Sony Online Entertainment confirms massive layoffs are occurring at 3 of their US studios as part of the restructuring that started earlier in the year when SOE also has layoffs at 3 of their UK studios. The news comes after the recent release of Free Realms and DC Universe Online.
Some of the fired workers will be moved to other Sony studios or higher priority projects but the majority will just be let go. These are not the usual QA and testers that are done by most studios after a game is released but the core developer teams.
The Agency MMO has been canceled due to lack of funds and manpower while the sales from DC Universe Online doesn't appear to be good when compared to the amount of money spent to get the DC character deals and development costs.
Traditionally, Sony has a bad history of maintaining and finishing most of their MMO projects with the exception of the Everquest series.
http://gamrfeed.vgchartz.com/story/8...im-the-agency/
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Silicon Knights lawsuit against Epic Games set to go to court pretty soon with SK arguing Epic Games purposely gave inferior versions of their Unreal Engine development kits to paying studios as a way of making sure games from Epic looked the best with the engine.
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In 2007, Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for failure to "provide a working game engine" for Too Human, causing the Ontario based game developer to "experience considerable losses." Silicon Knights' suit alleged that Epic was "sabotaging" Unreal Engine 3 licensees, withholding an improved version of that game engine while also using licensing fees to fund development of Gears of War, not to improve the Unreal Engine.
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