The Agency - Interview @ Eurogamer

 The Agency's Lead Designer (Hal Milton) and Director of Development (Matt Wilson) are interviewed over at Eurogamer.

Eurogamer: The game's been designed with solo play very much in mind, and very little content that's exclusively for groups. How come?

Hal Milton: There's a designer who I've adored for years who's a good friend, called Dan Rubenfield, who puts this best. For player-versus-player combat, and for all those things that challenge the player, all of our online games are The Lord of the Flies. It's our job to protect Piggy from having his head bashed in with a rock. That stuck with me because it's absolutely accurate - we want to protect the sheep from the wolves.

So we make sure that that core experience that you paid to play, that you want to have fun with, is not a going-to-work simulator which punishes you for not playing it the way we want you to. It doesn't preclude the notion of having that type of gameplay - it just means that it's consensual and the player knows what choice they're making, and everything else is something you can get through with your own wits and skill.