Goldstein reminded us first of the happier, more hyped times at Flagship. In October 2007, when the founders of Blizzard North were on the verge of launching their new company's first title, Flagship had secured 60 magazine covers to promote game. It had six publishers worldwide, and five co-marketing partners—meaning millions of dollars in marketing funds—in addition to comic books, novels, manga, action figures, and more, all born from original, internally owned IP.

But just nine months later, Flagship was laying off a hundred-plus employees, unable to pay the bills and beginning the process of handing off Hellgate: London to someone else. What went wrong?

Many things, according to Goldstein, including the fact that Flagship really hadn't considered failure an option.

"Everything was plan A," he said. "There was no plan B. Everything was going to be a massive success."

Part of the reason for Flagship for not having a "plan A" was that the developer had begun to believe its own hype, he said. Not every person involved in the development of Hellgate: London was like a lemming blindly walking itself off of a cliff, Goldstein noted, but he warned other developers in attendance to get outside feedback from those not invested in the success of the game.

"When everyone's telling you how great you are, take a step back and reevaluate," Goldstein warned, "We really had no objective point of view. Everyone was in the trenches."

Even the game-buying public had begun to believe the hype, a product of a massive marketing assault that resulted in lofty expectations. Goldstein said that "No matter what we would deliver [with Hellgate: London] it would be impossible to meet those expectations."

One of the other contributors to Hellgate: London's failure was tackling "too many firsts." It was Flagship's first 3D game, it's first first-person shooter, it's first subscription based game, and it's first time creating software as a service. On top of that, it planned to release the game worldwide in 17 languages, which required 17 builds of the game, with each of its six publishers looking to score "something special" for their version of the game.

Another factor was Hellgate's ill-defined structure. It was a single-player game with a multiplayer component that was split into a free-to-play tier and a subscription-based tier.

But what Goldstein called "the company-killing moment" was that, at one point, it had passed on investment. That, hypothetically, could have given Flagship an extra four to five months of development time, a period Goldstein feels could have given the developer enough time to deliver a polished product.

Remember, when someone hands you money, take it.

“Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said John Needham, Chief Executive Officer for Cryptic Studios. “His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio’s vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay.”

The news comes about four months after the publisher of Hellgate went belly up and Roper broke down why the shooter, MMO, RPG didn’t do so well. Hellgate, which seems totally rudderless now, officially closes its doors on Jan. 31.

“Cryptic has experienced huge growth over the past year and has exciting opportunities ahead of it,” said Bill Roper, Design Director, Cryptic Studios. “The company knows how to choose compelling IPs that have rich histories such as Champions and Star Trek. I’m looking forward to working with the team.”

Cryptic Studios Hires Industry Veteran Bill Roper

Los Gatos, CA – November 3, 2008 – Cryptic Studios™, one of the leading independent developers of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), announced today that Bill Roper has joined the company as Design Director and will be working on Champions Online™.

“Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said John Needham, Chief Executive Officer for Cryptic Studios. “His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio’s vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay.”

“Cryptic has experienced huge growth over the past year and has exciting opportunities ahead of it,” said Bill Roper, Design Director, Cryptic Studios. “The company knows how to choose compelling IPs that have rich histories such as Champions and Star Trek. I’m looking forward to working with the team.”

As a 14-year game industry veteran, Roper has worked directly on numerous top selling titles, including the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo series. He joined Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 to work in sound, music and voiceover, eventually being appointed as Vice President of Blizzard North and a Director of Blizzard Entertainment where he managed all external projects and coordinated internal development teams. In 2003, Roper co-founded Flagship Studios and Ping0 where he held the role of CEO for five years and oversaw the launch of Hellgate: London and development of Mythos.

Cryptic Studios, headquartered in Los Gatos, is currently in production of two highly anticipated MMO action games, Champions Online and Star Trek® Online. Champions Online, based on the popular Champions™ pen-and-paper RPG and published by 2K Games, will give players the power of total customization for their hero experience while they explore a vast comic book universe. Set in the year 2409, Star Trek Online will allow players to immerse themselves in the future of the Star Trek universe, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations in an ever expanding vast universe.

For more information about Cryptic Studios, please log onto www.crypticstudios.com

About Cryptic Studios
Cryptic Studios, Inc., based in Los Gatos, CA, and established in July 2000, is one of the leading independent developers of massively multiplayer online games. Cryptic is developing three major titles for the PC and current generation consoles, including Star Trek Online, Champions Online and an unannounced project. Cryptic Studios is an independent, employee-owned company committed to delivering the next level of MMOG gameplay. For more information on Cryptic Studios, please visit www.crypticstudios.com

Flagship Studio's troubled demon hunting MMO will be shut down at midnight on January 31st 2009. Namco Bandai, who have been running the Hellgate servers since Flagship went under, say that the game will be free to play until it is shut down.

