Topic: Looks like Hellgate is in for a very rough launch.

[MysterD]

I second what scott said: feel bad for the folks, but they sort of had this coming.  I wouldn't hold it against them personally, as I'm sure they're all fine people, but this was poorly planned with bad business decisions from end to end. 

IMO, their biggest mistake was allowing EA anywhere near them, and while I have no confirmation of anything, I could easily see how EA's involvement might have driven the nails into the coffin, depending on how much rush they were forced into.

Agreed w/ all of that.

Oh well.  It's a shame, but that's life, I guess.  They should have been smart about not tried to make this grand thing out of what was essentially just another Diablo game with pretty graphics.

It would have worked fine if they'd just given us a standard package of stuff and not tried to tack on a lot of useless bullshit.

Agreed.

I think if they did an expansion that contained some of that "subscriber" stuff like Stonehenge and Abyss Chronicles and an abundance of other content, they would've been fine.

It'd be cool if say the MP servers do shut down, they do roll Patch 2.0 (which was in Beta) in the SP.
Some of the "Founder's" testing said the boss battles in Abyss were hard -- real hard.

More boss battles is something the SP could use.

[MysterD]

Flagship News
More on Flagship.
Flagship still exists on pretty much life support (for now).
It's definitely nowhere near the size of the company we knew it was.
Namely, the founders and core members are left (such as Bill Roper).
Flagship has fired/laid off most of its employees.
Flagship still has both HGL and Mythos IP's (at least for now).

Flagship Studios Still in Operations

San Francisco, CA (July 14, 2008) -- Flagship Studios has announced today that despite rumors to the contrary, the company is still operating.

“It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship.” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer.”

Flagship Studios owns the rights to all its technology and IP, including Hellgate: London and Mythos. Due to the current situation, Flagship will not be taking any new subscribers for Hellgate: London, and all current subscriptions will not be billed.

Flagship wishes to extend their heartfelt thanks to those that have supported the company and games over the past five years.

About Flagship Studios
Flagship Studios is a creator of innovative entertainment software, designing games that focused on ease of play, replayability, and fun. The studio was formed in 2003 by former executives and developers from Blizzard North® and represents the creators of the worldwide, best-selling Diablo® franchise. With members that are renowned within the gaming industry, Flagship Studios and its Flagship Seattle division embodies a team that has worked together for over a decade and have numerous #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards to their credit.

Farewells
Now that the cat's out the bag officially on what's up w/ Flagship, some of the ex-Flagship employees have been posting their "farewells" on the Flagship's very own Mythos official boards (which was Flagship's upcoming FREE Online RPG, which was still in closed Beta)

EDIT, July 17th, 2008:
HanBit Still Will Pursue HGL & Mythos IP's
HanBit is still going after the IP's

HanbitSoft: “Flagship Is Selfish And Irresponsible”
Written on July 16, 2008 – 7:17 pm | by Sol Invictus |

HanbitSoft has lashed out against Flagship Studios in the Korean press, in the wake of the recent turbulence at the San Francisco-based game development studio calling them “selfish and irresponsible”. Details are as follows:

    Bill Roper and Directors of Flagship Studios Bear Responsibility

    - HanbitSoft making good progress in securing intellectual property rights for Hellgate: London
    - HanbitSoft is preparing for a lawsuit against Bill Roper and the founding directors of Flagship Studios.

    Last weekend, Flagship Studios announced that former employees were fired and HanbitSoft mentioned that all measures were proceeding as planned to the benefit of players (in Korea) to ensure that continued service of Hellgate: London would be seamless despite the current problems at its development studio. In addition, HanbitSoft holds the executives of Flagship Studios fully responsible for the incident towards the rights and interests of the users and stakeholders, including shareholders and other parties involved. HanbitSoft is considering taking strong legal action against Flagship Studios in order to take them to task for their responsibilities.

    HanbitSoft does not expect to have any difficulty in securing the exclusive intellectual property rights related to Mythos. HanbitSoft is prepared to deal with Comerica bank in a local visit to them next week in order to secure and acquire the intellectual property rights of Hellgate: London. HanbitSoft believes that the game has nothing to do with the aforementioned bank as HanbitSoft already holds the rights to the game in Asia. HanbitSoft believes it has a strong possibility of acquiring the intellectual property of Hellgate: London in the United States and the rest of the world.

