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HellGate: London: Flagship closed
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
IGN has reported that Flagship Studios, the company behind Hellgate: London, has closed its doors, leaving the future of the game (and others in development by the studio) in question.
Flagships's Community Manager, Taylor Balbi, has revealed, through sources, that all Ping0 and Flagship Studios staff have been made redundant. Employees were notified at a company meeting and subsequently informed that the offices will be officially closed on Saturday. Balbi went on to reveal that three of the studio's top brass dug into their own pockets to provide 30 days of pay to all employees.
Word of the studio closure reached Korean distributor HanbitSoft, leading to the release of a statement regarding intellectual property control and the subsequent clarification by their American lawyers that included the following sentence: "It is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open."
Read more here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I feel for the staff of programmers that will have to look around in the industry for a new studio to call home. It is always sad to see this be it for what any reason, but it sounds like management issues between the Korean company just ended it with a bang. An agreement that couldn't be reached that ends up firing the whole staff and closing doors.
Who knows how deep this goes behind close doors. At any rate good luck out there to the staff that was axed and I hope you find jobs in the industry.
P.S. I'm really glad you put in a singleplayer game in Hellgate london as well,cheers!
It seems to me that this further illustrates how dicey it is to be a game developer.
It's a wonder that anyone actually does it with the level of risk that is involved.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Taylor Balbi is used as source in that article and he says he hasn't talked with them.
Taylor Balbi:
"I didn't confirm or deny anything to anybody. There's a lot of misinformation out there about some stuff. A few news sites are reporting that I talked to VE3D about it and told them everything. That's not true, I didn't talk to VE3D about anything.... ever actually. The only person they talked to was Scapes and the only thing Scapes commented was "I like cats."
Do me a favor, don't believe anything that they are claiming flagship studios employees said until something is said officially from Flagship Studios."
------------------------------
Thread is located here: http://forums.mythos.com/showthread.php?p=148548#post148548
But I hope we will know more for sure when office hours starts in Seattle.
QFT. Until we hear from FSS then everythng is speculation at best.
ah smell that ? That's the smell of lawsuits if Flagship doesn't close.
Flagship set out to provide the next diablo. They obviously could not use the name so they came up with their own theme, Hellgate: London.
Hellgate was plagued with bugs, an unpoplar funding mechanism, and support issues. To sum the game up, while different than Diablo, it failed to capture the magic that made Diablo so popular.
This so called ex-diablo team was a group of one hit wonders. This group obviously lacked the vision to provide a better than diablo game.
So much for the group of naysayers who say that Blizzard can't do a good Diablo III because of the loss of talent.
The next question is, what happens now to Mythos?
Those two guys and the bug zapper still get a chuckle out of me when they make a appearance.
Wow, these rumors are sooooooooooo last Friday
Maybe you should start hiring Korean staff to update your site on a weekend.....
Be paid for Beta Testing, don't pay to Beta Test.
cause the reward can be great. i think the EvE developers went 3 mos. w/o pay before they launched because they believed in the game. look at them now.
can we get that game off the list now?
I am not surprised by this really. Hellgate: London had so much potential but it was released early and didn't deliver (ahem..much like another game I know--- Age of Conan.). Mythos was looking good as a hold-over until D3 comes out. I wonder if it will see the light of day or not.
i hereby dedicate the following song to all starry-eyed startup dev studios who foolishly think they can beat the odds of Global Corporate Capitalism and be successful :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMenB9Ywh2Q
All these smaller devs seem to be depending on Psalm 91 for their % chance of success:
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
i knew hellgate was gonna fall. was only a matter of time. lol good song too "another one bites the dust" good analogy :P
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Why do I sense satisfaction from the poster with the above statement? There are a lot of people out there who enjoyed playing Hellgate (and still do).
If the developers didn't meet your expectations, then I am sorry. But for a small, independent company to try speaks volumes. Who wants this field to be dominated by only the big names in the industry?
Why do I sense satisfaction from the poster with the above statement? There are a lot of people out there who enjoyed playing Hellgate (and still do).
If the developers didn't meet your expectations, then I am sorry. But for a small, independent company to try speaks volumes. Who wants this field to be dominated by only the big names in the industry?
