Really bad news. The game had a strong premise and I really liked the artstyle. To bad I don't like the business-model they are using.

Garo

Damn. Hellgate London was awesome. They can't do this!

Lootskin

Mythos was awesome, for those who got into the beta.

Way better than Hellgate, it was like Diablo 2.5.

Komrade_Kayce

"The news comes despite claims by co-publisher Electronic Arts that Hellgate has over one million active subscribers - being particularly successful in Korea. "

Wow EA and their bullshit. BULL SHIT

cnas

The problem was releasing an MMO. Hellgate had a free side from what I hear, but that's not good. It should have been closer to the Diablo formula. A strong single player mode, and a battlenet multiplayer side. Unlike Korea, America doesn't tend to juggle multiple MMOs. Most American gamers choose one MMO and stick to it, and right now that is generally WoW. So, if you don't think you're game is going to be almost an instant WoW killer...well, don't release it (or at least not as an MMO.)

stetsonblade

At least one good thing came of this: It caused Owen to type "foofaraw".

Seriously, that word is made of win and meatballs.

ShaggE

Game is fantastic,to bad they made so many bad decisions at the beginning and most importantly releasing it to soon:(
Class act bunch of guys though,paying out of pocket to take care of those that they're responsible for.Good show guys

xIvSlowDeath420

This sucks for Mythos... That game was a lot of fun...

Neocorey

@La Sepultura:

LOL, I think you pay for the game's lifetime, not yours.

EnigmaNemesis

Mythos :(

Struct09

Ouch. I only played the beta, but Hellgate didn't seem THAT bad.

RaptorShadow

I paid for a lifetime subscription. I don't even play Hellgate, but i'd be pissed if the game died before I did.

La Sepultura

They should've gone with the other name choice; Suprise-Truck it would be more fitting.

They've got some talented people there even though they made some bad decicions. Hope they come back stronger than before.

NorthernAvengeR

@BigWeather:

After the horrible release mess that was Hellgate, followed by months and months of attempted patches that only broke more things than they fixed, I'm sure they probably saw it coming.

Your first game has to blow folks out of the water, or you're going down the tubes.

PapaBear434

Best of luck to those affected in getting back to work. It's never fun to have a job yanked out from under you unexpectedly. =(

BigWeather

Wow, didnt think this would happen so fast.

EnigmaNemesis

I really feel bad for those who paid for a lifetime subscription now. I mean, I felt bad before, with the glitches and crash annoyances. I know I only paid for the retail, and I was pissed at the nigh-unplayable game.

But now it's possible the servers won't last long, thus killing this game off even before my fellow loot-monkey's get Diablo 3 to fill the void.

PapaBear434

Oh, well, that's unfortunate. Good luck to everyone who got screwed over.

InsidiousTuna

Ouch, I never really got into Hellgate, but I couldn't have foreseen it all falling apart like this so quickly.

Gofthick

Making it even more fun, Taylor Balbi has denied being the source (apparently an early version of that news post listed him). He never denied the news, just that he was the source. So on the HGL forums you have a bunch of people saying it's all bull even though while Tiggs and a few other (apparently former) Flagship employees have been posting but have yet to deny the news.

Cutedge

Wait...if you're here and I'm here...WHOSE driving the boat?!?! whoooooaaaaah!

I think the developers will land on their feet (hopefully). It's a big industry and its only only getting bigger. They'll find dry land.

NeVeRMoRe666

I paid for a lifetime subscription and played for a little less than a month.

I guess I expected too much from Flagship.

ostartero

I am so glad I didn't buy into this dx10 shit. This is the same reason why I am holding off on Age of Conan. Well this and Archlord (paid for the game and a few months online service, when both are free now).

sovietspartan

@itsburnsie: Nevermind... I found my answer in the article...

Hopefully they can keep the Mythos team together under HabitSoft.

itsburnsie

Screw Hellgate....

Who's in charge of MYTHOS???!?!?! Dangit, even in beta, that game was showing a lot of promise.

itsburnsie

I'm sad for all the developers and their families. Here's hoping they do, in fact, get scooped other by other companies quickly.

Godspeed, dudes.

wild homes has kung-fu grip!

Poor Bill Roper, I was really rooting for these guys.

Murdoc

Sweet! This makes me feel EVEN BETTER about buying that lifetime subscription and special edition of the game! I have a feeling today is going to be a great day........

Sammo21

@myrlin:
Why should they? Mythos is perfect for the asian market.

