Editing World Opponent Network (section)

== History ==
SIGS operated from late 1996 through November 1997 and was built into about 20 Sierra titles by this time.{{r|sigs end 1997}} On November 18, 1997, after Sierra was acquired by [[CUC International]], CUC announced that they will rebrand SIGS as WON as of December 1, 1997.{{r|won announced gs}} On December 8, 1997, the [[open beta]] of the new WON website was launched.{{r|won beta}}{{r|won beta gs}} WON left beta and was officially launched on April 13, 1998.{{r|unreal agreement}}{{r|won launch gs}}

In an apparent effort to boost WON awareness with off-the-shelf customers, Sierra released ''On-Line Games: Collection Series'' late in 1997 that contained 12 online titles (9 [[List of WON-Enabled games|WON-enabled games]], 2 WON.net [[browser game|browser-based games]], plus ''[[The Realm Online|The Realm]]'').{{r|onlinegames}}

WON touted its success when it announced 750,000 members on September 2, 1998.{{r|750k cdmag}} Just 6 months later in March 1999, WON claimed to have doubled their membership to 1.5 million, along with now attracting 1% of the WWW audience for February 1999, placing them in the top 500 websites and top 10 gaming sites.{{r|1pct cdmag}}

[[File:World_Opponent_Net_Counter-Strike_Server_Browser.jpg|thumb|alt=A screenshot of the WON.net interface and available servers in the game ''Counter-Strike''|WON.net interface in ''Counter-Strike'']]

WON attracted a few partnerships with significant third parties to become a multi-developer/multi-publisher service. On May 27, 1997, Sierra announced an agreement with [[Valve Corporation|Valve]] to publish and distribute ''Half-Life'', which would bring it to WON when finally released in November 1998.{{r|hl agreement}} On May 27, 1998, WON announced an agreement with [[GT Interactive]] and [[Epic MegaGames]] to bring ''[[Unreal (1998 video game)|Unreal]]'' to WON.{{r|unreal agreement}} On September 7, 1999, WON.net announced an agreement with [[Activision]] to bring a few of its multiplayer titles, including ''Soldier of Fortune'', to WON.net.{{r|activision agreement}}{{r|activision agreement cdmag}}

In August 1999, after Sierra was acquired by [[Havas]], Havas made WON.net its own entity.{{r|won entity}} In September 1999, WON.net announced plans to enter Europe.{{r|eu announce}}{{r|eu announce gs}} WON.net launched in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on February 17, 2000.{{r|eu launch gs}}

On March 29, 2000, Havas acquired PrizeCentral.com and merged it with WON.net, announced the creation of a new site to be called Flipside.com, and basically brought an end to the WON.net website as it was known.{{r|prizecentral}}{{r|flipside facts}} Regardless, WON.net continued on in various forms (primarily for WON-enabled games minus the Hoyle titles) including becoming action.WON.net for a period.{{r|won action}} Even as main pages continued to shift for WON-enabled games, many of the WON multiplayer servers continued to run{{--}}even adding a few new titles. The last WON-enabled title launched (not multiplayer but has an online element to it) was ''[[Caesar IV]]'' in September 2006.{{r|caesar4 review gs}}

Meanwhile, in 2001, Valve (which had a publishing and distribution agreement with Sierra) was secretly working on their own competing service, [[Steam (service)|Steam]]. Sierra and [[Vivendi Universal]] (the current owner of Sierra and WON.net) did not learn of this until March 2002 when Valve announced Steam's beta release at [[Game Developers Conference|GDC 2002]]. This only added to the current rift between Sierra and Valve.{{r|valve v vivendi}} Shortly after the release of Steam beta, all of Valve's WON-enabled titles (''Half-Life'' and its [[mod (computer gaming)|mods]]) were [[patch (computing)|patched]] to run on Steam instead. Valve shut down the last of its WON servers on July 31, 2004.{{r|valve eol gs}}{{r|valve eol}}

Also in 2001, [[Raven Software]] took their popular title, ''Soldier of Fortune'', off of WON.net and over to [[GameSpy]] instead.{{r|sof eol}}{{r|sof patch107f}}

Many of Sierra's long-running titles were shut down on August 16, 2007.{{r|sierra 2007 eol}} The last of Sierra's and Activision's WON servers (now in the hands of Activision and Vivendi Games) were shut down on November 1, 2008.{{r|sierra 2008 eol}}