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Looks Like Flagship Studios is Closing
JennysMind
Member UncommonPosts: 869
http://www.diii.net/n/672129/flagship-studios-closing
Update: And it's done. We have received inside confirmation that everyone has been laid off and the studio is closing. I hate to resort to an emoticon in a news post, but... 
Comments
Well, what to say... Thanks for trying and good luck in the future?
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan
I'd shed a tear, but I just can't stop laughing long enough to fake a cry!!
Flagship has been "flagshipped".
You all enjoy your singleplayer game, since they never thought LAN was a good option.
Well it sort of figures, sounded like they were too small and launched with a very poor game because of their choice to make it an MMO. Had they lowered the price of subscription or had no subscription at all, I'm sure they would have done much better considering a Diablo clone hasn't come around for a few years since titan quest at the time they launched.
It's unfortunate considering some of them are probably very talented...perhaps some will go work at A-net with other ex-employees. :P
It's been confirmed. The studio is officially no more. Sad day for all involved, no matter what anyone thought of HG:L.
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39866/Flagship-Studios-Closure-Confirmed-All-Staff-Fired-All-I-P-Lost
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
It really sucks they didn't do LAN play... Do we know if the online servers are shutting down or not?
Most likely, Unless another company wants to host them
Why does this game have it's own forum? it's not a mmorpg and it's now closed.
----------------------------------------
Talking about SWG much?
Because it was hyped by the dev as a mmorpg and told mmorpg.com that it met their criteria for a mmorpg. According to the promised features, it also seemed to many fans to be close enough to a mmorpg to merit discussion on this site. It didn't turn out to be one, but hindsight is 20/20.
On to the main topic, it's truly a shame that flagship is closing its doors, regardless of the fact that the devs brought this misery upon themselves by releasing a game that was clearly in early beta state. I wonder if this means we won't be seeing the 2.0 patch? I admit I haven't played HGL in months, but I was planning on resubbing for at least a month when the new content went live.
it was only a matter of time.
this game should never become a ptp game. the devs were to greedy and now they have to pay the price. noone (or better not many peolple) want to pay for a game like diablo or guild wars.
as a free to play game it wold be alot more succesfull but now its to late.
I wish they'd have finished Mythos. That game looks pretty promising.
I feel really bad for the lifetime subscribers who spent $210 for a collector's copy of the game and their account.
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I whole heartidly agree. Flagship was greedy and tried to sell snake oil, and very few people fell for it.
Hellgate was a poison to the gaming genre. Had they got away with their nonsense then other companies would have began charging for small content updates, patches, and the ability to connect to an Unreal Tournament style game server.
That's all Hellgate ever was, and the fact that they failed is a bonus to every gamer.
With that said, I'm not happy that some people will now be out of a paycheck, so obviously I have mixed feelings about the closure. On the bright side apparently some of the folks from the team will get their jobs at another company that's going to try to keep the game going in Asia.
More info:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53581
Edit: For everyone's amusment, an article from last month: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53102 Gotta love the lies & spin that a PR rep puts out.
They won't admit it, though, and Taylor Balbi completely denies being the source. In fact, he claims to have never spoken to Voodoo Extreme ever in his life. Tiggs is merrily trolling the official forum as if she couldn't give a toss. The subscription link has disappeared (official word is that it just broke and they (whoever is left, I guess - janitor?) are looking in to it, no eta though.
I played beta and liked it and subbed for a month. I canceled because they didn't deliver. Luckily, because of the state of the game, I never even considered a founder's subscription. Last month I re-subscribed and I've been enjoying playing on the test server. It seemed almost to be where it should have been at launch. I probably would have played for a while after 2.0 went live. Of course, now I can't cancel. hehe. And my sub is about to run out... or not. We'll see!
I wonder if this is the end for Mythos, too. It's a cute game. The Asian publishers seem to think they own their version, anyway, although FSS seems to disagree, but they've only mentioned SEA and not NA or EU in their plans to continue development.
maybe the new owner will do it right and removes the subscriber option. the scenario could allow ingame advertising, london is full of it right now.
i know all the subscribers and especially the lifetime subs will be pissed but its he only way the game will come back.
So can we take this board off of MMORPG.com now?
