Follow on from this morning’s bad news regarding Sony Online Entertainment, it has been confirmed that the company has gone through a restructuring process, closing several studios. Long awaited game ‘The Agency’ has also been cancelled. Existing games such as DCUO will not be affected.
SOE’s full statement reads as follows:
“As part of a strategic decision to reduce costs and streamline its global workforce, SOE announced today that it will eliminate 205 positions and close its Denver, Seattle and Tucson studios. 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. All possible steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern.
This strategic decision will have no impact on SOE’s current portfolio of live games; additionally SOE will transition development efforts for the Denver and Tucson studios’ suite of products to its San Diego headquarters. This strategic alignment of development resources better positions SOE to remain a global leader in online gaming and deliver on its promise of creating entertaining games for players of all ages, and servicing the 20 million players that visited SOE servers in just the past year.”
Source: IGN
nemesisND1derboy
Posted this in the forum, very sad news :( Hope all the devs that were let go land on their feet!
OneShotWook
Agreed Tony,i seem to remember Sony had been pulling staff from SOE for some time for projects like Home and such.
Time to put away my SWG grief i guess.
aerobes
I always thought this looked pretty good though I’m more disappointed for the employees who was making this rather than the loss of the game.
Shakugan
WHAT!? No way… :[
TSBonyman
I was half expecting something like this to happen after the earlier news. It’s a shame, The Agency looked quite good.
eye8have9you3
Dissapointing, was really looking forward to this
dnlgee
Uh oh, was looking forward to The Agency.. how I would have loved if DC:O and The Agency had swapped places :(
webby_15-0
phew! for a second i thought it meant Agent by rockstar games. im still sad though :(
Phil_E
I thought this too
gaffers101
Shame, these really are tough times for the games industry.
Phil_E
I was just about to make a comment explaining how unfortunate this news was, thinking it was “Agent” the game by Rockstar that is the exclusive passed down after L.A. Noire went multi-plat. I think I have got those mixed up at all times until now. Still bad news though :(