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HanbitSoft 'Interested' In Western Relaunch For Hellgate
ThomasN7
87.18.7.148Member CommonPosts: 6,690
Korean game publisher HanbitSoft has said that it "is interested" in recommencing Hellgate: London's service in the U.S. and Europe, but "unable to do so" due to Namco Bandai's Western publishing deal for the troubled title.
The T3 Entertainment-owned Korean firm acquired the IP of Hellgate has set up a San Francisco-based development studio, Redbana U.S. Corporation, in order to continue development on the PC MMO after the demise of original developer, Flagship Studios.
After previous English-language announcements that it would continue to operate Hellgate: London in Korea, Hanbit's 'Game Espresso' weblog has published another English-language statement about the game.
Kee Young Kim, the CEO of HanbitSoft, was cited as explaining: "There have been many inquiries from US and European Hellgate players surrounding the availability of the game in those respective territories."
He continued: "HanbitSoft does own the intellectual property of Hellgate: London and is interested in providing the game in the US and Europe, but is unable to do so at this time because Namco Bandai has the publishing rights for those regions."
The HanbitSoft executive concluded: "We cannot open up the server in Korea to allow access by US and European players as this will constitute infringing upon Namco Bandai’s publishing rights in the US and Europe. HanbitSoft is currently doing its best to improve the game."
Following HanbitSoft's acquisition of the Hellgate IP, Namco Bandai made it clear multiple times that it was shutting the Western Hellgate: London servers on January 31st, 2009 and was not intending to re-open them.
Source: www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php
For the living! Namco stop being a turd and give those loyal Hellgaters their Hellgate back in the US/EU!
Comments
I want my Hellgate!
It's so sad that a game is blocked this way by Namco Bandai for no apparent good reason. I think Hellgate London had a lot of potential.
I never got into Hellgate. BUt I was unaware there was a significant desire for its return.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Yeah despite the crappy launch, FSS (at the time) cleaned up alot of issues with the game and it was alot of fun to play. They was also working on patch 2.0 which I was on their test server and 2.0 was looking very sweet. Namco should just sell the publishing rights and be done with it. Holding on to the IP out of spite for some reason is uncalled for.
1. Since when have Koreans cared about an American ( or any other countries for that matter ) IP rights or copyrights in general?
2. When are they going to stop with the BS, calling Hellgate an mmo?
3. Why not just let failed games die?
1. Money to be made. Apparently many thousands have inquired about the multiplayer portion if it was just a small amount of people they would never be interested.
2. Who cares if it is a mmo or not ?
3. Games fail for many reasons but despite the game's issues many still came to play the game from the US/EU.
1. Money to be made. Apparently many thousands have inquired about the multiplayer portion if it was just a small amount of people they would never be interested.
Which is my point. Most Korean game companies would have made it available for EU/NA and anywhere else a profit could be made without respecting the copyright, therefore making more money not paying for the license. But seeing as hanbitsoft has some ties to NA, perhaps this is the reason. So I guess Hanbitsoft and NCsoft get credit for being the rare exceptions to the usual Korean rules.
You guys should have wished for a Chinese company to take it over. Copyrights wouldn't have stopped them at all.
2. Who cares if it is a mmo or not ?
The people who pay money to play an mmo, only to find out it's not one, obviously.
3. Games fail for many reasons but despite the game's issues many still came to play the game from the US/EU.
I suppose. I'll just file it under "people with no taste". lol
1: Because if Hanbit soft breaks the law, they would no longer be allowed to do future business in the US and possibly other places such as the EU, which could be very harmful to business.
2: No argument there
3: Because the game could turn out to be profitable, if given more time and attention. It really is a case by case, sometimes all a game needs is some good marketing and polishing. Other times there really is no hope. Apparently Hanbitsoft sees a future for Hellgate, thats why they try.
I cant think of a possible change Hanbisoft can do to turn the tabble.
Will Hanbisoft create more maps? Will Hanbisoft expand the size of the maps?
Will they add more content? Will they allow characters up to level 99? What about a Hell mode after nightmare?
What about a fucking (insert random mob) level?
There was nothing like the cinematics. Everything was so claustrophobic, without freedom, without options. Randomized stuff that looked and felt THE SAME every time. Will they change that?!
Those were the things that made me quit.
1. Money to be made. Apparently many thousands have inquired about the multiplayer portion if it was just a small amount of people they would never be interested.
Which is my point. Most Korean game companies would have made it available for EU/NA and anywhere else a profit could be made without respecting the copyright, therefore making more money not paying for the license. But seeing as hanbitsoft has some ties to NA, perhaps this is the reason. So I guess Hanbitsoft and NCsoft get credit for being the rare exceptions to the usual Korean rules.
You guys should have wished for a Chinese company to take it over. Copyrights wouldn't have stopped them at all.
2. Who cares if it is a mmo or not ?
The people who pay money to play an mmo, only to find out it's not one, obviously.
3. Games fail for many reasons but despite the game's issues many still came to play the game from the US/EU.
I suppose. I'll just file it under "people with no taste". lol
I suppose. I'll just file it under "people with no taste". lol - Guess that would be true if they were all choosing this game for you.
