Flagship Studios May Not be Dead Yet Afterall

JennysMind

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40030/Flagship-Studios-Still-Alive

"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."

angus858

So I guess they'll keep the servers running while the lawyers do their thing.  Sounds good to me.  Unfortunately I see no hope for patch 2.0 going live in this environment.

RavZterz

Its nice to know they aren't dead yet but it sounds like they aren't planning on keeping Hellgate up even tho they have control of it at the moment.  Hopefully I'm wrong and their case gets settled.

Signe

It might still be alive on paper, but I don't think there's anyone left living in the building.  I guess they might as well leave the servers running until their time runs out or the the electricity is turned off or something.  Bit by bit, devs seem to be posting their good-byes in various places on the internet.  Hopefully, if they really still do own their IP, someone clever will come along and snatch it up. 

JennysMind

Originally posted by Signe


It might still be alive on paper, but I don't think there's anyone left living in the building.  I guess they might as well leave the servers running until their time runs out or the the electricity is turned off or something.  Bit by bit, devs seem to be posting their good-byes in various places on the internet.  Hopefully, if they really still do own their IP, someone clever will come along and snatch it up. 

 

I hope so too. Because HG:L still has promise. Stonehenge was a nice addition to subscribers. IMO the AI of the monsters are better. I still live playing and game. I would like to see Stonehenge and if at all possible Abyss added to SP. Then I'd feel better about my subscription to the game.

 

Kalay

I just put a subscription through for 3 months last week after I bought the game!!!

Signe

Originally posted by Kalay


I just put a subscription through for 3 months last week after I bought the game!!!

 

Oops!  Hopefully, if someone does take over, they'll honour that.  And the founder subs, too.  My sub had about a week left on it.  I had played the beta and a month after it launched but canceled because all the undelivered features, bugs, etc. were too distracting.  I resubscribed last month and found it much better put together - nearly in a state to be launched!   

Zorvan

Originally posted by Alekhin


http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40030/Flagship-Studios-Still-Alive
"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."

 

Too bad Mr. Roper left out the part concerning the fact they are in a legal battle with Hanbitsoft for the IPs, which is why they are not charging for the subs now.

Also, how much development they gonna do with only the management left? Is Roper gonna get his hands dirty? Don't think so.

mmorpg1972

 Flagship getting really flagshipped, now: HANBITSOFT'S REPONSE (LINKY)

Should be fun to watch. I just feel sorry for the devs of Mythos, Travis Baldtree, etc. They did some amazing work, with what was originally basically a tech demo.

TBAi

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Originally posted by Zorvan

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Originally posted by Alekhin

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40030/Flagship-Studios-Still-Alive
"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."

---

Too bad Mr. Roper left out the part concerning the fact they are in a legal battle with Hanbitsoft for the IPs, which is why they are not charging for the subs now.
Also, how much development they gonna do with only the management left? Is Roper gonna get his hands dirty? Don't think so.

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I doubt any development will be done. As long as the are able to hold onto the IP rights, they are probably going to let everyone's subscription cycle end and then close down the servers.

Zorvan

 

Originally posted by TBAi


 

Originally posted by Zorvan


Originally posted by Alekhin
 
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/40030/Flagship-Studios-Still-Alive

"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."

 

 

 

Too bad Mr. Roper left out the part concerning the fact they are in a legal battle with Hanbitsoft for the IPs, which is why they are not charging for the subs now.

Also, how much development they gonna do with only the management left? Is Roper gonna get his hands dirty? Don't think so.

---

 

 

I doubt any development will be done. As long as the are able to hold onto the IP rights, they are probably going to let everyone's subscription cycle end and then close down the servers.

I agree. However, Mythos has no subscription, so I expect it will be taken off-line in the very near future.

 

Originally posted by mmorpg1972


 Flagship getting really flagshipped, now: HANBITSOFT'S REPONSE (LINKY)
Should be fun to watch. I just feel sorry for the devs of Mythos, Travis Baldtree, etc. They did some amazing work, with what was originally basically a tech demo.

 

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

That should wake up most of the Flagship fanbois, but I doubt it.