Farewell, The Agency

Its been a couple of days since it was announced that The Agency was no longer in production and the Seattle SOE studio was being closed. I probably would have jumped right on here and posted about it considering my past involvement with the game, studio and company, but instead I spent my time getting old friends new job recruiter contacts, and taking people out for a beer to commiserate.

In a few months it will be a year since I left the team, and to be honest I've felt the sting of the layoff many many times since then. In fact, I went from a still avid EQ2 player to someone who has logged in twice since then, just because I was being a baby about it.

Now that The Agency will never see the light of day, a million thoughts run through my mind on how I feel about it. As soon as I heard that something might be happening with the studio it was like reliving my departure all over again. I can't help but feel terrible for everyone that lost their job this week, that includes other companies that I've heard about this week. It's a tough deal to be right in the middle of doing something you love and just have the power switch turned off.

Sometimes I wonder if I had never decided to take the job up here, leaving my comfy and fun job on EQ2. I had a good gig there, a great game to work on, fantastic fans, the whole 9 yards. What more could a designer ask for? To have that decision to come up here end up in the game never releasing even after I left hurts. I had faith in The Agency, and I thought it was going to be an awesome game. I would have never uprooted my family and left my friends behind if I weren't 100% into the idea. Now, its gone, and that dream has withered away in so many people who are left heart broken this weekend. It's a tough thing to swallow.

I hope someday someone spills the beans and shows off how cool this game was turning out ala duke nukem. I won't be that person of course, because it developed almost a year further from the last time I ever saw it, but I sure would like to see where they got to on it.

Cheers to the ex Agency team, I wish you all the best of luck.