    HanbitSoft stated that they will be devising a plan to continue work on the games with local (Korean) game developers in order to see the game through.

    HanbitSoft’s CEO Kim Ki-Young stated, “Hellgate: London has a strong possibility of being ‘reborn’ into an excellent game with an outstanding product life,” he continued to say that “With more than 500 people at its disposal, both in-house and outsourced contracts who are veteran developers of every genre ranging from casual games to hardcore MMORPGs, we are ready to recreate Hellgate: London into an excellent game.”

    He continued, “We don’t have to recruit existing developers, however if we could do so, we could shorten the time for analysis and developing for users. Although we are trying our best, since Flagship Studios doesn’t want to cooperate, we have no choice.”

    According to HanbitSoft, they offered several methods and the means to keep Flagship alive in consideration of the users, but Flagship majorly lacked in effort. Hanbitsoft already has offered large amounts of investments but Flagship replied with ridiculous counter-offers and the negotiations went south. Even so, HanbitSoft continued to make investment offers which were all rejected, leading to the lay-offs of all of the Flagship employees.

    HanbitSoft also stated, “Flagship not only lacked effort, but were only looking for personal gain. Firing all of the Flagship employees in order to protect the personal interests of its founding members only shows how selfish and irresponsible they are.”

    Flagship Studios is an incorporated company. Hence if any problems occur within this company, it doesn’t affect the finances of any of Flagship Studios’ founders.

    HanbitSoft said they are going to take legal proceedings as Flagship Studios is legally responsible for a serious breach of duty in not protecting their stockholder’s rights. The legal proceedings will be done against Flagship’s founders and management people for their intellectual property. HanbitSoft currently owns a 9.5% stake in Flagship Studios.

Korean source: ThisIsGame

[Quemaqua]

Somehow I totally don't buy anything that Hanbitsoft is saying.  It sounds totally bogus to me.  Obviously Flagship fucked up pretty majorly, but for some reason I don't really trust a lick of anything these other guys are saying.  I wonder why.

[MysterD]

Official Hellgate and Mythos Forums going down at Midnight
Here's the word from Tiggs on Mythos' boards going down at Midnight and also on the HGL Boards.

[idolminds]

Fuck, Mythos was turning out really well.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's what I'm more sad about.  Mythos could have been quite nice when it was done.

[Xessive]

I think HanbitSoft stated that should Flagship go under they would continue the development and support of Mythos but probably not HG:L.

[MysterD]

Yeah, that's what I'm more sad about.  Mythos could have been quite nice when it was done.

From what I know, people that played the Beta said it was really good -- especially for Beta.
Plus, there was a fair amount of staff working on Mythos (for the most part) that didn't work on HGL, too.

I wonder how Mythos would've been, being free and all. Would there have been like ads in there? B/c, that was really what the Ping0 portion of Flagship was for.

EDIT:
There are already talks on HellgateGuru on their message boards of some gamers/modders that are planning to take the actual Test Center Beta MP Patch 2.0 (with the Stonehedge and Abyss Chronicles content included, which is around 1.66 GB in size) and they are going to reverse engine all that content into the SP portion of the game themselves -- whether anybody (Hanbit, Flagship, whomever) likes it or not.

EDIT #2:
Diane Migliaccio aka Tiggs (who is formerly) of Flagship Studios (yet is still volunteering her time to keep us up with news on the official Flagship Boards) is saying that Mythos Beta server will go on "hiatus" beginning tonight at 11:59pm.
I'll bet you HGL is next, y'all...

[MysterD]

Hmmm...
This was posted by Namco-Bandai USA's Sr. Director Of Business, who happens to be Zack "Ozuri" Karlsson on HGL's Official Boards.

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we'd love to make one -- but right now, many things are in flux and we don't have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we'll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I'd like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.
__________________
Zack "Ozuri" Karlsson
Sr. Director, Business Development
NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc.

So, is Namco going to help FSS out, money-wise and help finance them?
Is Namco going to swallow FSS into their Namco company?
Is Namco taking over HGL's IP?

I'm sure we'll find out, soon enough...

[MysterD]

And now, things get even more....interesting.

