At the US PlayStation Blog, director of development Matt Wilson of Sony Online Entertainment's Seattle studio, currently at work on development of The Agency, introduced himself with some quick updates from a recent open house alongside the recent ION Game Conference, which included an Agency-themed event.
At the event, apparently, everyone got to gawk at this giant gun made out of ice. Said Wilson, "A warning I gave during my introduction threatened to become our new tagline: 'Don't lick the gun.' (I personally think this is good advice in general, regardless of what the gun is actually made out of.)"
Wilson also recapped how the SOE Seattle studio got started, and how The Agency project came to be.
In 2005, a few of the core Mythica development team broke away from the Microsoft games group to form a startup company called "FireAnt Games." Our primary goal when we founded the company was to bring the MMO space to more of the mainstream gamer audience. Specifically, we wanted to target the shooter audience and the console gamer. Well, it happened that SOE was thinking the same thing, and they asked us to start up their Seattle studio. More than 3 years and 80 people later, we are well into building The Agency. Our goal is to deliver an online world where players can "live the life of an elite agent," full of the over-the-top action, exotic locales, and extravagant lifestyles the spy genre is known for.
Some footage from SOE Seattle's ice gun-festooned open house is set to air on G4's X-Play show tonight at 8:00pm EST, too.
Meet SOE, The Agency [US PlayStation Blog]