But for HGL, the future does not look bright. You have to re-release HGL with at least four times the content of the original release. You have to overhaul the complete engine to finally get rid of those memory leaks and other, still unsolved problems. And you might consider a new name, because Hellgate London now stands for BULLSHIT-WANNABE-DIABLO and not for a game, which might be good enough to pay for.

Does Hanbit have enough ressources to handle both games? I doubt it. Byebye Hellgate! Hello Mythos! :)

Kajetan

This once again goes to show that there needs to be some real overhaul in the way the games industry does business. I hope that the developers were made aware a few weeks ahead of time that they needed to start looking for jobs quickly. If they just dropped the word that the doors were closing on Flagship the day of the decision (you know, like EA habitually does), then that's just fucked up. Maybe game companies should invest in blue chip stocks as part of their initial investments so that they have something to fall back on when a project doesn't achieve a digestible profit range.

masterdingo

Maybe they're going back to Blizz for Diablo 3? :o

hamandcheeseUK

mythos is a great game, ive been in the beta for a long time now. lots of fun, lets hope they dont close it down and someday it makes it to release, although it seems doomed to fail now that d3 is on the way.

myrlin

Dammit dammit dammit. I guess, least there's still singleplayer.

They should make a patch that adds the premium content to the singleplayer game before they exit stage left completely.

HikariOblivion

maybe some of them will go back to blizzard and help with Diablo 3? :P original creators back helping with D3 would be cool.

Viciouschan

I think that now, they kind of regret leaving blizzard.
Bad move, fellas.

pulyx

@PapaBear434:
True that, but having worked for a game company that put out lackluster titles (and those that worked there that were gamers, like me, knew it) even though you know you should be failing it is still a shock when you actually do. =/

BigWeather

Having "lots of subscribers in Korea" is the 00s version of the 80s "girlfriend that lives in Canada."

Though, quick question that the Internet wasn't around to answer in the 80s for me -- where do fake girlfriends for Canadian dudes come from?

BigWeather

@sovietspartan: Run in dx9 foo.

sereal

@Kajetan:

It's a wannabe diablo? The original creators of diablo are working on it...if anything Diablo 3 is a wannabe diablo,

And that's too bad...I just started playing the game again :(

tshack

Thank god. Now lets hope Bill Roper and Max Schaefer make it back to Blizzard.

Aeryss

Good luck to those who were let go.

Hey game industry: Stop making sub par stuff.
You have every opportunity to realize if it is sub par or not before releasing it. That is your time to fix it. I don't care about stock holders or budgets. Look at what happens when you don't do it right.

Jas49

Aww mang, I just got this game a couple weeks ago. It may have been glitchy, but it was still pretty fun. Now I have no game that lets me find phat l00tz

Inhert

That's why most MMOs aren't worth it. They will die eventually. And when those servers crash you just wasted hours and a whole lot of money on a game that you only sorta liked. I don't get the idea of paying 20 dollars a month just to grind. Click click click click....level up! click click click...

Solid_hedgehog

"..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..."

That shows class right there.

I'm disappointed to see Flagship had so many problems sans releasing HG:L. I actually picked up the collectors edition to help support those guys. I was kinda disappointed in the game and couldn't afford to subscribe to it since I was already subscribed to another MMO at the moment. I'd be lying if I also didn't feel a subscription was not worth what I was being offered though.

I'm curious though. Does anyone in the US obtain the HG:L and Mythos IP here in the US or is it just going to fade away with the company?

vonfaustus

I don't really mind what happens to Hellgate (though it's a decent game). I just hope Mythos makes it out alright. That game's a lot of fun to play.

Bissrok

@tshack:
Yes, HGL is a wannabe Diablo, because it builds on the original gameplay formula, but fails miserably to deliver.

You know, it's not enough to just saying "Gee, these are the former creators of Diablo. Their new game musst be teh shite!" They have to deliver, not just promise! And yes, i was VERRRY exited last autumn. I wanted this game to be good. But ... then i had to realize: It isn't! It's CRAP! Unfinished, rushed crap and if i could, i want my money back!

And NO! FOR GODS SAKE!! I do not want these guys to work on Diablo 3. Ever!

Kajetan

@lishi: The Flagship employees. $150 is easy to come by, a job that you love is not.

masterdingo

So who should we pity more ?