As you recall, Hanbit was trying to takeover the HGL and Mythos IP's.

So now, let's now involve T3 Entertainment (of Asian), who recently bought up a lot of shares in HanbitSoft -- about 25%.

Hmmmm. Interesting.

Now, T3 Entertainment is now making claims that they have secured both the IP's for Hellgate and Mythos.
And, they plan to open a T3 San Francisco development division up in the USA.

[MysterD]

EIGHT pages article from 1up with Flagship's very own Bill Roper.
A lot of stuff in there from Roper.
A LOT.

GFW: Back to the involvement of these other companies...

BR: Sure. The other major component of that, on the Asia side, is Hanbitsoft. It's been really kind of discouraging to read some of the press that's coming out of Korea. We worked with Hanbitsoft for a long time. Back in the Blizzard days, we launched StarCraft and Diablo with them. Together, both companies had a huge amount of success. When we started Flagship Studios, there really wasn't any doubt we wanted to work with Hanbit. That was our known, comfortable, go-to company, because I'd known them for a long time and had a very good relationship with them. The real challenges started when T3 came in as an investor, and pretty much everything changed overnight. Obviously, when companies are dealing with each other, there's a lot of NDAs, especially with publicly traded companies involved. So we didn't really have any kind of heads-up that that was happening. We literally read about the investment from T3 online.

GFW: So T3 made the deal with whom?

BR: They made their investment in Hanbitsoft, and as part of that investment, they took over a lot of the management there. So when we were in Asia on a business trip and talking with different companies about investments, we took the opportunity to go by Hanbitsoft's office and meet the new people. It was very evident, immediately, that this was the new management of the company. The first day [we were there], we probably spent about four or five hours talking with them and getting to know them, and they sounded excited about working with us. The thing that really upsets me now is reading where Hanbit's saying that they made numerous offers to us, and that we rejected these offers -- almost kind of implying that we were greedy and lazy or something. The second day we were there, they did present us with an offer...

GFW: And this would be for what? For them to actually buy the games? Buy the IP? Buy you...?

BR: Unlike Hanbit, I'm hesitant to violate my NDA and disclose information, so I can't get into all the details with you. The new Hanbitsoft hasn't had much of a problem disclosing confidential information to the press, which was pretty shocking to see. I take a poor view of business partners, former or current, breaking contracts in that way. So I'm always very sensitive to that and don't want to do that. Basically, they presented an offer on how we could work together. We couldn't pull the trigger on a deal just like that, though. I had to go back, talk to the rest of the board of directors, our investment bank, [and] the employees -- those types of things.

The timeline to do so that was presented was very short. And basically, the offer wasn't competitive with two other offers we had on the table. We really wanted to work something out, so we came back to Hanbitsoft and were very honest with them and said the deal wasn't competitive. But as originally intended, the loan we had received from Hanbitsoft, to which Mythos was the collateral, was designed to be a bridge to finding a studio investment. And that was regardless of whether it was with Hanbitsoft or another company. Now, granted, that loan was with the old Hanbit. That was the deal we worked out, and the new guys said we should do this deal with them. And I said that I appreciated the fact that they've made an offer, but at the same time, my fiduciary duty to the shareholders is to find the best deal for the company -- and also to find the best deal for the team.

I think Hanbit was in a difficult situation from that standpoint, because they were approaching us as a publisher who wanted to cut a deal with us, but they were also a shareholder in the company. I tried to explain to David Kim, who's the CEO there now, that it almost feels like a conflict of interest. A) I don't have the power to do this deal; there are other people involved. And B) we can't just say we'll do the deal with you because it's you. I've got to try to find the best deal. I've got to do right by you as a shareholder in Flagship, just like I have to do all the other shareholders in Flagship. That, I think, made it exceptionally challenging. Unfortunately, when we came back to them and said their offer wasn't going to be competitive, but that we had some other ideas and laid out a plan of how we could work with them to reach a deal with a different investor that would have benefited them greatly as a shareholder, they were...wholly uninterested. At that point in time, they informed us that their deal was non-negotiable -- which they had actually never told us, verbally or in writing. And they pulled their deal off the table and pretty much refused to talk to us about anything else, other than another deal that they put on the table a week later that was untenable. It didn't even make any sense.

