Just adding my $0.02 worth to this, if I may.
On the face of it this might sound bad for those who love the Saints and the other franchises that Volition has produced over time, but I've been playing computer games for more than three decades; I've seen them rise and I've seen them fall. The one thing that I know about computer games is that they're not made by companies - they're made by people.
The obvious example of this is Chris Roberts. He was the man at Origin who was responsible for the Wing Commander series, and most importantly from my perspective, WC Privateer. Arguably one of the first action oriented SP open world games, depending on where you see Elite fitting into the picture, but I digress.
As a kid, I loved that game. I loved the main char, some of the NPCs, the storyline, the factions, the gameplay - everything. Then Origin got bought out by EA and it was pretty much eaten. No more WC games. (NB - Privateer II was not a sequel to this game; it was made by a different studio and was a good game in and of itself, but should have been made as a standalone game in a standalone universe IMHO)
More than 10 years later, we hear that Digital Anvil has been created by Chris Roberts and he's working on Starlancer, and most importantly, Freelancer. Freelancer is arguably (and certainly in my opinion) the best open world SP action oriented games ever created and was at the time the modernisation of Privateer. And, it was HIGHLY moddable. But, DA got acquired by Microsoft. No more Freelancers, and they haven't even bothered to remaster this great classic for the fans so it doesn't play on modern OSs anymore.
Now, Chris Roberts is heavily involved in Star Citizen. Haven't played it myself but I've heard good things. Been in development a long while, and I may look at it in the future, but what I do know is that there are a lot of people out there who think this game is going to be incredible when it gets into the mainstream.
So, Saints may go away, possibly forever, but the idea of them won't. Writers, coders, designers, artists, and all the other people responsible for Saints over the years come and go from Gearbox, some will find themselves collecting at some new company, and they'll apply their unique talents to new concepts, and create great games that carry the DNA of their former franchise into a fun future project.
Bottom line is that large companies have been buying up smaller companies for their assets forever, but most of those larger companies forget that the real asset is the people, not the products. Who can blame them? As long as we keep taking about Human Resources (HR) and not Human Capital (HC), manager types are never going to get it.
That said, I think there's hope. After the days of Origin being bought by EA and some of the backlash from the gaming community about how that was handled, EA have changed their approach a little. Bioware (for example) still pretty much exists as an enclave within EA, making Mass Effect and Dragon Age for as long as they can hold the teams together.
Gearbox may have 'bought' Volition, but personally I don't think that tells us anything yet. How Gearbox handles the integration of the people is the part of the puzzle that will tell us what we can expect in the future out of the Saints franchise.
But like I said at the outset, this is just my opinion.
