Sony closing The Agency dev today?

By Robert Purchese Published 31 March, 2011

PS3 spy MMO off to 00-heaven?

The studio developing PS3 spy MMO The Agency, Sony Online Entertainment Seattle, may be closed today. Will The Agency be cancelled as a result?

Duke Nukem creator and 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard broke the news on Twitter.

"Word that Sony Online Entertainment Seattle is having lay-offs and that studio closure is possible," he tweeted last night.

"To be more clear, the lay-offs may be SOE wide and not just limited to Seattle. So, Austin, San Diego, etc..." he clarified.

Hours later, Broussard added: "SOE Seattle and other studios (Denver is rumored) will be closed tomorrow. Good luck to all impacted."

Following a recent delay, The Agency was given a new release date of late 2011. Eurogamer spoke to Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley in January who insisted that "late this year" was still very much the launch plan.

Smedley elaborated, telling us there were slightly under 115 people working on the spy-themed MMO, and 50 were to be reserved for post-launch development and patches.

MMOs are notoriously expensive games to make and, ambitiously, Sony Online Entertainment has (had?) more than one in development: PlanetSide Next, EverQuest Next and The Agency. SOE also has the upkeep of Free Realms and DC Universe Online to see to.

But they were successful, weren't they? DC Universe Online became SOE's fastest-selling game ever, according to a John Smedley tweet earlier this year. Free Realms, meanwhile, enjoys 17 million registered accounts and has just welcomed a PS3 version across North America (European launch forthcoming).

The Agency.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • reelbigkris #1 1 year ago

    April fools build up :p

  • el_pollo_diablo #2 1 year ago

    I was looking forward to this game.

  • Whizzo #3 1 year ago

    Not fussed about The Agency but if there's no Planetside sequel I'll be rather annoyed.

  • customfirmware #4 1 year ago

    Maybe this is why Santa monica studio is hiring new staffs to work on this.( don't know just felt like creating some wild speculation). Although it makes sense seeing as their one of Sony's most talented studio.
    Edited by customfirmware at 31/03/11 @ 10:47

  • rotmm #5 1 year ago

    No one think this is a little out of order by Broussard? Tweeting that many are losing their jobs when we don't even know if the employees themselves have been made aware of it. At the very least it would have been wise (and for a former studio head.... professional?) to allow SOE to be the ones to release the info to the public.

  • SpaceMonkey77 #6 1 year ago

    I don't have a PS3 yet, but The Agency is a game that I'd certainly love to be on my 360, and would buy on PS3.

    It will be such a big shame if the game never sees the light of day, as its long overdue now, and its possible that other awesomeness like The Secret World may beat it to consoles.

    With DCUO doing well, I hope that they can get TA to PS3, and possibly PC too.

    And if it is an April Fools, shame on you.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #7 1 year ago

    This might be quite cynical but now that DCUO and free realms are out on PS3, SOE might be finding themselves over staffed and just closing down one of the smaller studios, and passing the work over.

  • drxym #8 1 year ago

    I grabbed Free Realms last night from the US PSN. 29MB it said which I thought was small. As soon as I start up it required me to scroll through about 10 yards of user agreement and then forced me to wait staring at a picture while downloaded nearly 800MB more of files. I gave up right there.

    So I start the game expecting to play and it more or less tells me to piss off for 2 hours or whatever it would take to download.

    What is it with Sony and terrible first impressions for their online games? Services like Free Realms & Home only earn revenue if people actually play them. Scaring people away at the front door seems like a pretty dumb business decision.
    Edited by drxym at 31/03/11 @ 11:27

  • stephenb #9 1 year ago

    It takes you 2 hours to download 800mb? Are you still on dial up?

  • God_Octo #10 1 year ago

    No! I've been waiting ages for The Agency- it looked like it could be fun.

    Then again, after a crunch period, don't people get made redundant anyway? Don't they hire loads of extra people to finish things off on short contracts? I'm hoping its that.

  • callum9999 #11 1 year ago

    Shame, this is the one MMO I thought I could get into - hopefully it's not cancelled.

