MMO Hellgate died. Then it was bought out, and is back (in Asia). In the West, however, it remains dead, despite the best efforts of new franchise owners HanbitSoft.

See, HanbitSoft want to bring the game back to the West. But while HanbitSoft own the rights to the IP itself, Namco Bandai own the publishing rights to the game in North America and Europe. So HanbitSoft can’t open up Western servers (or even allow Western players on asian servers) without Namco Bandai’s involvement.

And Namco Bandai doesn’t want a bar of it, as they have no intention of re-opening the servers they closed on January 31.

So, Western Hellgate players, looks like your goose is well and truly cooked. Time to make like most other humans and give up on the game.

HanbitSoft ‘Interested’ In Western Relaunch For Hellgate, Prevented By Licensing [Gamasutra]

Hellgate: London’s development, like its eventual implosion, was epic. At GDC, Stephen Goldstein, Flagship Studio’s ex-director of business development, explained just how what seemed like a guaranteed hit went horribly, regrettably wrong.

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.

Despite news to the contrary back in November, Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft still plans to maintain Hellgate: London as a free-to-play title on a global scale after Namco Bandai’s January 31st server shutdown.

HanbitSoft first announced plans to relaunch the game back in early November of last year, after Namco Bandai announced that servers would close on January 31st, 2009. Namco Bandai then dismissed the announcement, claiming the company did not own the IP for the US and Europe.

Now HanbitSoft is once again asserting that they own the worldwide rights to the Flagship Studios title, and will be maintaining it as a free-to-play game, with a large-scale patch coming soon, combining Hellgate’s two play modes and unifying the community.

The question we should really be asking ourselves at this point, is does anyone really still care? I suppose we’ll find out come February 1st.

HanbitSoft: Hellgate London To Continue As Free-To-Play Title [Gamasutra]

Hellforge posits that 2008 was the worst year on record for MMOs. But the “collapse” had nothing to do with the genre’s viability, and everything to do with hubris and poor decisions by game-makers.

The wreckage includes three titles whose names are either punchlines by now or dangerously close: Hellgate: London, Age of Conan, and the dumpstered Tabula Rasa, joined by the patched-too-late Pirates of the Burning Sea, as examples of how not to run an MMO railroad.

Hellgate cratered thanks to bad management, bad decisions and their reversals, and its bastard sibling Tabula Rasa was so awful Lord British decided to leave Earth rather than deal with the mess. Pirates of the Burning Sea patched its problems, but way too late to save itself. Age of Conan, as discussed before, stopped trying after you got past level 20. Bottom line, Hellgate and Tabula Rasa’s servers are shutting down entirely (or already have) and the other two have merged or closed many of theirs too.

The lessons? Listen to beta testers; get the launch right, because patches won’t save your asses, and if you’re innovating some new gameplay mechanic, do it like you mean it. A successful MMO depends on a huge investment of a gamer’s time. The investment on the development/publishing end should be total, too.

The MMO Crash of 2008 [Hellforge]

“People are speculating and I don’t want anyone shocked on January 31, 2009 when the server and forums shut down and there is nothing,” said NAMCO’s Diane Migliaccio in a post to the Hellgate: London forums.

Hanbit software had announced an expansion to the game but, explains Migliaccio, “Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other then the US and EU. NAMCO owns the rights to publish in the US and EU.”

New’s about Hellgate’s Future [Hellgate Forums via Blues News]

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]

Report: T3 To Continue Hellgate, Mythos Development In SF Office [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 licencee 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 we made a mistake with Hellgate, it was trying to do too many things for too many people. We wanted a cutting edge graphics engine, we wanted multiple business models with subscriptions and free play, and single-player, we wanted to combine third-person play with first-person play, we wanted to do random 3D levels, and when you’re starting with a brand new game studio with very limited budget and no existing technologies, that was probably biting off too much. We ended up rushing it to market and not keeping it in the oven long enough, just out of necessity.

It’s still a shame, especially when the game had so much potential, but it’s good to see Flagship accepting and learning from their mistake and moving on to bigger and better things. Hit the link for the full interview.

Flagship’s Max Schaefer [Eurogamer]

“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.”

Wow, that Hanbitsoft must have the most magical marketing team ever! Hit the jump for the press release, which actually contains the words ‘Hellgate”, ‘Successful’, and ‘Launch’, all in the same spot.

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