The Agency Has Not Been Cancelled, Yet

Online rental company GameFly sends out a mailer claiming that Sony Online Entertainment’s spy MMOG has been put to sleep, catching Sony by surprise.

If you woke up one morning to an email telling you that Sony Online Entertainment’s spy MMOG, The Agency, had been cancelled, would you be surprised? Gamefly, the internet’s most prominent videogame rental company, sent out an email this morning to any and all who had placed The Agency in their rental queue.

“Dear [customer],” reads the notice. “We have removed The Agency (canceled) for PlayStation 3 from your GameQ. There are two possible reasons for this removal.” The notice goes on to say that the title has either been released but is no longer carried, or that the game has been canceled by its publisher.

It’s been nearly two years since Sony Online Entertainment first announced The Agency and still, little information exists for the project. Sony made waves with its debut at the D.I.C.E. developers summit back in February, 2007, but since then Sony has only shown the title to the press a handful of times and typically, the same demo at that. History has not been kind to ambitious MMOG titles on consoles. With such high-profile games as True Fantasy Live Online, Marvel Universe Online and Halo Online being axed mid-development, its easy to visualize The Agency joining that list.

According to PS3 Fanboy’s Andrew Yoon, however, this isn’t the case as Joystiq’s sister blog contacted SOE on the matter and received a surprised response from its representative.

“It’s still alive! Where did you see that information?”

Godspeed, The Agency.