The flagship employers or the hapless guys who payed for the "life subscription to hellgate london" for 150$?

lishi

@Solid_hedgehog:
The good ones are still up. (ultima online, EQ) If there is a player base, paying permonth, it can't really cost that much to keep old games running, big costs for mmos are probably in the first 2-3 years when they are still working out all the kinks, adding features(which probably create more bugs), etc. Then after that they have a pretty solid game, which they have to put very little money into in order to keep it running.

sereal

HanbitSoft threw Flagship an entire lifeboat? HanbitSoft must work out.

Snake726

@masterdingo: These are wise words for a dingo.

Kro

Very sad news for all us Mythos testers. Not shocking though. The D3 announcement really seemed to take the wind out of the game's sails. I know the devs were regrouping and working on some new angles to the game, but you could just sort of feel that things were not good.

I really hope to hear that the team has been or will be picked up by a new studio soon, they had a lot of good stuff going there.

DarknessMyOldFriend

If they hadn't forced subscription for better content they would have sold more imo.

Whiternoise

I thought, despite the poor reception, Hellgate: London sold pretty well... So why did Flagship sink exactly? Were they just too deep in debt by the time Hellgate came out that unless it was a massive hit nothing could save them? Or what?

Mythos is a lot of fun. I hope someone does something with it.

crazyscreenwriter

@Kajetan:

Hey, they definitely had the loot system down pat. Every time I would see a drop, I had to make sure to pick up everything, identify it, and read every last stat.

Outside of the horrible glitches, crashes, slowdowns, and all the rest of the technical issues, my problem was with the environments. You can only slay the same six enemies in the same four different generic setting before you get really bored. Every once in a while, they'd throw a cool boss at you (I loved the uber-giant at the Tower of London) but it just wasn't enough.

PapaBear434

Time for the founders to get back to Blizzard, so they can help make Diablo 3!

torsoboy

The way I see it, Mythos under Hanbisoft can still make some cash if they launch soon and relatively cleanly. With all the hype around D3, people are going to be chomping at the bit for a good modern place holder and Mythos with it's D2.5 style could cash in during the interim, which should be about at least a year or maybe more.

As for Hellgate, I don't see much of a future there. Even if they get it back on it's feet in Asia, there's no saying it would be financially reasonable to bother with the NA and EU servers.

drifter13

Dammit. -_-

I played beta and enjoyed it a lot as a timesink like Diablo. I gambled and bought lifetime, but then none of my friends picked it up to play with, and never clicked with anyone on the servers to keep playing with. I stopped playing in January after I finished normal mode with my first character. I JUST started playing again last weekend as I got someone from work interested in it and I was having fun running with a new toon.

Now a week later it might all be ending. Crapicus!

Hobie-wan

"Oh shit Blizzard announced Diablo III, we're fucked." *pinkslipped*

Para

No matter if you like the game or not it is always sad to hear that an independent game studio has closed down. They are the life blood of video games and new innovation IMO.

StealthBlue

Dammit, I am so upset. I understand that they shipped a bad product that didn't even get close to delivering the kind of dollars they expected. Its just never a good thing for people to lose their jobs especially when they had forged a new company and were trying to carv out a piece of gaming pie. I think that's excellent that the execs stuck their necks out a offered the staff 30 days pay. I'm not sure if that always happens with new companies.

I was really pulling for mythos to be a great product for them and be highly successful.

Good Luck Guys.

Kounji

Girls and guys: Take another look. Did you see one of the last sentences?

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.

Colossal kudos to those three executives to paying out of their own pocket to pay their employees for 30 days. Hopefully Blizzard will take Flagship back with open arms.

pastepunkjames

Maybe ArenaNet will hire some of these guys. Heck there is an opening for a game designer, perfect for Bill Roper.

StealthBlue

I haven't checked COD4 today, but I wonder if the "Infinity Ward is hiring" is message of the day. It usually is after announcements like this.

Thrillkiller

@Syril: And for that, a place in Walhalla ... :)

Baah, Roper can go to hell, really! If someone like him says in an interview, that the main reason for Hellgate receiving lukewarm reviews were the much too high expectations of the fans ... this guy is no longer in touch with reality. I despise people like him, lying and cheating, thinking, that no one will notice their shallow corporate talk.

Kajetan

@Kajetan: He also assured us during installation that our sound card worked perfectly.

Syril

@StealthBlue:
Bill Roper is NOT a game designer. Has never been. Bill Roper, even at Blizzard, was sort of an Senior Producer, focussing on catering press and fans with infos about upcoming and current games. Therefore, many people think, that Roper actually was involved in MAKING in any of the games, he is known for. Which is simply NOT true :)

Kajetan

Another thing to add to the "Things that have happened since Duke Nukem Forever was announced" list..