It was a staggeringly simplistic, repetitive FPS with delusions of being a MMORPG, but if they overhaul the game radically I might dig out my copy and try it again. It deserved to flop, in the state it was in.
Well if Hanbitsoft fails in re-launching it in the NA regions (for whatever reason). I'll just play this MDK version when it's ready. Check out the discussion here.
http://www.hellgateaus.net/phpBB3/index.php
Who knows in the long run, but his could be an alternative for HGL fans in the NA region. As to which one will hit our region first... only time will tell I guess.
I don't think it will be hosted well in the West anyway even if Namco Bandai wasn't blocking it. Hanbitsoft never hosts their own games in the west, they always get a localization company. What they should be trying to do is lower the costs of updates and hosting rights, then hope Namco Bandai will want to host it themselves in the west.
Well there must have been many thousands of inquiries for the game because if it was on a couple of hundred I highly doubt they would have even considered ressurecting the game in the US/EU. So saying it won't be represented well would really be just assuming. Namco has no desire to continue the game so why keep the publishing rights other than just being stubborn is silly.
Well there must have been many thousands of inquiries for the game because if it was on a couple of hundred I highly doubt they would have even considered ressurecting the game in the US/EU. So saying it won't be represented well would really be just assuming. Namco has no desire to continue the game so why keep the publishing rights other than just being stubborn is silly.
I couldn't even surmise why they are "sitting" on the publishing rights in the NA region, or maybe because Hanibitsoft and Namco could be at a disagreement in regards to services and/or fee's/royalities and such (of course that is just sheer speculation on my part... who knows what the real issue is between Namco and Hanbitsoft). But again, I'd rather play the mod "Hellgate revival" that may make it to NA regions before a re-launch, so I can get my HGL fix before then. Also with the HGL mod, there would be no legalities as it's a mod of the game, and like many mods out there it's more of an open source thing in most respects.
In the end who knows how all this will play out, I just wished it would resolve itself so I can get back to playing HGL again (or at least playing a MOD of it, either way).
I wanna hunt the wild's with my marksman, I miss him
I wanna hunt the wild's with my marksman, I miss him
I wanna hunt the wild's with my marksman, I miss him
Moloch runs anyone ? He could one shot anyone with the flip of his pinky. Those were some good times and yes since Diablo there hasn't been a much better pve experience than HGL for me. Good times,good loot and alot of fun this game was. I hope Hanbitsoft can get the publishing rights back.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but...
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3173594
Maybe we should start a pettition for Namco, asking them why the hold-up. Just seems like Namco-bandai is being shady. And I hate to say it, but could it be because of the history between Japan with Korea? Maybe I'm just grasping at straws. But the news is upsetting to many a HGL fans who were hoping one day for a Re-launch.
It's a pity, maybe namco is just using it as leverage for something else we don't know about, you never know with the wheeler and dealer types, just have to play singleplayer or something else till someone gives.
.
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SinglePlayer mode
We already knew Namco holds the publishing rights. As to why they are doing this noone knows yet.
I don't know if a HGL relaunch is a good idea. Don't get me wrong, the game had some very good aspects (and very poor ones as well), and simply needed more work to be ready for prime time. But with D3 around the corner (yeah, it could be up to two years), interest in HGL might decrease significantly. If they can get it out in a polished state asap then I'm all for it. if it will take a year to get it up to snuff, I see a potentially failed venture.
As for the guys who don't want to talk about HGL because "it's not a mmo", well, I'm not even gonna argue with you. Suffice it to say I don't care what you think.
I was quite happy with HGL's instanced 5 player party mode. I think I might have mentioned before in other posts, but I consider HGL to be an Action-RPG MUD (Multi-User Dungeon/Dimension). I think that might be the appopropriate terminology/category that the game falls under.
Well as for Hanbisoft's version, they seem to be stalled by Namco-Bandai. It almost seems as though they are purposely sitting on the distribution rights in the NA regions. Why is that? No one but Namco-Bandai seems to know, and they are not saying single word as to why. Well at least there is Hellgate Revival, and they are now using some middleware to import HGL's current code in the hopes of getting a HGL mod out to the public. How long this will take is pure specuation from anyone's guess. My guess however is that this will take a while to sort out the code through the middleware they are using. And though making a MOD is legal, the actual execution of it in regards to making a mod are quite entirely different.
Even with that said, the best bet is to get some sort of "official" announcement from Namco as to why they are obviously holding up the re-launch in the NA regions. The only reason I can surmise as to why, is to assume that distibution fees/royalties are not both Namco/Hanbisoft's liking. Perhaps Hanbisoft feels that it owns the rights, therefore they may want to distribute it themselves, bypassing Namco alltogether. And, Namco would probably re-launch it but for substantial fees/royalites. Or its even possible that Namco may have doubts that a re-launch of HGL would not seem profitable from their stand-point, and would fear a loss of revenues if it were to "bomb" upon re-launch.
Again these are just my speculations on the matter... However, it would be nice for some "official" word on Namco's side of things.
True enough, once Diablo 3 hits I don't see many playing other hacknslash type rpgs. Well if HGL never sees the light of day again there is always Runic Games to the rescue. They were the ones who developed Mythos and are currently working on a new rpg like Mythos and they wll also be making the game into an action/mmo. www.runicgames.com