Sony MMO’s: Free Realms And The Agency
We’ve previously heard of these as “Untitled Whimsical MMO” and “Untitled Mercenary/Espionage MMO”. Now they both have actual titles and details.
Free Realms (aka the Whimsical MMO)
“Our big goals with the game are whimsy and accessibility. User-generated content: I want to get it out of the space of buzzwords and into the game. Everybody talks about it, but it’s hard to pin down,” asserted Smedley. “I’d rather give people some lines, and say ‘color inside these any way you want.’ Then you can’t just generate whatever you want, but you have users creating content themed towards our goals.”
The Agency (aka the Mercenary/Espionage MMO)
When starting the game players will pick between Unite, a traditional James Bond type of spy outfit, and Paragon, a brasher, up-front type of organization. Through them you’ll get early missions for rewards and rise in rank, but eventually the goal is to break out and start your own organization.
Both game concepts sound both original and effective. So far, almost all the titles that we’ve seen on the PS3/360/Wii have been highly derivative. There has been some excellent content, and some definite innovation, but almost everything has fallen into very well established game types. It’s nice to see some developers aiming for genuinely new game concepts.
Some people complain about lack of innovation in games and I think they are way off. I bet we will look back upon this time period in history as a rapid evolution in games.
Not to take the discussion to the shotbox, but come on..? Nobody likes all games, its that simple. Some like the mother, other like the daughter 
Keep your "hate-articles" coming, Gary!
June 12th, 2007 at 1:58 am
If they manage to get this out nice and polished, we could finally start seeing gaming evolved!
June 12th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Free Realms is aimed at little kids..specifically little girls. Bah..
June 12th, 2007 at 7:42 am
The Agency seems like it could be a lot of fun. Have to wait for more info before getting too hyped about it.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:19 am
After watching the agency video, it seemed less like a MMO and more like a sort of Group cooperative online shooter.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
bobeotm, if it’s just a coop online shooter, I will be hugely disappointed.
The shooting parts are probably the easiest to show vid clips of. They showed a night club and a dinner party, but it’s hard to see how the non-shooting parts will work.
Their concept is brilliant. Whether it actually survives the translation from a brilliant concept to a playable game is the big question.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Iam not sure how to take the game yet. It has that last gen look but has an interesting concept. Maybe this will be a cheap download, lol.
June 12th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
The Agency:
Finally a MMO without wizards and goblins
June 12th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
The Free Realms concept sounds cool as well. It reminds me of an old children’s game called Gertrude’s Secret that encouraged spontaneous play.
Again, though, brilliant concepts are cheap compared to a successful implementation of such a concept.