Eurogamer reports that producer Matt Wilson, art director Corey Dangel, and producer John Smith have all defected from SOE and The Agency, setting up their own studio, Detonator Games. Eurogamer also writes of a rumoured “reboot” and “rethink” of the PlayStation 3 and PC bound MMO, speculation that SOE reps flatly deny.

We heard a little loose talk at Comic-Con that the game may have been having some development issues, probably related to the departure of key Agency staffers.

The game was tentatively scheduled to hit in 2010.

“No reboot” to The Agency as staff leave News [CVG]

The “not actual gameplay footage” disclaimer is genuinely appreciated! The lack of any genuine charm or humour in those characters, however, is less so.

Video Games – E3 2009 – Video Game Trailers

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.

This explains why we’ve not seen anything other than said demo at E3, Leipzig, and the SOE Fan Faire. So when do we see more? Milton teases that we should be seeing something at the “’small’ shows next summer, the ones they throw every year.” Hmm, what shows could he mean?

Massively checks in on The Agency with Lead Designer Hal Milton [Massively via Eurogamer]

“Sony Online Entertainment’s game, The Agency™, is still in development for release on both the PLAYSTATION®3 and PC platforms. The game sku has been reinstated to GameFly’s website. Feel free to add The Agency to your GameQ!”

There we go! Nothing at all to worry about. Just remember kids, retailers and rental establishments, while lovely places to visit and procure video games from, are no substitute for news directly from the game developers and publishers themselves. That’s one to grow on.

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.

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.

Brasil first learned of the contest during a late-night event at GDC, where she worked as a volunteer staffer. The event featured lots of women with jobs in the game industry, who recommended she enter. Getting a $US 10,000 scholarship and a guaranteed in with a publisher like SOE might be any gamer’s dream. So how did Brasil feel when she found out she won? “At first, I passed through shock, and then I was in denial. And then, I was really happy, and now I’m just okay with it, I guess!”

When asked to guess why her EQ2 level won out, she guessed it was because she made it “a little bit crazy”. The judges, she said, told her they found her work funny and original.

“It involved finding a particular sheep among a lot of other sheep”, she said. “It was a little bit adventure game and a little bit of the usual MMO grinding and things”.

Female development professionals are under-represented in game industry demographics, so it’s fair to consider that a girl-focused contest might be necessary to promote more interest from women in the game industry. But at the same time, there are plenty of male students who’d love to be internship contenders as well — we asked Brasil how she felt about this.

“The thing about the contest is, it’s called G.I.R.L, but there was nothing saying guys couldn’t apply”, Brasil said. “It was geared toward any group that is a minority in game development. I guess the girl thing led people astray to think that, because you are a guy, you couldn’t possibly win”.

So what are her career dreams? “I want to work in the game industry, like anyone in my class”, she said, referring to the game art and development program she attends, where she learns a some art and design, and some coding, too. “But what I want to do specifically once I get in the industry, I’m still not sure about! I still like drawing, and doing concept art and being an artist, but I also like doing level design and scripting”.

Brasil hopes her time with SOE will help her experiment with a variety of different industry facets to see what she takes to. Specifically, she’ll be interning with the team that’s developing The Agency — “I’m looking forward to that”, she said.

“I want to make this very clear”, said lead designer Hal Milton. “This is not a microtransaction system within The Agency to allow players to buy weapons, outfits, or operatives to be effective within the game world. That’s something that we’re absolutely not planning on doing”.

Instead, Live Gamer will be implemented as it is in EQII, allowing players to sell their own goods to other players. Milton did add that allowing players to recruit more operatives through a one-time out of game payment was still a possibility.

No microtransactions in The Agency [Eurogamer]

At the event, apparently, everyone got to gawk at this giant gun made out of ice. Said Wilson, “A warning I gave during my introduction threatened to become our new tagline: ‘Don’t lick the gun.’ (I personally think this is good advice in general, regardless of what the gun is actually made out of.)”

Wilson also recapped how the SOE Seattle studio got started, and how The Agency project came to be.

