formerly worked for Sony Online Entertainment on the team developing EverQuest. After their departure, they formed Sigil; on May 16, 2002, Sigil announced that they had reached an exclusive publishing deal with Microsoft and they began work on "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes". With the pedigree of the "all-star" team at Sigil and the bravado of CEO Brad McQuaid, there were very high expectations for the game among MMO fans and the press.
An early marketing fact sheet for Vanguard included the following: "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes will be the premier third generation massively multiplayer RPG. A vast, seamless, immersive virtual world filled with elements of familiar High Fantasy, including traditional themes and more, all depicted using cutting-edge graphics technology. Sigil's expertise and experience in the field will bring groundbreaking static and dynamic content to the genre. Vanguard will build upon the successes and strengths of earlier MMORPGs to improve popular game mechanics and features, but also address these pioneering games' mistakes and deficiencies. Vanguard will focus heavily on interdependence, challenge, and reward, while simultaneously addressing tedious and annoying issues, including camping, excessive downtime and more."
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