The game had been plagued with bugs and operational problems since its 2007 launch and eventually led to its developers, Flagship Studios, going out of business in July this year.

Hellgate: London Closing January 31st [Gamespot]

Some of them were just bad timing in the PC market. The PC market was lousy last year. Some of it was the fact that we were an independent studio. We didn't have unlimited money, and we had to ship when we had to ship. Part of it was because we overreached, and that was a design problem that was totally our fault. We tried to do too much. We tried to be a standalone game and a free-play game and an MMO and an RPG and a shooter. We were trying to be something for everybody and ended up really not pleasing many people at all....

Sounds about right to us!

Bill Roper: 'Hellgate Wasn't As Good As It Should Have Been' [1UP]

We've approached Flagship for comment and they've yet to explain their status to us. Then, a posting appeared on Hellgate's official forums from Namco-Bandai's senior director of business development, Zack Karlsson, stating:

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we'd love to make one — but right now, many things are in flux and we don't have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we'll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

The posting continued:

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I'd like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

Add in the fact that there's now a Hellgate page on Namco-Bandai's official site, it certainly looks like it would like to help out — if they can. HanbitSoft, Flagship's Korean partner/owner, recently claimed Flagship rejected its attempts to buy Hellgate out, and that the game is actually collateral on a loan made to the studio by Comerica. Namco-Bandai most likely had to do some wrangling (and maybe still has to do some) to set this up.

As for Mythos, HanbitSoft itself claims the right to that. We've contacted Namco-Bandai for comment, continue to check in with Flagship, and will update with anything we receive.

[via Videogaming247]

Unlike most games, Mythos has been running with our testing community for almost its whole life. I really feel like we’ve all done this together. And despite this bump in the road, I think we’ve succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I’ve ever seen. This is the best game development team in the world, in both Seattle and San Francisco. The things we’ve learned here, and with you all, will be with us forever."

The game's official site calls the suspension a "hiatus," but offers no date as to when private beta or further development will resume.

We recently spoke to Flagship Studios, who told us at the time that despite some rough patches after Hellgate: London launched, the studio was fully staffed and dividing its time between maintaining Hellgate and testing Mythos.

But in his statement, Schaefer said:

"PC gaming is changing, and I believe we’ve had a sneak preview with Mythos. With any luck, this will not be a long hiatus, and Mythos will be back. But even if it’s not, and even if we all move on, we’ve taken a lot of important steps forward. Game development is in many ways a continuum, and we all build on what came before. I know neither [lead designer Travis Baldree], the great Mythos dev team, nor myself are planning on doing anything but make games into the future. So no matter what, we’ll pick up where we left off, and you’ll be hearing from us shortly. We may not be the best business people on the planet, but we know how to make games."

We've contacted Flagship for further details and will update as we receive them.

Max Schaefer's Thank You [Via Gamasutra]

We got an anonymous tipster who said Flagship shut down abruptly yesterday, and that developers for both Hellgate (San Francisco) and Mythos (Seattle) have all been pink-slipped. "But there's also hope that they will all have their jobs back at the end of next week at a brand new company," our tipster says.

But wait, there's more. Flagship's Korean partners/owners, Hanbitsoft, were said to be taking over. That sparked a foofaraw regarding who owns the Hellgate intellectual property.

Fan site Hellgate Guru first reported that HanbitSoft was taking full control of Hellgate: London and intended to continue the game. That brought a forceful denial from Flagship, and confirmation from HanbitSoft's own attorneys (who slipped in a backhanded dig at the failing studio, which pretty much confirms Flagship's demise.)

HanbitSoft's attorneys said that while they're an exclusive licensee of Hellgate and Mythos, it's been pledged only the Mythos IP. Secured lender Comerica gets the Hellgate IP as collateral on the loan. Either way, Flagship does not own either, and also:

[I]t is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos.

That sounds like the "brand new company" possibility our tipster mentioned. Either way, HanbitSoft says it threw Flagship a lifeboat, and it chose to go to the bottom. Ouch.

Finally, VE3D says it got more confirmation early this morning:

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.

Our source says an official announcement will come next week (like what, at E3?)

