Sony Cancels Spy MMO The Agency

[Greg Tito]

Sony Cancels Spy MMO The Agency

Sony Online Entertainment's innovative spy-themed MMO The Agency has been shelved in the restructuring announced today.

Sony first mentioned The Agency way back in 2007. A blend of shooter and stealth gameplay, the MMO was sometimes subtitled Covert Ops and featured an almost cartoonish feel similar to Valve's Team Fortress 2. The game would let you live out your James Bond fantasies as a spy working for one of two organizations that thankfully didn't seem to have a "good" or "bad" feel. The game was set to feature minigames like poker, which could then be used to unlock missions by winning or losing too much. Unfortunately, we will never be able to play a new and possibly innovative MMO because SOE announced today that The Agency is cancelled. Sony's Seattle studio where work on The Agency was headquartered, will close and unless positions can be found for its former employees in Austin, Texas, everyone who worked on the game is out of a job.

"As part of this restructuring, SOE is discontinuing production of The Agency so it can focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties, while also maintaining its current portfolio of online games," the statement from SOE read today [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108895-UPDATE-SOE-Closing-Studios-Cutting-205-Staff].

"All possible steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern," the statement continued.

I respect Sony's decision to try to remunerate the developers who have been working The Agency for at least 4 years, possibly much longer. Any company must make tough decisions if it is to survive, and it couldn't have been easy for SOE President John Smedley to pull the trigger on dumping three studios and laying off 205 people.

But in these times of WoW, the layoffs from Sony and the cancelling of The Agency only prove that companies making MMOs must make careful decisions in order to stay competitive.

And apparently that means focusing on EverQuest and making PlanetSide: Next [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105953-Sony-Online-Strongly-Hints-Planetside-Sequel-Coming-This-Spring].

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[Sacman]

Man and I was actually looking forward to this game too... it sounded pretty cool...

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

i'm happy there's not another MMO game in the PC market, but it saddens me that they had problems with it. it seemed like an interesting project.


i'm now thinking that with the BOOM of gaming in the recent years (2000's), starting companies are having a tough time to make games compared to the 90's...

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I was just thinking about this game Tuesday, after Free Realms came to PS3.

Shame. Sounded fun.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Had they actually continued to make it something different and worthwhile, like it was originally planned, it really could have been cool. It really died once they stopped making it a James Bond esque super spy MMO and turned it into yet another boring 3rd person team based shooter.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

This looked pretty good actually, the different ways of tackling the missions really appealed to me...

Perhaps one day they might bring it back...

 

[Harry Buddha Palm]

"I respect Sony's decision to try to remunerate the developers who have been working The Agency for at least 4 years, possibly much longer. Any company must make tough decisions if it is to survive, and it couldn't have been easy for SOE President John Smedley to pull the trigger on dumping three studios and laying off 205 people."

Are you kidding? Corporate CEO's don't give a rat's ass about their employees. People are just numbers to them. All those sociopath's care about is the bottom line. I also highly doubt that SOE is doing anything more for their fired employees other than giving them a severance check and a kick out the door. When the corporate heads run their companies into the ground with assinine decisions, it's the workers that lose their jobs. John Smedley is probably going to get a big fat bonus check for saving the company money.

 

[Catalyst6]

How very sad. I was hoping that this would turn out well. We need a spy MMO.

Glad that they dropped this new MMO so that they can work on EverQuest years after it stopped being really relevant when compared to the "big MMOs" of the age. Well done, guys.

 

[Lawyer105]

All I can think is "fuck spy, I'm getting a band new planetside!"

I'm with you, here. It sucks that they're cancelling a game and laying off people.... but Hey! Planetside's still a'comin! That makes up for a lot

Now if only SOE can deliver.........................

 

[NeedAUserName]

I'm not too bothered, a stealth based MMO would never truly work. Assassins Creed Brotherhood's multiplayer proved that stealth and multiple players just don't mix well.

 

[nub the samurai]

Dang, I remember hearing about this game back in 2007 and being excited for it. Thought it could have been truly something else. Well, too bad I guess.

 

[Baron Khaine]

All I can think is "fuck spy, I'm getting a band new planetside!"

Honestly, if all funds directed towards this other thing are now going towards me getting to hotdrop a commando team over an enemy base from my dropship while evading enemy fighters in the midst of an epic, climatic 256 player battle for a continent, then fandabbydozy, let's rake in the money. Fire up those BFR's and man the Liberator's, boys. This is gonna be the big one.

Honestly, those of you upset about Spy closing down should just look up Planetside and think "more of that, but epic-er" and you'll be quickly cheered up.

A thousand times this. When I heard about the Sony "reshuffling" I had thoughts that they might be ditching Planetside, thankfully not true. Sucks for these Devs though.

 

[smut]

DCUO was a pretty big flop, they were basing their hopes on that game. But the servers are basically dead now. My friend was super excited for it but quit one month later.

 

[Pig Mazurka]

Aaaaaand now I'm sad.

 

[Flames66]

Aw piss. One of the few games I had some interest in.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

This sucks, I was really looking forward to that game too.

Oh well, I hope the dev teams that worked on that MMO can find work elsewhere.

 

[Ldude893]

o/ And another one's gone, and another one's gone...o/