Brad McQuaid Abandoned Vanguard, Sigil

This 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 my friends 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.

I Hate Being Wrong

But I've been wrong again.

According to Aggro Me, SOE has hired a former IGE exec as their VP for Asian Market Development. While talking to some people close to the situation, I was told that the situation is "just business."

I think it's bad business and here is why...

SOE has a public relations problem with it's loyal fan base. Yes, I know that we as a fan base can be a bunch of asshats, but still they keep doing things that alienate us more and more. The SWG debacle, RMT for fun and profit in EQ2, the snuggling up and now the hiring of IGE management. I see it as a big flying fickle finger of fate to all the people that have for years decried the existence of RMT in SOE's products, who have had to endure the ineffective counter-measures taken by SOE to rid the games of the cash influence, and now the tacit admission from SOE that they don't give a flying fuck at the moon about what we think. They have a number to hit, and dammit they are going to hit it.

It's our fault really. We've been loyal and faithful and continued to play and purchase their games. I guess they thought that was our way of saying we approved, or just telling them we are stupid. You can hardly fault them for drawing those conclusions, but I'm going to. Here's why.

While we can be a monumental pain in the ass, and we've done so much posturing and gesturing as a community we're really a bunch of pussies. And until we give SOE the FFFOF and tell them with our dollars, or lack thereof, that we are sick and tired and we aren't going to take it any more we can expect nothing but more of the same.

I've been railing against RMT for years. I'm just a lone voice in the wilderness. I know I don't influence anyone when it comes to this crap. I just wish there was ONE game where players could go and be insulated from that shit once and for all. Even if the game were only average, it would be nice to have a vacation from it. If people want to play games like that it's their business. I don't play EQ2 in part because it has Station Exchange. That's my insignificant way to take a stand. I don't play any other game developed by Sony either.

Brad promised us a continued stand in Vanguard against RMT, and they have been making a good show of it on the game. But Brad's good buddy Smedley has to have been the impetus behind this hire. Presidents hire the VP's right?

Well this is all bad, customer relations-wise. I can't imagine anyone seeing this as a positive for SOE and it's PR. I keep hearing that one of the strengths of SOE is it's PR machine, but seriously it's just the emporer's new clothes.

Here's to hoping that this isn't the camel's nose a little further under the tent. IGE is a corrupt organization that operates mostly off shore and isn't afraid to shake things up if it's in their best interest. They have some of the best spin doctors in the business.

I'm starting to think I was wrong. Maybe I'm on the wrong side.

Brad McQuaid Thinks you Screwed Up Vanguard

I was cruising through Fire of Heaven's web site today, and much to my surprise I came across this little gem from Aradune, AKA Brad McQuaid, regarding people's expectations and how much like EQ1 Vanguard might be...

Like I said, that message resonated with a lot of people in a positive way, but it also did harm in that those people who don't want another EQ 1 were turned off when they heard about Vanguard but not all of the details behind the game. There were and are also a lot of 'Vanbois' who spread the word that this game was not for WoW players and that people who like a more casual game like WoW were not welcome in Vanguard. In that sense, the messaging backfired and many people aren't even giving the game a chance.

So THAT is the problem with Vanguard. All the negative press and all the dunning that they are getting about the half-baked game they shipped is actually the fault of all the people who have been supporting him over the last few years, the "Vanbois."

I'm having a hard time deciding if this is Brad kissing FOH's ass or if it's just him being an ass. Either way, my opinion of Brad as a person, manager, and steward of this game just went down another notch.

Brad, first of all, if you feel like that, come to the community and post it. And no, FOH is NOT the community. FOH is the retard rickshaw and a place for pricks to stand around and flaunt their e-peens. The community is the people who actually bought your half-finished pile of steaming shit and are trying to play it, and the Affiliate community that is trying to help keep the group focused on the positive, but you don't have the time of day for. You have officially lost touch with your community.

Yes, I'm pissed. Brad, I think you owe the community an apology. If you wanted to start at vanguard crafters, that would be ok with me. Sense of entitlement? Fuck yeah. I've been paying for and operating a fan site for your game for 2 years, and I think we're entitled to at least as much love as you give those catasses over at FOH.

Sigil and Shipping Early

There's a lot of howling out in the Blogoshpere about how we are being forced to play a beta of Vanguard. The basic premise of that is nonsense, since this is a game, and no one is making you play it. That aside, there are some reasonably cogent points that are being made that I would like to counterpoint.

The foremost among those is the one that asserts that we are de facto financiers for Sigil, since they have said that basically they would have preferred to ship the game later but lacked that option due to some financial realities. So let's review a few things;

1. Everyone loves to hate on Sony, and for some good reasons. I've opined on these pages that there are much worse options than Sony out there to help you with a game. On the other hand, let's just say I don't own any Sony stock, either. That aside all the "$OE" hatebois out there instantly ascribed all sorts of sinister motives from Sony for "forcing" Sigil to ship early. I'm not privy to all the financial inner workings of the Microsoft/Sony/Sigil deal. I do know a couple of things more than most. I'll get to that in a minute. Suffice to say that I don't believe Sony pushed this out the door, at least not for selfish reasons.

2. We all want deep, detailed, developed and polished games to play. We don't seem to want anyone to pay to make them though. Here's the reality of the situation; It takes 10's to 100's of millions of dollars to make a first class MMO. If it's your first one, even more. I'm not sure if or how much personal money Brad McQuaid has at risk here, but assuming it's a (relatively) modest amount someone needs to be financing this. As a community, there are a certain number of us who don't want to pay for anything other than exactly what we want. That leaves it to the Sony's and the Microsoft's of the world to capitalize these studios and get them up and running. When these companies try to recover their investments, we often characterize them as "greedy" or "only in it for the money." I don't know about you guys. I like my job, but if there isn't any money in it' I'm not going in tomorrow.

Problem is, MMO's always cost more to make and take longer than the investors are told. This may or may not be on purpose. The point is, Microsoft lost it's corporate patience, and when Sigil said they couldn't ship July 2006, Microsoft started looking for ways to divest itself. It found that way in early May.

Here's the deal... Name an MMO with a chance to ship completely developed and with a chance to survive, and one of a handful of very well heeled companies is behind them. Warhammer? EA. Conan? Microsoft. Tabula Rasa? NCSoft. I could go on, but you get the point. And who is the ownership behind Sigil and Vanguard? Sigil is. I believe they found some "Angel" venture financing for the deal (outside of one of these major companies,) allowing them to keep ownership and only having to contract with Sony for the parts that they lacked core competency to handle. It's a deal that makes sense, and the crux of it is that they are now in the position of needing to generate cash flow. If all that requires is the game shipping early, I think it's a relatively good price to pay. At least now, they don't have one of the 800 pound gorillas in the room. Granted, there is one in the next room, but all in all I think it was a good trade.