Hey, Bill Roper marketed Hellgate as an mmorpg, even though it wasn't. Simply so he could throw a sub on the game. So guess what? Some of us really do think it's funny. Does it suck that some guys lost their jobs who were only doing what they were paid to do? Sure. But they'll all find jobs elsewhere. The programmers and artists themselves are talented, so finding work shouldn't be too difficult. It's the braindead management/suits/Roper that screwed the pooch.
The guy was greedy, and his company paid the price. If he'd left HG:L as a singleplayer with FREE multiplayer like every other hack and slash out there, the game would probably still be going and would have made ALOT more money inthe long run.
Why do I sense satisfaction from the poster with the above statement? There are a lot of people out there who enjoyed playing Hellgate (and still do).
If the developers didn't meet your expectations, then I am sorry. But for a small, independent company to try speaks volumes. Who wants this field to be dominated by only the big names in the industry?
Hey, Bill Roper marketed Hellgate as an mmorpg, even though it wasn't. Simply so he could throw a sub on the game. So guess what? Some of us really do think it's funny. Does it suck that some guys lost their jobs who were only doing what they were paid to do? Sure. But they'll all find jobs elsewhere. The programmers and artists themselves are talented, so finding work shouldn't be too difficult. It's the braindead management/suits/Roper that screwed the pooch.
The guy was greedy, and his company paid the price. If he'd left HG:L as a singleplayer with FREE multiplayer like every other hack and slash out there, the game would probably still be going and would have made ALOT more money inthe long run.
So all it's woes are due to it being marketed as a mmorpg and charging for it? Frankly everyone's definition of what is a mmorpg is different, and to me it actually does meet the criteria. Not that it actually is relevant for me. If I like a game I will play it, and yes pay for it.
I get it. People were not happy with the way it turned out. Show me one game that has never had an unhappy buyer. But to think it is ok to laugh at the demise of a company is wrong. It is rubbish to say that they would have probably made more money in the long term. You don't KNOW this for a fact. They took a gamble that they needed subscriptions to pay it off. For a whole bundle of reasons that didnt't work. Simple as that. If that makes them evil, then that makes every other game that tries to make money evil too.
And no, you do not KNOW that all the employees will find employment easily. I hope they do.
Great to kick a company when it is down and from the anonymity of the internet.
Why do I sense satisfaction from the poster with the above statement? There are a lot of people out there who enjoyed playing Hellgate (and still do).
If the developers didn't meet your expectations, then I am sorry. But for a small, independent company to try speaks volumes. Who wants this field to be dominated by only the big names in the industry?
Hey, Bill Roper marketed Hellgate as an mmorpg, even though it wasn't. Simply so he could throw a sub on the game. So guess what? Some of us really do think it's funny. Does it suck that some guys lost their jobs who were only doing what they were paid to do? Sure. But they'll all find jobs elsewhere. The programmers and artists themselves are talented, so finding work shouldn't be too difficult. It's the braindead management/suits/Roper that screwed the pooch.
The guy was greedy, and his company paid the price. If he'd left HG:L as a singleplayer with FREE multiplayer like every other hack and slash out there, the game would probably still be going and would have made ALOT more money inthe long run.
So all it's woes are due to it being marketed as a mmorpg and charging for it? Frankly everyone's definition of what is a mmorpg is different, and to me it actually does meet the criteria. Not that it actually is relevant for me. If I like a game I will play it, and yes pay for it.
I get it. People were not happy with the way it turned out. Show me one game that has never had an unhappy buyer. But to think it is ok to laugh at the demise of a company is wrong. It is rubbish to say that they would have probably made more money in the long term. You don't KNOW this for a fact. They took a gamble that they needed subscriptions to pay it off. For a whole bundle of reasons that didnt't work. Simple as that. If that makes them evil, then that makes every other game that tries to make money evil too.
And no, you do not KNOW that all the employees will find employment easily. I hope they do.
Great to kick a company when it is down and from the anonymity of the internet.
The subscription issue was just the tip of the iceberg. They had major biiling issues at the start, major bugs, lots of confusion in what the subscription entailed and what was free. The entire release was handled in a less than professional manner that turned off a lot of players.