GFW: Was it worse?

BR: Markedly, and it was one sentence.

GFW: Deal or no deal...

BR: Yeah. That may be how they were used to doing business. I'm not sure. But it was nothing that we could do. We went to them a couple of times with different proposals. Each time they basically refused to talk to us about anything involving that. Again, it was really discouraging to see that after the relationship started to fall apart.

GFW: So they were basically saying...we're going to be your investor, or nobody is?

BR: Well, we're not going to help you get anybody else to be the investor. They didn't really have the ability to block somebody else from investing, but they certainly held some keys in regard to us being able to do a couple of deals that, again, would have been incredibly beneficial to them.

GFW: So why would they do that? Again, just in your opinion...

BR: I don't know. I honest to god wish I knew. I don't want to believe that their offer was disingenuous, and it was just designed to be something that we wouldn't be able to accept. The end result, regardless of why it was done, is that because we did make the loan with them, they currently, to a degree, control Mythos, because that was the collateral for the bridge loan.

GFW: OK, so they can now say, and I'm just putting this in laymen's terms so we can all understand it, is: "You owe us money. You don't have it. You offered Mythos as collateral, so now we're taking that collateral."

BR: Right. That's the simplified version. They haven't taken that final step, actually. But that is where it's at. We don't have the money to pay back the loan. I think right now, which is pretty evident by some of the things they've been doing publicly, they're trying to figure out what to do with Mythos. They have it free and clear, and they're looking to start up, apparently, some U.S.-based studio to do something. [Read more about T3's new studio.

Hellgate

GFW: Who has the Hellgate IP right now?

BR: Right now, Comerica does. It's basically held by the bank. If Flagship could come up with the money to pay back the loan, it's ours again. But we don't have that money. We've been working with Comerica to provide them with anything and everything they've requested to be able to properly represent the IP, represent what's being held in escrow, and working with them to try to identify people that might be interested in that. Even if this means that we can't work on it anymore, which is pretty painful. You spend four years working on a game and then to not even be able to do anything with it -- it's pretty rough.

GFW: Does that only affect any further stuff that would be done with Hellgate, or does that include the game as it exists now?

BR: Both.

GFW: OK, because right now, isn't Namco involved...

BR: Well, Namco and EA are continuing to operate the game. But, for example, they can't do any development on it. They can't make new content.

GFW: So Comerica's control is the IP...

BR: IP, code, tech, and tools. So to be honest, if I personally had the money, I'd buy it back out. The technology and the toolset that we built is a really powerful platform for creating titles. That was really the goal of what we were going to be doing at Flagship. We were going to be using the tech and tools -- using the platform -- [and] creating games based off of that as our core moving forward.

That's just some of it, guys. There's a hell of a lot in there that I could quote. But, I could be here all night quoting and whatnot. So, just read it, if you have any interest in what Roper has to say.

To sum some of it up:
* FSS is still left with its core founders, basically
* BR admits to a lot of the problems and poor decisions regarding HGL (the game itself and business decisions)
* BR likes the Old Hanbit, not the new Hanbit (T3-owned)
* BR and Namco/EA helped to try get some Ex-Flagship people jobs
* Hanbit (T3-owned) owns Mythos IP, but isn't doing anything with it (yet)
* Comerica Bank still owns the HGL IP

[Quemaqua]

Interesting stuff.  I kinda' feel bad for the Flagship people, but I still don't know quite what to make of it all...

[MysterD]

Interesting stuff.  I kinda' feel bad for the Flagship people, but I still don't know quite what to make of it all...

I'm with you, bro.
To be honest, it's just a really horrible situation for everybody involved, pretty much.

I just hope in the long-run, more so than anyone else, that the gamers don't get screwed-over...

I'd really like to see that Patch 2.0 (which many said was great, in its last Beta release for Founders only) get released officially and finally for MP gamers.

I'd also like it to be integrated into the SP -- and finished completely.

[MysterD]

HG: London's online portion to be pulled offline on Feb 1, 2009.

Enjoy the MP while you can.

But, you'll always have the SP portion, guys.

[Pugnate]

What a sad and tragic end. I wouldn't have predicted this a year before HG:L's release.

[idolminds]

Yeah. I saw Hellgate in the store today for $30 and just kind of sighed thinking of what it could have been.

