the-agency posts

The rumors started flying late on Wednesday and today Sony Online has now confirmed via an email press statement that it is indeed shutting down three of its five internal game development studios and laying off 205 team members.

The move will close the Seattle, Tuscon and Denver studio, leaving only the San Diego and Austin Texas offices. The Seattle office has been developing the super-spy themed shooter The Agency for the past several years. The closure means that The Agency has now been cancelled as well. However the statement does add that the many online collectible card games that had been under development at the now shut down Tuscon and Denver offices will now be moved to Sony Online's San Diego headquarters. All other currently live MMO games from the publisher won't be affected.

The statement adds that this move was designed to "focus development resources on delivering two new MMOs based on its renowned PlanetSide and EverQuest properties." Sony Online's head man John Smedley has been hinting strongly about the PlanetSide revival plans for the past few months while the first glimpse of what was then called EverQuest Next was revealed last summer during Sony Online's annual Fan Faire event.

[Via email press release]

Sony Online Entertainment, known primarily for its MMO game titles, could be in the middle of a huge restructuring. Kotaku is reporting via unnamed sources that the company has shut down three of its five development studios based in Seattle, Tuscon and Denver. In addition the rumors claims the company has also laid off significant numbers of team members at its two remaining studios, San Diego and Austin. Kotaku claims in its article that the layoffs total nearly a third of Sony Online's employees.

The Tuscon offices are the the home to the team behind the fantasy collectible online card game PoxNora while the Denver team worked on several other collectible online games. The shutdown of the Seattle offices, if true, is perhaps the most significant since it was the studio in charge of developing the long awaited super-spy themed MMO The Agency which was first announced nearly four years ago.

Big Download has emailed Sony Online's PR reps for comment.

Sony Online CEO John Smedley has a tendency to make statement that we are sure his PR people wish he had not said. The latest such statement comes from Eurogamer where Smedley gave a tentative release date for the still unofficially announced Planetside Next game.

Smedley stated, "... we haven't announced a release date for it but you can expect it... We're looking at late first-quarter, early second-quarter." Even with Smedley's statements, the details of the revival of the sci-fi FPS MMO have been kept under wraps. Smedley also repeated that the long-in-development super spy-themed action MMO The Agency is due out in the end of 2011 and there's that Everquest Next project that was first announced last summer. And that's not the end of it. Smedley states, "There are [unannounced projects]. Can't even disclose a number, but a lot."

Every year we are surprised by the number of games that manage to be released. But there are always PC game titles that are announced and then pretty much disappear from view. These are the games that Big Download puts the label "Vaporware" On. Unlike other such web sites, we consider vaporware to be any PC game that was announced, lots of time with much hype, only to go into a cave with little to no info revealed about the game at all.

That's why you won't see games like Diablo III or even Duke Nukem Forever on this list. Yes, they are taking a long time to be completed but at least the development teams behind them have shown the game off in playable form in the past year and it looks like they may actually be released. But that's not the case with most of the games on our new 2010 PC game vaporware list. While they may all finally come out of their shell, we have no idea when that will be at this point.

So which games made our top 10 list this year? Check after the jump to find out for yourself. Just be careful: It's dark in there.

The delayed plagued MMO action game The Agency now at least has a new target for a release date. In a column about the state of online PC gaming at Kotaku, it reports that the super spy-themed game from developer-publisher Sony Online is now set for a launch sometime in the second half of 2011.

The game was first announced in 2007 but since then The Agency's development has blown through a number of release dates. Sony Online's head John Smedley told Kotaku that the game from the company's Seattle studio "needed a lot of work". If The Agency does in fact launch in 2011 it will join another long delayed Sony Online game, DC Universe Online, which is currently scheduled to launch sometime in early 2011.

Even as it approaches the launch of its next major MMO game DC Universe Online, developer-publisher Sony Online Entertainment is apparently making some cost saving cuts. Our sister site Joystiq reports that Sony Online has confirmed it has laid off 35 of its team members or about 4 percent of its total workforce. In a statement a Sony Online PR rep stated the cuts were made to "better align the company's resources against areas of growth that meet consumer demand in today's online market as well as improve operational efficiency." There's no word on what positions were cut or where they were located in Sony Online's many development studios.

As we mentioned the developer's next major game, DC Universe Online, is set for launch sometime in November. Sony Online is also launching its second family themed MMO, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, this fall. It is still developing its long-in-development super-spy themed shooter MMO The Agency although there's no word on when that game will be released.

The Agency has been missing in action for a while, but Sony has given the promising title a trailer treatment at this latest E3. Showing off some gameplay footage and distinctly James Bond-inspired artwork, it's looking better and better all the time. It also helps that this will be the first true espionage MMO, and that the gameplay will be more action-based than number crunching. Good stuff!

Download HD The Agency E3 2010 Trailer (104MB)
Check out all The Agency downloads

Today's spotlights include a first look at XCOM's reboot as a first-person shooter, a tour inside the personal starships of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and look at Medal of Honor and what it means to have an epic sized beard. We also practice some swordplay with Shogun 2: Total War, protect Metropolis in DC Universe Online and get some spy vs spy action going in The Agency. Let's not forget some fabulous booth babe action.

For press conference highlights, check out Episode 1 and for more E3 2010 action, check out Episode 3 and Episode 4.

It's been a long, long time since we have seen anything new about The Agency. Sony Online announced their super-spy themed shooter MMO way back in 2007 and, well, we are still waiting for it to be released. Indeed there were rumors that the game was canceled which Sony Online dismissed as false. Now IGN has posted up the first new gameplay trailer from the title in quite a while.

The trailer shows off PvP gameplay (or as we shooter fans call it team deathmatch) from the title. It looks pretty good if not spectacular. We just hope we get to see and play the title next week at Sony Online's E3 2010 booth. In the meantime you can check out the trailer after the jump:

We've been waiting for a long time to get an update on The Agency, Sony Online's long-in-development super-spy themed action MMO game. Today the publisher did give us an update . . . kind of. It's the announcement of a new Facebook game called The Agency: Covert Ops.

So has Sony Online switched gears and turned The Agency into their version of Farmville? Well, not really. The publisher says the Facebook game will link in some way to the still-in-development action MMO although they are being vague on how exactly that will work. In the meantime you can start playing The Agency: Covert Ops right now. It allows player to pick from several character classes, customize their character in different clothes and items, go on missions and defeat the bad guy.With E3 coming in June we hope to finally get an update on The Agency soon.