Some games have it, some don't, this one did not. There were some very good points brought up in Beta that would have helped the game, but they did not want to take the time to use them, hence the half baked game we got. Another lesson they were taught, you cannot rest on past laurels. Flagship tried and now they are learning that in this industry memories are short.
Sorry to see them go, but they did not wow anyone with their effort.
Flagship Studios: Still Alive
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40030/Flagship-Studios-Still-Alive
EQ2 fan sites
Flagship Studios: Still Alive
Jul 15, 2008 at 4:08 PM - Andrew Burnes -
24 Comments
Flagship Studios has found the funding to keep its doors open, and appears to be changing its focus towards casual games as we suggested the other day. However, they still face legal challenges from HanbitSoft in Asia for the rights to their intellectual property, so they're by no means out of the woods yet.
So basically you all get to still play Hellgate while the servers are up until Hanbitsoft takes the IP. And there won't be any new content or development done on Hellgate since they cannot charge for it because ownership is now in dispute. And all those people that you all are crying over losing their jobs still lost their jobs. But not Roper and the other party boys, they get to stay around until Hanbitsoft wins and kicks the m to the curb.
So whatever the game is like now, enjoy it while you can since it isn't going to get any better. At least until Hanbitsoft takes over fully. Then you can go get a proxy address so you can play your game on Korean servers.
Why do I sense satisfaction from the poster with the above statement? There are a lot of people out there who enjoyed playing Hellgate (and still do).
If the developers didn't meet your expectations, then I am sorry. But for a small, independent company to try speaks volumes. Who wants this field to be dominated by only the big names in the industry?
Hey, Bill Roper marketed Hellgate as an mmorpg, even though it wasn't. Simply so he could throw a sub on the game. So guess what? Some of us really do think it's funny. Does it suck that some guys lost their jobs who were only doing what they were paid to do? Sure. But they'll all find jobs elsewhere. The programmers and artists themselves are talented, so finding work shouldn't be too difficult. It's the braindead management/suits/Roper that screwed the pooch.
The guy was greedy, and his company paid the price. If he'd left HG:L as a singleplayer with FREE multiplayer like every other hack and slash out there, the game would probably still be going and would have made ALOT more money inthe long run.
So all it's woes are due to it being marketed as a mmorpg and charging for it? Frankly everyone's definition of what is a mmorpg is different, and to me it actually does meet the criteria. Not that it actually is relevant for me. If I like a game I will play it, and yes pay for it.
I get it. People were not happy with the way it turned out. Show me one game that has never had an unhappy buyer. But to think it is ok to laugh at the demise of a company is wrong. It is rubbish to say that they would have probably made more money in the long term. You don't KNOW this for a fact. They took a gamble that they needed subscriptions to pay it off. For a whole bundle of reasons that didnt't work. Simple as that. If that makes them evil, then that makes every other game that tries to make money evil too.
And no, you do not KNOW that all the employees will find employment easily. I hope they do.
Great to kick a company when it is down and from the anonymity of the internet.
Sure I do. It's called Battle.net ( you buy the games such as Diablo/Diablo 2 and play online FREE) and ArenaNet the makers of Guild Wars, who are also ex-employees of Blizzard (you buy the games and play online for FREE ).
ArenaNets' people actually learned something from working for Blizzard and are making a killing. Roper learned nothing and I'm more convinced than ever that there was a definite reason he and his "team" weren't merged into the rest of Blizz when they closed down North. I don't believe for a second it was his choice.
And I'm not laughing at the demise of the game, since Hanbitsoft WILL win the legal battle and own HG:L and Mythos the game isn't dying, it just won't be here anymore. The Koreans will enjoy it immensely, Hanbitsoft will enjoy the money made from the item mall immensely, and Bill Roper will still look like an ass immensely..
Unless you could see into the future, no, you do not know that a free online service would be viable. Remember, they were aiming it to have a lot of MMORPG qualities.. ie mail, AH etc, and who knows what extra cost that would entail.
If the game was brilliant and people didn't scream about lack of content, repetitiveness, bugs, crappy dialog etc then maybe a free online service would have worked. People would have spread the ubahness of the game via word of mouth and sales of the game could cover it.
But we will never know for sure now will we.