[Xessive]

Yeah. I saw Hellgate in the store today for $30 and just kind of sighed thinking of what it could have been.

Man, here it's still stacked at about $50! Its price just refuses to go down!

It's too bad about its multiplayer going down. I symapthize with anyone who bought it specifically for that.

I hope the singleplayer is at least decent. Can anyone comment on that?

[Quemaqua]

The game is obscenely average in every regard, from what I've heard.  I'll likely buy it when it hits the bargain bins for five bucks, just because I never played it other than the beta and wouldn't mind seeing the final version.

[MysterD]

Man, here it's still stacked at about $50! Its price just refuses to go down!

It's too bad about its multiplayer going down. I symapthize with anyone who bought it specifically for that.

Personally, I bought it for both. heh.
I never got around to the SP, though -- since I was happy w/ the MP.

I hope the singleplayer is at least decent. Can anyone comment on that?

I only did the MP -- which I actually did enjoy. The MP side was pretty patched-up, by the time I played it. A lot of the major issues were gone there.

One problem there was the gamers that played both MP and SP, they noticed the SP was nowhere as patched-up as the MP. So, they stuck with the MP.

I been meaning to try the SP, but right now, I have no desire to reinstall it.

There are plans that some modders out there who actually were Subscribers have the most recent "Beta Test Version MP 2.0" of HG: London (with all the gameplay changes, bug fixes, and some extra new content) and are going through the files and are trying to port that that content over to the SP -- and work on cleaning up issues/bugs that were still within it (since it was not a Final version).

Xessive, wait for a price drop. It ain't worth $50, knowing the MP is going down in a few months. Also, not worth getting  knowing that the SP is still not as patched-up as the MP and that the SP very likely won't officially be as patched-up as the MP side was.

If the modders ever get MP 2.0 content moved over to the SP (unofficially) and release it, I'll make a thread on it.

[MysterD]

From HellForge.

Rumors are flying that the reason HGL is shutting down is because that Hanbit-owned company that is in San Francisco looks to be the one that'll take over HGL completely.

File this one under rumours and speculations as based on my own findings.

While we do know that FSS has died, as per yesterday's post about Hanbiton acquiring Hellgate: London, we do know that the IP is owned by T3 now.

What we didn't know however, is what would happen to the US version of the game. A new post went up today on the Korean Hellgate London website. It is a post talking about Halloween events and the "re-opening of the Hellgate", however what is interesting about it, is that it has a section written in English on a usually Korean only website.

The post also sounds like they are getting ready to re-launch the game (could this mean transferring the old players over?) and the company in charge appears to be Redbana. Further research leads to the Taiwanese MMO company called Redbana, which appears to have quite some experience in gaming. Further research leads to findings of a new San Francisco office for the company, which is where Hellgate offices were located previously.

So take this news with a grain of salt, but until we have more news, there is possibility that the game might come back in some way.

Enjoy

Here's the image on the Korean T3-owned HGL Website.

[Xessive]

From the official site:

NAMCO ANNOUNCES FREE SERVER SUPPORT INTO 2009 FOR HELLGATE

Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.

NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.

For questions regarding the shut down or additional information about Hellgate: London, please visit the game’s official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.

[idolminds]

Heh, yeah. Thats their spin on things. Its closing down Feb 1, 2009.

But in interesting news: Hellgate expansion coming. HanbitSoft has the rights to the game now and they are making an expansion. No word yet on them putting servers up.

[MysterD]

Heh, yeah. Thats their spin on things. Its closing down Feb 1, 2009.

But in interesting news: Hellgate expansion coming. HanbitSoft has the rights to the game now and they are making an expansion. No word yet on them putting servers up.

Actually, I would not be surprised if the HGL Expansion includes all of that Test Center 2.0 Beta patch NEW stuff that Flagship was working on and planning to release soon in a Final Patch (for Subscribers).

I would not be surprised if there's some other new Hanbit stuff thrown in there for good measure, too.

[idolminds]

If you're in the US or EU, you probably won't see any new Hellgate stuff. Namco is still in control here.

But Namco Bandai community manager Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio says that HanbitSoft's updates and promised Hellgate expansion won't see a stateside release, posting on Hellgate's official forum, "Let me explain things a bit to see if it clears up any issues for you. Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other [than] the US and EU, and I think the other territory is Japan. Namco owns the rights to publish in the US and EU."

