The lights are on
UPDATE: Sony Online has responded with an official statement (see below) confirming widespread layoffs, three studio closures, and the cancellation of long-in-development action/MMO The Agency.
The official statement reads:
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.
Ouch. Our condolences, as always, to the newly unemployed. Let's hope that the bit about current SOE games being unaffected is true; EverQuest II and DC Universe Online are both solid MMOs with significant fanbases.
ORIGINAL STORY: Word is that things are far from well at Sony Online Entertainment, developer/publisher of titles like DC Universe Online (shown) and Free Realms.
3D Realms' George Broussard tweeted that SOE Seattle was laying off enough employees that a studio closure was possible. Kotaku added fuel to the fire with a report that SOE layoffs were also occurring in various SOE studios at San Diego, Tuscon, Denver, and Austin – enough that it could amount to up to a third of SOE's studio staff.
We're trying to contact SOE for more info on the matter, and we'll let you know what we hear.
Email the author Matthew Kato, or follow on Twitter, and Game Informer.
This is not good news, as i know some pretty decent dev's at the austin office.. with dcu now live.. and players still waiting on the March update ( this is the final day of march) i guess that means the wait will now go further into April.
this isnt good news at all to paying customers as much as i love/hate soe sometimes.. this news is really shocking.
customers on forums are already very very very very frustrated regarding the lack of communication from the dev's.. now this will surely add more gasoline to the fire.
PC and PS3 Dcu players.. now is the time to voice your concerns on their forums.
This won't bode well for the console MMO market. Hopefully there won't be any more layoffs.
And I thought me resigning today was bad news. Hoping for the best for the workers.
Please make DCUO F2P
bad news for the workers and the customers. alot of people are losing jobs, and alot of customers are going to get delayed updates and patches which could result in them quiting the game, that might lead to more possible layoffs. also the console mmo market is going to take a pretty big hit because of this.
And it gets even worse, hooray!
/sarcasm
Hey maybe you should make a quality game and quit wrecking every MMO you buy.
i was actually kind of interested in the agency. more importantly, it's terrible that all these people are now out of work
what game is that. it looks cool....idk all i see is a dude with wings. another one with a cape and some space pirate, looking things. wait, is this dc universe gameplay?
They need to put DC Universe Online out of its misery
Save The Agency!
Please sign the petition.
www.thepetitionsite.com/.../savetheagency
i read the earlier version but did not expect to see this is happening. especially with how soon it was released.