Flagship Studios was formed from ex-Blizzard employees, made Hellgate:London, and then dissolved.

AndrewDB

I really hope roper and Schaefer and the other Diablo originals go back to blizzard. Regardless of how Hellgate turned out, I still hold these developers in the highest regard.

Adamk24

why?

Guild wars its pretty much superior to hellgate london in any gameplay related thing(and given the much less hardware requirement on guildwars even technical).

They aready have a game designers(and they did a pretty good job, at least until they choose to kill the game like they are doing now). I dont see why they need hire more.

lishi

@Kajetan: That may be true of his later career, but he did write at least some of the story for the original Warcraft, and he provided a number of the voices.

verrius

@masterdingo: that pretty much depend on how many 150$ less rich people are out of there.

And as a fellow consumer i really preffer side on the consumer side instead of the guys who didn't manage to deliver

lishi

fuck, i wanted to play mythos...someone buy it dammit.

rianfrost

"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." That's generous.. after you know... kicking them out on the curb rather quickly.

Quicksilver4648

I logged into Mythos to check, definitely not working.
go this in the loading panel
"Currently player 46 out of 46 waiting to log into the game"

Floreum

And I'm an idiot...

My Guardian is Aquen. My engineer is... Well, I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Account name is PapaBear.

PapaBear434

Well, I finally got Hellgate up and running again. If anyone plays on the Shulgoth server, I have two different characters.

PapaBear - Level 29 Guardian (First Character, recently went back to him. Tricked out for healing, mostly, so I'm good with a group.

Aquen - Level 30 Engineer. She's a tiny little chick, because I got sick of not being able to see around my gigantic Guardian. She's set up for pure Area of Effect, and I can decimate a room full of ghoulies before I even set foot inside.

PapaBear434

@AndrewDB:

Well, that's the thing. The "multiple sites reporting" thing are all pointing back to the ve3d article, and that article's reliability is... well, when the person you're quoting is saying that they've never actually talked to the reporter who wrote said article... quite shoddy.

I'd wait until Monday, when people are back in the office (or not) for some official word.

Crazy Conspiracy Theory™: There's a little part of me niggling in the back of my brain that's wondering if this was all set up by HannibalSoft to try to hostilly take-over Mythos, since it seems like it'd be the perfect game for the Korean market, with actual game-play to back it up (unlike all the other Korean grindfest games that are shoveled out by the sack.)

PMAvers

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO... Mythos you were so close and sounding so good.

ShineyBlueShoes

To be honest, I just hope Hellgate dies away. I don't even care anymore...Flagship has made me jaded about the entire thing.

Sammo21

Also...if you really need your loot-whore fix before DIII comes out. Play Titan's Quest. It's exceptional.

EndersGame

@Gofthick: That's because you never played Hellgate. It's a shame when people lose their jobs. It's not a shame when people lose their jobs when they have done a terrible job of something.

EndersGame

Don't forget about Sacred 2...which is coming to PS3.

Sammo21

Noooooo Mythos was looking so good...

expansionsss

This sucks something fierce for Flagship, but man... they shouldn't have been so ambitious. I hope the staff find new homes somewhere quickly.

Demaar

It's a very sad day. As many have mentioned, Mythos was a damn nice product. When Diablo 3 was announced, I wasn't sure how it could improve upon Mythos, which did so many things brilliantly. Although D3 looks great, and will surely be a success, Mythos looked like a different enough product to find its own space. It felt like a combination of Diablo and WoW, and that's darn good company.

charch

Oh well, a bunch of shit people who made a shit game lost their shitty jobs.

Vanguard, anyone?

Vanguarde

Man, that's tuff. Hope all those folks find their way out there in the big scary industry--Mythos had so much potential--I hope it finds publication someday.

ShadowMoses

I wonder if Diablo III has something to do with this...

Ariakkan

@Ariakkan: When shaking my Magic Eight Ball and asking "Does Flagship Studios fall out have to do with Diablo 3?" it replied "Fuck yes!"

AndrewDB

@PMAvers:
You're one of those people who believed the Iraqi Information Minister, aren't you?

SolInvictus

I just bought hell gate for $20. It's pretty decent. I hope the online part will continue on.

radink

Hmm... maybe I should go finish my multiplayer game before they shut down the servers? I think I'm on chapter 4-ish...

Dukeman330