Namco Bandai, who co-published the game through an agreement with EA Partners, revealed that it would shut down its Hellgate servers on January 31, 2009. "The servers will never exist in the US and EU again. Hanbit aka Redbanana can not have servers in the US or EU," says Migliaccio.

She adds, "People are speculating, and I don't want anyone shocked on January 31, 2009 when the server and forums shut down and there is nothing."

I don't like Namcos attitude here. There is a company that apparently wants to keep the game running and even add new content. But Namco seems hellbent (har har) on not letting any of that come out to the US/EU players.

[MysterD]

Does Hanbit want servers in the US and EU?
If so, I say Hanbit try and buy the US and EU rights from Namco/EA to keep this thing going.

This games doesn't deserve to die like this in the USA.
Especially with its cliffhanger ending.

[PyroMenace]

Does it really D? This isnt some diamond in the rough or some sleeper hit. The game got to this position for a reason. Sure it had tons of potential, but its delivery couldnt quite live up to that. If nobody really plays it anymore theres no point. 

[MysterD]

Does it really D? This isnt some diamond in the rough or some sleeper hit. The game got to this position for a reason. Sure it had tons of potential, but its delivery couldnt quite live up to that.

I'd say at the very least, Test Center Version 2.0 needs to make its way into Final Version for all countries. It was the last version of HGL that Flagship worked on.

And supposedly, it was supposed to be very good -- according to those who tested it in Beta.

It's be nice for the public to see how much better it has (probably) gotten. I'd like to see, myself.

If nobody really plays it anymore theres no point. 

Well, the Test Center 2.0 MP new content into the SP would make the SP live on as long as the gamer wants to play the SP side -- plus, the SP still is far behind the MP Live patches even without Test Center 2.0, when it comes to being patched.

I still would like to see someone make Hellgate: Earth.

[Pugnate]

Does it really D? This isnt some diamond in the rough or some sleeper hit. The game got to this position for a reason. Sure it had tons of potential, but its delivery couldnt quite live up to that. If nobody really plays it anymore theres no point. 

[MysterD]

Yup, you heard it right.
Hanbit is claiming they own all the IP rights to HGL (again) and that...get this...
They plan to take HGL into a free-to-play business model WORLDWIDE.

HUGE PATCH from Hanbit will be coming soon.

January 26, 2009
HanbitSoft: Hellgate London To Continue As Free-To-Play Title

HanbitSoft: Hellgate London To Continue As Free-To-Play Title Although it is slated to stop operating in the West on January 31, multiplayer online title Hellgate: London will continue on here as a free-to-play game, according to comments from Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft.

Although it is slated to stop operating in the West on January 31, multiplayer online title Hellgate: London will continue on here as a free-to-play game, according to comments from Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft.

The announcement comes in spite of a decision by Namco-Bandai, which co-published the game through an agreement with Electronic Arts' EA Partners, to terminate the game's servers.

HanbitSoft has asserted that it owns the IP, engines and source code for the Flagship Studios title worldwide, and will maintain Hellgate: London for its global community. HanbitSoft had previously been responsible for only the game's Korean operations.

The switch to a free-to-play model was the first official announcement the company has made regarding the fate of the title, which during its lifetime suffered from perceived quality issues, and an insufficient userbase, playing a key role in the closing of Flagship Studios in July 2008.

HanbitSoft also says in an official press statement seen by Gamasutra that future updates for Hellgate: London are in the works, with a focus on "strengthening community features" while maintaining the core gameplay as is.

The next "large-scale" patch, according to HanbitSoft, will be released "soon," and will combine the game's two play modes to unify its communities. The company also plans class balance improvements and further distinction between the game's five acts.

[Pugnate]

That's kinda awesome.

[Quemaqua]

This situation just gets stranger and stranger.

[MysterD]

Business developer Stephen Goldestein of the now defunct Flagship talks about why Flagship failed and went under at the GDC 09

Why Hellgate: London Failed and How Developer Flagship Got Flagshipped
by Nick Breckon Mar 26, 2009 12:15pm CST
"For all intents and purposes, everyone was flagshipped."