-Jive
Maybe that's why the subscription link is suddenly broken. If they have a potential buyer, it wouldn't do to have a rash of cancellations. Of course, this breaking news, which it is obvious FSS didn't expect to be revealed yet, might have buggered any sale up anyway.
Hehe. Yeah, go on then.
all i know is that hanbitsoft, a koraen publisher, got the rights and is taking over the game.
message
It's always a sad day when a developer closes its doors.
FSS is denying that whole thing. Voodoo Extreme has updated their story with more info, including this:
Guy Somberg’s Experience
*
Audio and Gameplay Programmer
Flagship Studios
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)
February 2005 — July 2008 (3 years 6 months)
Hellgate: London
Mythos
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/9/2b7/2a7
He's the one who made the big rant a while back and then deleted it from his blog. I have to wonder about HanbitSoft, though. A couple of months ago they sold most of their companies assets because HGL was costing them so much. They're pretty small and, as far as I know, interested only in SEA Hellgate. Despite the announcement of 1M subscribers, HGL in Asia might be on shaky ground as well.
Hellgate will die, and Mythos with it. Should Mythos actually not die it will be transformed into little more then another Asian grindfest requiring lots of item store purchases.
To those trolling here laughing in glee that many lost their jobs, and that a company tried but failed what can i say your pretty sad. One less game developer, means less games, and no it doesn't mean other developers will become better or make more free games for you all, it just means less and less people will try or invest in the genre. Hope you all enjoy WoW because at this rate it, and its clones will be the only thing left.
It is funny, I see comments all the time how the original Diablo II team left blizzard so Diablo III won't be as good. Yet look what this team did by themselves, they produced a very mediocre copy of what Diablo II was almost 10 years later. Needless to say, looks like the group was another of those one hit wonders.
http://forums.hellgatelondon.com/showthread.php?p=1064155#post1064155
Quote from the above link:
Hello,
I would like to respond to some of the recent coverage that Flagship Studios has received as a result of the publication of Guy Somberg's blog.
Everyone has good days and bad days. Guy was having a bad day. It was his friend's last day of internship and he found out another friend was thinking of leaving. He vented, exaggerated, and posted information that was inaccurate.
We will be the first to admit that Hellgate: London did launch with some problems. The game would certainly have benefited from a couple more months in the oven, but as an independent developer we didn't have the ability to delay our ship date. It can be difficult to stand by and see something that you put your heart and soul into, week in and week out, get the initial reception Hellgate got. It can put a strain on any developer and some days it can get to you. Thankfully, after some very hard work by all the people here, including Guy, the game is much better now and we believe in the future of Hellgate.
Both our studios are currently fully staffed, with our San Francisco studio working on ongoing content for Hellgate: London and our Seattle studio working on our free-to-play MMORPG, Mythos, which should go into open beta within the next couple months. In total, we have over 100 employees working for both studios. As is typical in the industry, after a game is released some people naturally want to work on something else and they leave the company to do so. But in total we have had less than 10% turn-over and have rehired for all needed positions.
All our Directors and Founders are still working at Flagship, and all of them are working on Hellgate: London or Mythos. The team size for Hellgate is as big now as when we shipped. We are putting all of our efforts into these projects and I think it will show in the upcoming Hellgate Abyss Chronicles.
Sincerely,
David Brevik
CVO
Flagship Studios
that link is from a month ago -- June 11th
EQ2 fan sites
None of this is official. Although FSS haven't come out with an official response (which means all this is can be true, and no matter what something fishy is going on), all the sites that claim FSS has gone down all pretty much link to eachother, leading back to one post from VE3D that states Taylor Balbi (FSS Community Manager) told VE3D that the studio closed. Taylor Balbi, on the other hand, states that he never talked to VE3D.
The hellgate official forums are obviously on fire, but continuous playful postings from Forum Manager Scapes and Ping0 official Tiggs seem to be sending good vibes (or deceptive vibes) to the players. An official statement is said to be released monday.
Hmm too bad this game was a fun lil shooter game, with maybe too much ambition. Its weird tho because hgl was supposedly selling pretty good in japan.
I'm not a no life that sits in front of his computer all day long, I'm an intern that sits in front of his computer all day long.
The game was a good idea but poorly executed, missing many standard features at launch (mail, auction house, organized PvP). The game gave few reasons to actually group so it felt like playing a single-player game online.
I see rumblings they may form a new company within the next month, and if they do I hope they learn from their mistakes.