  • mrblonde #12 1 year ago

    Sony just never got a handle on online this generation, it seems like its popularity just stuck up on them. they have been overly ambitious with flops like MAG,DCUO, HOME without ever getting the fundamentals right. MSoft on the other hand seem to go from strength to strength with live

  • bdc #13 1 year ago

    Develop and discard, the Sony way

  • glo #14 1 year ago

    Sad news, particularly for the employees involved, but wasn't a great surprise. It just seemed like one of those games that was never going to survive development ( to me at least).

  • Xboxfanuk #15 1 year ago

    If SOE wants to be successful they need to put everything they got into Everquest 3 and make it the game the fans have been begging for since 2004. If they can manage to bring the magic of EQ 1 with the graphics and production value of modern AAA games then I truely think WoW will take a massive hit from their core players.

    But if SOE does the same old crap they have been doing they are always going to die off.

  • Machetazo #16 1 year ago

    Not The Agency! Don't follow TFLO's awful example. This is a console MMO that a console can for once (basically) call its own. I was never interested in DCUO, couldn't care about Free Realms, but I wait...just, don't be canceled. :o

  • RodHull #17 1 year ago

    @stephenb

    I'm on 50meg cable and it still took me over an hour to download a 1gig demo of MotorStorm Apolcalypse off the PSN store yesterday (and my connection was fine, ticking along at 49meg when I checked). This is compared to the Fight Night Champion demo on the 360 taking less than 5 minutes. Maybe it's Sony's way of encouraging me to invest in PS Plus?

  • ShiftyGeezer #18 1 year ago

    I too have been eagerly awaiting this. Three player team-based online gaming with RPG aspects is a great idea and a pretty definite purchase by me and friends. I'm trusting this game is near enough finished that Sony will see the business sense in getting it finished and released. A few months more incestment would make back a lot fo the cost at least, thogh I expect it could be a profitable venture given its unique dynamic.

  • drxym #19 1 year ago

    @stephenb I'm on 1Mbps broadband. i.e. approx 100KB per second. So to download 800MB would take just over 2 hours at full tilt.

    Yes I'd love to get higher download speeds, unfortunately they don't exist where I live at present.

    Either way it doesn't excuse Sony for such a crap first experience.

  • Yuroko #20 1 year ago

    @rodhull
    Do you have your ps3 wired or wireless? I have a 50meg connection too and on wifi the ps3 took an eternity. Whacked the Ethernet cable in and things download nearly as fast as the xbox.

  • RodHull #21 1 year ago

    @yuroko

    Both wired.

  • Soton4084 #22 1 year ago

    I always get this game mixed up with 'Agent' (being made by Rockstar Games)! I'm glad it isn't Agent being cancelled, but it is a shame if these rumours have any truth to them as this looked like a rather good game too!

  • BritishBlue1 #23 1 year ago

    MrBlonde,
    I had no idea XBL was an MMO, interesting.

  • Eraysor #24 1 year ago

    Don't cancel Planetside Next, I'm dying to play it!!!

  • Miths #25 1 year ago

    @RodHull

    It's extremely rare (but has happened on occasion) that I have download speed issues with PSN after I switched from WiFi to wired a couple of years ago.
    I don't think I've ever seen store or patch downloads hit the 6 MB/s my 50 Mbit line can handle, but whenever I've calculated the speed based on file size and download time it's usually in the 2-3 MB/s range.
    So rarely no more than around ten minutes to download eg. a 2 GB demo, and those firmware updates that so many people still seem to like to bitch about, take around five minutes - of which the last roughly four are installation.

  • Voffvoffhunden #26 1 year ago

    My goodness what a pun! A headline worthy of the Sun!

  • curtlikesmeat #27 1 year ago

    Aren't they still running EQ and EQ2, or is someone else doing that now? Ahh Smedley I remember the days when you were king of the hill, how times have changed!

  • Chufty #28 1 year ago

    As long as Planetside 2 is still on, I'm happy.

  • Murton #29 1 year ago

    This is where Twatter really earns its nickname to be honest. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that that "tweet" may have been the first that some of the affected staffers knew about any layoffs and rather than hearing about it from their managers and HR advisors they read it at their computer screen at home. Professional much?

    My heartfelt sympathies for anyone caught up in the layoffs, it's a shitty deal and most of you probably deserve better after all of the and effort put in on The Agency, you certainly didn't deserve what Broussard did, his actions were inexcusable.