Yesterday’s rumours have proven true, as Sony Online Entertainment confirms 205 cut positions, the closure of three studio locations, and puts the final bullet in the head of massively multiplayer online spy game The Agency.
Been a while since we heard anything about Sony’s upcoming PS3 & PC MMO “The Agency”. But with E3 rapping at our chamber door, Sony have released a new CG trailer.
Earlier this week we got the good news that SOE’s MMO The Agency wasn’t canceled, but where’s the game been? In hiding, apparently. According to the game’s lead designer Hal Milton, after the CES demo was released earlier this year the developers went into full-on content creation mode. We went kind of intentionally dark after CES, we’ve been pretty quiet this year so we could go heads-down on the content. In the world of MMOs and triple-A game development we are actually a pretty reasonably-sized team. We’re slightly under a hundred people. I know sports titles and other games that have much larger teams than that for ‘offline’ games. We’re all just concentrating on getting our tools online and building as much content as possible – making sure that content is actually fun.
Several of you emailed us this morning, frightened after receiving email notifications from the game rental service GameFly that Sony Online Entertainment’s MMO The Agency for the PlayStation 3 had been canceled by the manufacturer. Instead of panicking, we decided to contact the manufacturer to see what they had to say.
Sony Online Entertainment’s experimental blending of social network service with massively multiplayer online role-playing game, FreeRealms, is coming to the Playstation 3 as well as the PC, Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe announced today.
FreeRealms joins DC Universe Online and The Agency as the first massively multiplayer online role playing games coming out of a new arrangement between SCEE and SOE.
Under the new agreement, SCEE will publish and distribute three MMOs developed by SOE for PS3 throughout the PAL territories. In addition, SCEE will also publish DC Universe and The Agency on behalf of SOE in the PAL territories.
“This is an opportunity for SCEE and SOE to bring the best online experiences from PC gaming to the PLAYSTATION 3 universe, the result of which will certainly benefit PlayStation fans,” said David Reeves, President, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
Julia Brasil was recently chosen as the winner of Sony Online Entertainment’s first Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) design scholarship contest. Nearly 100 applicants submitted game concepts and essays, and Julia’s Everquest II level and essay submission won her a $US 10,000 scholarship to The Art Institute of California, and a paid internship at Sony Online Entertainment.
We got a chance to chat with the 20 year-old Brasil (who’s never won a contest in her life) about her winning concept, what she thinks of a “G.I.R.L” contest, and what she’ll be working on with SOE — full interview after the jump.
Last month Sony Online Entertainment announced that upcoming titles The Agency and Free Realms would be utilizing the Live Gamer service for real money transactions, which many people took to mean that players would be able to buy weapons and equipment to enchance their gameplay. In an interview published over at Eurogamer, lead designer Hal Milton explains that this isn’t the case at all.