"I'm sure some of you are familiar with that term," said former Flagship business developer Stephen Goldstein. "For those of you who are not, the term 'flagshipped' literally has no less than five definitions in the English language."

An illustrative slide appeared on screen:

    Tim: "I just bought a new table tody and one of its legs broke."

    Mike: "Man you got flagshipped."

Goldstein spoke at length this morning on the demise of Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios, highlighting specific areas that he feels lead to the ugly end of a studio with tremendous promise.

"Everything we did, the entire corporate setup, was meant to swing for the fences," said Goldstein. "Everything was solely plan A. There was no plan B."

In particular, Goldstein noted that the company should have raised more money when they had the chance, saying that it was the "company-killing moment."

"We had a title a year from launch, with a team that had sold 17 million units worldwide from their previous franchise," he explained.

"It's my guess that we could have probably raised 25 to 30 million dollars to just stick in a coffer and wait. It would have provided us the ability to delay the launch of the title. We needed another four months, possibly five, to get things polished. And we just could not take it."

Goldstein also zeroed in on the highly publicized Hellgate billing errors, which lead to some users being billed multiple times during the first days of the launch.

"[Billing] got left to the last minute. We ran out of resources, we ran out of time," he said. "Which lead to a situation where, a very small, small percentage of users got charged twice. That's very bad."

"Imagine how bad this if you're giving everything away for free, and you're trying to get people to pay you. Because then they hear that the billing is screwed up. And they say hey, I can get all this stuff for free. Why would I pay for it?"

Hellgate: London's multiple business models was also a significant problem, according to Goldstein.

"The issue that we had with Hellgate London was that it was a boxed product, it was sold at retail, it had a free singleplayer version, and then it had a subscription," he said.

"What we probably should have done is just piss off our community up front and say you know what, it's going to be a subscription. All of us were very concerned about consumer perception, rather than if money was going to be coming through the door."

As it turns out, Hellgate sold a respectable amount of copies in the US and Europe. But the game's business model depended on subscription revenue in the long term, and not enough of those sales translated into subscriptions.

"The problem wasn't that we sold 500,000 units," said Goldstein. "The problem was we weren't getting subscription [revenue] from those units."

Goldstein guessed that if the game was subscription-only, it would have sold around 250,000 copies less, but the subscription revenue would have kept Flagship afloat.

Goldstein also noted that Hellgate also represented too many "firsts" for the company, including the first 3D game, first FPS, and first subscription-based game.

"This game wouldn't be made today," he said, while turning that particular failure into a testament to the team's resiliency.

"The fact that it was in the box really is a testament to the team that we had. They didn't get the credit that I think they deserved, because with the amount of challenges that we faced, they pulled through."

[MysterD]

Hanbit owns IP, Namco-Bandai owns publishing rights
Well, here's an update on why Hanbit hasn't taken over HGL Completely yet -- since they are working on this game over at their Hanbit San Francisco Studio.

While Hanbit owns the property of HGL and owns the publishing rights in Korea, here's the complication elsewhere -- currently Namco-Bandit has the publishing rights to HGL in NA and PAL territories.

So, since they did shut HGL's servers down here in NA, I wonder how much Namco wants to give up those rights for...

I wonder when this might get resolved, if it'll ever get resolved...

HanBit's Blog
If you want more details, check this Hanbit Blog out that reveals a lot more on their upcoming plans to add all kinds of new gamemodes, features, and stuff to HGL with their upcoming Patch 1.5...

[PyroMenace]

*sigh* Just let it die D, let... it... die...

[MysterD]

*sigh* Just let it die D, let... it... die...

I know, I really should let something die, sometimes...
But, sometimes, I just see glimmers of hope in places...well, there probably shouldn't be any.
This probably is one of those -- b/c HanBit is at least trying to do something with this game to really improve on it...

Gothic 3 got pretty fixed up, unofficially....and I never thought I'd see the day that got fixed up the way it did...Even if it did take a long time to get fixed-up...

So, I dunno.... *shrug*

[Pugnate]

*sigh* Just let it die D, let... it... die...

Thanks for the laughs Menace.

[MysterD]

Gamasutra -> 6 page interview w/ Bill Roper reflecting on HGL and (the now defunct) Flagship Studios.