Flagship Studios' Closure Confirmed, All Staff Fired, All I.P. Lost [Voodoo Extreme]

If you think morale might suffer on the team, a blog entry from Flagship Studios audio and gameplay manager Guy Somberg suggests you might be right. Somberg said on his blog that work had become "depressing" because of fan response to Hellgate's issues. (The original post has since been pulled, but MMO fansite IncGamers retrieved it.)

Although Somberg wrote that he loved being part of Flagship, he also expressed a fair bit of worry about many of his colleagues moving on from their jobs:

Thing is, the way things are going I’m likely to be the only programmer still working on Hellgate left from the original crew. I’ve heard rumours that other programmers and artists are thinking of leaving.

And with Somberg himself writing that he was "getting burned out on Hellgate," Kotaku decided to reach out to Flagship Studios and see what was really going on.

We first heard back from Flagship's marketing communications manager, web manager and writer Ivan Sulic, who said while he couldn't speak about Somberg's emotions, he guessed they were "like anyone who spent a lot of time and effort on something that wasn't received as well as hoped... And then a few of our friends and coworkers left. It's a bummer."

Bummers aside, though, Sulic said that nobody's been taken off or left the Hellgate team except for systems programmer Peter Hu, who's been able to work on some other projects now that the game is well underway. Said Sulic, "Everything else is pretty much business as usual."

Said Sulic, "We've actually had very few people leave. Flagship is still fully staffed and working on both Hellgate and Mythos... I think we have about 100 employees now."

Some people have moved on from Flagship, said Sulic, due to simply moving up on their career paths or being tired of windy San Francisco, but said those departures don't constitute cause for alarm. "People finish a game, want to work on something else, and then leave to do just that. It's pretty typical in this industry. I don't know the exact number, but we couldn’t have had more than five or six departures. Still, if those five or six dudes are people you work with everyday, it can't feel great."

And Somberg himself joined the conversation. "Ivan said it quite well," he said. "Things here at Flagship are running business as usual. We’ve just put a build of Chronicle 2 onto our test center, which has represented a lot of hard work from everybody at the company, myself included."

Somberg said he'd written that blog post on a day when he felt "frustrated and overwhelmed," but that after some hot chocolate, a few hours' game time and some sleep, he felt better.

Said Somberg, "I was surprised and disappointed at the community’s response to my words, which were more directed at my family and friends to describe my state of mind at the time, than to give any sort of insight into the company. Personally, I think that the 'Towers of Hanoi' series of posts on my blog is far more interesting and worthy of commentary and analysis."

"I’m sorry to have caused such a ruckus over such a small thing."

On the bright side of things for the Hellgate team is the fact that the game is performing so well in Asia. The studio said it had the best Korean game launch in 3 years, leading to Hellgate becoming the ninth most popular online game in an MMO-saturated region.

It's often easy for us as gamers to criticize the studios when they make mistakes, and to feel vengeful when we're disappointed. It's probably best for us all to keep in mind that behind every big publisher's title is a team of developers who hoped to provide the best experience they could, human beings who feel bummed out when the results aren't what they hoped.

"This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our publishing partner, Hanbitsoft, and our dedicated community in Korea."

Flagship Studios' HellgateTM: London Celebrates The Most Successful Online Korean Launch In Three Years

San Francisco, CA (April 11th, 2008) - Flagship Studios today announced that its action role-playing game Hellgate: London has become the most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta test. Hellgate: London is the first online game in over three years to use a monthly subscription business model.

After launching the open beta on January 15th, Hellgate: London quickly rose to the ninth most played online game, fifth most popular RPG and most popular online beta game in PC Cafes*, with over 1 million accounts. Hellgate: London was released commercially on February 22nd, and achieved record sales in its first week of presales.

"To become the most successful launch in Korea for over three years is an incredible achievement," said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. "This milestone wouldn't have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our publishing partner, Hanbitsoft, and our dedicated community in Korea. We look forward to expanding the Hellgate universe and building upon this success in the future."

"Flagship Studios are well aware of how the Asian market operates very differently to the Western territories" said Alex Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft, "By listening to players' feedback and through constant updates to the game, Hellgate: London will continue to be an incredible success throughout Asia."

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies, and events. Whether online or off, a player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

For more information please visit the official Hellgate: London site at www.hellgatelondon.com
*According to Gametrics and Game Report

All the gory details of the patch can be found on the Hellgate:London forums.

It's a short clip, but it gets the point across. Until we see Diablo 3, this is our Diablo 3. On a side note, if Blizzard wants my $15 a month, they officially know how to get it.