In 2005, a few of the core Mythica development team broke away from the Microsoft games group to form a startup company called “FireAnt Games.” Our primary goal when we founded the company was to bring the MMO space to more of the mainstream gamer audience. Specifically, we wanted to target the shooter audience and the console gamer. Well, it happened that SOE was thinking the same thing, and they asked us to start up their Seattle studio. More than 3 years and 80 people later, we are well into building The Agency. Our goal is to deliver an online world where players can “live the life of an elite agent,” full of the over-the-top action, exotic locales, and extravagant lifestyles the spy genre is known for.

Some footage from SOE Seattle’s ice gun-festooned open house is set to air on G4’s X-Play show tonight at 8:00pm EST, too.

Meet SOE, The Agency [US PlayStation Blog]

Earlier in the year, SOE and LiveGamer built a new platform for microtransactions, incorporating and ultimately replacing EverQuest II’s Station Exchange. The result of that collaboration is Live Gamer Exchange, an in-game economic platform that will now serve both new titles as well.

As SOE says character customisation will play a significant role in espionage action-shooter The Agency, players will be able to purchase new clothes, weapons, vehicles and other identifying items that “tailor their gameplay.”

As for free-to-play, family-friendly adventure title Free Realms, in addition to a range of avatar customisation items for purchase, players can make and trade their own on the transaction service as well.

Full release follows the jump.

Sony Online Entertainment and Live Gamer Expand Transaction-based Game Play to Additional Titles

Live Gamer Exchange to Power RMT in The Agency and Free Realms

SEATTLE, WA – May 14, 2008 – Live Gamer, the premier operator of a publisher-supported marketplace for real money trading of virtual items, has announced it has entered into an agreement with Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) to offer real money trading (RMT) in the upcoming titles published by SOE — The Agency™ and Free Realms™. The two companies are leading the evolution of the gaming industry into transaction-based business models that open emergent game play styles for gamers and opportunities for publishers.

Live Gamer’s service, called Live Gamer Exchange™, will provide the SOE gaming community within these new games with a trusted way to conduct real-money transactions. Earlier this year, Live Gamer incorporated SOE’s proven Station Exchange technology, the first publisher-developed and sanctioned RMT marketplace, into its own e-commerce platform. The Live Gamer Exchange is currently operating within EverQuest® II, SOE’s popular MMORPG (www.livegamer.com)

The next genre of SOE MMOGs to incorporate the Live Gamer Exchange will include:

* The Agency, a fast-paced online action shooter, will let players experience the life of an elite espionage agent with a “you are what you wear” level of customisation. As they travel to exotic locales, infiltrate enemy organizations, and seek global domination for their own agency, gamers will be able to customise their characters through attire, weaponry, gadgets, vehicles, gear and aliases that tailor their game play.
* Free Realms, a whimsical fantasy adventure game targeted toward families, will be free to play and offer a catalog of items made by and for players to customise their avatars as much as they wish. The Live Gamer Exchange will provide a new and efficient mechanism for trading these items within the game.

Said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, “We are actively exploring free-to-play and other revenue models, and always looking for new ways to engage and entertain gamers. Live Gamer is a proven partner that protects and supports our gamers who participate in RMT. We trust them to handle this area of the business for us so that we can focus on creating and growing our games.”

“SOE pioneered the MMO genre and continues to evolve it by offering new game play experiences, revenue models and expanded demographic appeal. Live Gamer is proud to be a key part of the movement toward transaction-based game play,” said Live Gamer co-founder and president, Andrew Schneider. “We’re now building on the launch of the Live Gamer Exchange with EverQuest II, and expanding our relationship with SOE to power additional games including these two titles for which the idea of RMT has been built in from the very early stages of design.”

I hate to admit that I’m really looking forward to an MMO, mostly because I’ve been burned and burned out so many times on the over-used, under thought-out genre, but I really am getting psyched for The Agency. It looks like they’ve gone to great lengths to get rid of the stuff I hated in MMOs. Part two is on the jump.