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Game Details
Description
Set twenty-five years in the future, HELLGATE: LONDON introduces a world devastated by a demon invasion and a desolate city scorched by hellfire where mankind has gone underground to survive. Among them are the Templar, an archaic and secret ...
Articles
02-06-05 Preview for Pc
Latest news
07-16-08 Flagship Studios not dead just yet
08-06-07 Hellgate: London in November
07-11-07 E3 07: Hellgate London screens
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News
Bill Roper talks (a lot) about Flagship closure
Posted on Wednesday, 20 August 2008 by Ryuken, source: GFW Magazine
Despite the page count it's a fairly interesting article as it offers some good insight at what went wrong with Flagship and how they don't have control anymore over their own IP's such as Hellgate: London and Mythos.
Here are the most important bits;
* the studio is still alive but only to let things end 'gracefully' (read: trying to pay debts)
* Flagship has been actively seeking takeover proposals from several companies (including EA) for some time
* former partner and Korean publisher HanbitSoft (taken over recently by other Koreans of T3) offered them a "take it or we'll get upset"-deal which Flagship refused to accept
* ex-Flagship employees are still waiting on their last salaries
* while some team members are ex-Blizzard they don't get any royalties from their former success stories like Diablo I and II, they used their own savings to fund everything
* the rights to Hellgate: London are in the hands of Comerica Bank, but nothing is being done with the game or the technology behind it for the moment
* EA and Namco Bandai have hired former Flagship peeps to keep the Hellgate online servers running
* the rights to Mythos are in the hands of HanbitSoft/T3 since Flagship gave that IP as collateral for a loan but there is no-one from the original team to keep working on it so the Koreans have set up a new team
* Bill says Flagship should have done less as they were trying to be like Blizzard from day one with their own online service, simultaneous releases, many translated versions and such. Too much for a start-up company
* even before Hellgate came out, Flagship regret offering the optional subscription fee as they saw the many negative reactions, but they couldn't change it anymore nor delay the game
GFW: I know you have regrets about how it went down with Hellgate and certainly about the closing of Flagship, but do you also have regrets about going through this experience as a whole?
BR: I don't regret the experience. I regret the outcome. I regret that we didn't give gamers what they wanted. I regret that we had to end up as we ended up. Nothing makes me more upset than knowing that some of the employees are still pretty angry about what happened. But to be honest, nothing makes me feel better than when some of the people we worked with send me an e-mail or get me on IM just to ask how it's going, or to thank us for the opportunity to work in the game industry. And because they've got a game they worked on that shipped, and because they worked on solid technology, a lot of people are talking to them now that they're out there looking for their next opportunity. That part makes me feel a little better. I don't think I can say that I regret the ride. I'm just not happy with the outcome.
Sad story, hopefully they all find work somewhere else.BR: I don't regret the experience. I regret the outcome. I regret that we didn't give gamers what they wanted. I regret that we had to end up as we ended up. Nothing makes me more upset than knowing that some of the employees are still pretty angry about what happened. But to be honest, nothing makes me feel better than when some of the people we worked with send me an e-mail or get me on IM just to ask how it's going, or to thank us for the opportunity to work in the game industry. And because they've got a game they worked on that shipped, and because they worked on solid technology, a lot of people are talking to them now that they're out there looking for their next opportunity. That part makes me feel a little better. I don't think I can say that I regret the ride. I'm just not happy with the outcome.
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