New footage from Dialbo-y MMO Mythos [via N4G]

* Bill Roper, CEO Flagship Studios
* Aletheia Simonson, Art Producer
* Bill Manegold, Game Programmer
* Amir Ebrahimi, Graphics Programmer
* Guy Somberg, Audio and Gameplay Programmer

Hellgate: London Page at Xfire [Xfire]

Whomever writes the press releases at EA or Namco Bandai Games reveals that the singe-player demo for the PC game will go live this Friday, October 19. Gamers will get their hands on the full version of the game on Halloween day. Yay!

HGL Gone Gold, Demo Coming! [Hellgate: London]

I think with Diablo, for example, the camera angle is a big part of it. I think with the Diablo series there is a level of expectation about only using the mouse to move.

To be honest, the way that Blizzard is approaching StarCraft II is really smart. They're saying, 'OK, what do the millions of StarCraft fans very specifically want from a StarCraft experience? Great, well that's what we're going to give them.

Bill Roper: What I'd do with Diablo 3 [cvg]

Oh. The Hella lights are a nice touch, though most likely unintentional. Michael McWhertor

A pretty gal, Luke or a potato? [Angelace's Hellgate: London Blog, thanks Dennise!]

A bit pricey at $225.00 USD each, but they sure look fancy. Perfect for your glass display case that no one is allowed to touch, smoke near or stare at for extended periods of time. In fact, don't even look at the pictures online too long, lest you somehow degrade the real-life versions. They're that precious.

There are four up for pre-order, including the Hunter, Cabalist, Templar Male and Templar Female, but only 1,000 editions of each. The Hunter and Cabalist are both female, too, but you've probably figured that out by the carefully sculpted breasts.

Anyone out there planning on dropping almost a cool grand on all four? If so, can I borrow a tenner? Michael McWhertor

Hellgate: London Collectibles [Weta, thanks Dennise!]

Simply, if you don't pay the monthly fee, purported to be $9.95 USD, you're going to be flying coach in Hellgate: London. Folks who pony up for the "Elite" tier will see a number of benefits which include, but are not limited to, additional character slots, a Hardcore difficulty level, VIP shuttles, and visual distinction from lower-class players.

More potentially contentious are restrictions on forming guilds for the non-Elite and server queue prioritization for subscribers. The full details are linked below. I'll wait patiently for my copy of GFW to show up in my mailbox in the meantime. Michael McWhertor

Elite Subscriptions - $9.95 a month and other details! [Hellgate Guru via Shacknews]

Gamers With Jobs is claiming that Flagship Studios servers have been hacked by a nefarious Chinese cybercriminal and the source code for Hellgate: London has been stolen.

Weirdly enough, this all seems to be news to Bill Roper of Flagship, who says he has 'heard the same rumors' but 'cannot confirm or deny that any code has been lifted from their studios.'

Apparently, the source code is now available for sale on a Chinese website... a shiny no-prize to the Kotakuite who can find it! As for Hellgate: London, this news, if true, sucks. Everyone knows that the ultimate value to Valve of the HL2 source code theft was giving them a plausible excuse to miss their inexplicably optimistic release date. I want Hellgate sooner rather than later... let's hope this is just an unsubstantiated rumor. Florian Eckhardt

Hellgate: London Source Code Stolen [Gamers With Jobs]

Voodoo Extreme has posted some new screenshots for Hellgate: London, a game I have just started to get really excited about because I finally have a rig powerful enough to play it. This also qualifies as news because the screenshots feature what appears to be a sexy cyborg assassin hacking zombies apart with a samurai sword: we at Kotaku have an affinity not only for sexy assassins (see: Eliza) but also for brainless zombies (see: Ashcraft, Crecente).

But here's a serious question: is this game ever coming out? We're sure a complete movie of the game from start to finish could be put together at this point simply by lining up every screenshot that Flagship has hemorrhaged onto the Internet into chronological order as a flip book. Florian Eckhardt

Hellgate London Screenshots [Voodoo Extreme]

Ivan Sulic seems bound by some sort of totem not to reveal details about some of Hellgate: London's tastier features, like the multiplayer PVP and modding systems. However, there's still a lot of tasty information on bosses, dynamic emergent quests, how the weapons and combat systems work, players dyeing their clothes and walking around like post-apocalyptic Bozo-the-Clowns and — our favorite subject — brutally dismembering the hordes of hell with a shotgun blast to the abdomen.

If you're excited about Hellgate: London, there's enough detail here to get your O-Ring humming with excitement.

Hellgate Guru Community Interview [Hellgate Guru]