With the current Sony Online Entertainment closures and layoffs and the cancellation of The Agency. I started thinking of things SOE should have done or could have done better.

First up, I completely agree with the decision to close the Tucson and Denver studios. If they weren't working on something worthwhile, then why have them operating? They shouldn't, so that was easy to decide.

Second, why the hell close down the Seattle studio? They were working on something worthwhile. The Agency has been playable and from what I've heard it was getting better and better everytime the media got it's hands on it. Take the resources you save by shutting down the other two "worthless" studios and funnel it into Seattle. 

That's another thing, seeing games like Duke Nukem: Forever and Gran Turismo 5 be in development for so long and finally (in the case of GT5 at least) come out. WHY CANCEL A GAME YOU HAVE ALREADY SPENT SO MUCH TIME AND MONEY ON!?! At least finish the damn thing and try to get something back on the game. If there isn't much return on it, then layoff some staff, redirect the studio onto a less risky project and don't make a sequel.

It just pisses me off when companies do this. They must have an idea of how much they will need to spend to get something off the ground before they even start. Setting up a budget. Managing where that money goes. If more is needed, there damn well better be a plan as to why more money is needed.

Anyway I've got more, but I want to get some other people's opinion on this topic. So what do you think?

How could SOE or any company that has currently cancelled a project, handled the cancellation.

(Capcom with Mega Man Universe)

You have no idea how close the game was to actually being complete or how much money it was costing in development or if it would even be decent for that matter so I wouldn't go talking besides we still have 43 exclusives and like 8 ps3/pc and/or ps3/wii games comming 1 crappy exclusives is not a big deal

Plenty of companies do this and it is actually a good thing overall. Perhaps the quality of the game is not what it should be is probably the biggest reason. Why release a knowing sub par game that can hurt your future releases of a series. (Not that this doesnt happen alot anyways) Why spend more time and resources on a game you have little to no faith in? They messure things out and if fnishing the game is going to cost just as much if not more than what you are going to make why bother.

May be a april fools news

If a game is 3 or more years in development it better have made progress to completion or it should have been cancelled a long time ago.

You are correct that I don't have a close idea of what SOE spent on this game, but again. 3 years in development. With todays development climate, they likely spent quite a chunk of money. Which brings me to what I said. Finish the project and get it out the door. Make something back on the product.

Even if they still lose money at least they are generating some of it back.

Some games take 6 years, they might have ended up spending twice as much, I doubt they would cancel it if it was actually close to completition 

That's the thing though. I read an article on Joystiq.com. Sometime last year, where they played the game and said it was coming along very nicely. That the game still had issues, but that it wasn't nearly as bad as previous times they saw or played it.

I'm still looking for the article I read last year when I find it I will update this post.

Until then here is an Impressions article from mid 2009.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/26/impressions-the-agency-ps3-pc/

I found an article that states the studio lost most of the team on the Agency to a new studio. Then I found an article from late last year that said the game was in terrible shape.

But anyway, research does wonders. But onto the secondary topic of this thread.

most money for an MMO is the Server networking of the MMO. 

the advertising required to compete against WOW. 

They wouldn't be losing that much. And i fought Rockstar was making the Agency or was that another game. 

Agent....