F13.net has an interview with an ex-Sigil employee. It’s a morbidly fascinating read. Some of the sad high points:
Ex-Sigil: There was input all around, but at each level, that input was simply discarded by the decision makers. Basically there were a handful of people who made decisions, regardless of input from anyone else.
[...]
Ex-Sigil: [...] The designers on Vanguard did amazing things with the horrific tools and systems in place [...] but there was no scripting language for example, even though nearly everyone wanted one except for the people who decided if we got one or not.
[...]
f13.net: How hands off was he [Brad] by this time?
Ex-Sigil: He was playing a lot right through about Beta 2 but then he vanished.
f13.net: As in, just outright disappeared?
Ex-Sigil: Yep.[...]
Ex-Sigil: QA was one person up until about November… ONE.[...]
f13.net: Who are these people who took over after Brad and Jeff disappeared. Who can we pin the tail on?
Ex-Sigil: Dave Gilbertson, Bill Fisher, and Darrin McPherson… Ryan Elam too, but he spread himself thin by trying to do too much. [...] Let’s just say they refused to listen to anyone on how to fix what was broken [...] they were so pig-headed and arrogant that they believed we were all wrong and they were right.
[...]
f13.net: And what was the attitude by the team towards Brad and Jeff by now? Surely Brad’s disappearance absolutely wrecked morale.
Ex-Sigil: Not really. When he was at work he was more an obstacle than a help. A lot of people wanted Brad to just go away.
Only one QA tester. Horrid developement tools. Decision makers who were either absent or incompetent. Or both. There are more gory details, tons of them. Particularly enlightening is the stuff on how Brad and his accomplices ripped off Microsoft.
OK, this is clearly a disgruntled ex-employee talking but I think the current state of the game lends credence to his accusations. Five years of developement, funds in excess of $30 million. Something must have gone wrong and the explanations offered by this ex-developer sound plausible.
Another interesting bit of information is the subscriber number: about 90k. And then, there’s this:
Ex-Sigil: Co-publishing, with Sigil retaining all IP rights… is what we were told.
From SOE’s press release:
In May 2006, SOE acquired the title’s rights [...]
Either the press release is wrong or Brad not only lied to VG’s fanbase but also to his employees. Not that I’d mind if SOE had bought the IP rights back in May 2006 but it might be yet another example of how McQuaid bullshitted just about fucking everyone.