Sun Sets on Flagship Studios

IGN site Ve3d has confirmed that Flagship Studios is closed as of today, Saturday, July 12th. Read their report below.

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.

Word of the studio closure reached Korean distributor HanbitSoft, leading to the release of a statement regarding intellectual property control and the subsequent clarification by their American lawyers that included the following sentence: "It is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open."

As also referenced in the legal release, HanbitSoft hopes to independently continue development of Mythos, to which it owns the rights thanks to a loan agreement enacted with Flagship. Comerica now owns the Hellgate: London rights through a similar loan agreement, and will likely continue Asian development with HanbitSoft. As for English-language releases of the two games, it is possible that the Asian companies would continue development, though in the case of Hellgate: London it is unlikely (Mythos has a far better business model and is attracting extremely positive press).

This has been a fast development and one that begs a thousand questions be answered. Perhaps the recent "what went wrong" revelations by Max Schaefer at Eurogamer were setting the stage for this stunning decision. The near future, hopefully, will reveal some answers though it's sounding like Hellgate players will not receive the ones they would like to hear.

We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, play Hellgate while you can.

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*Blink* Wasn't there an interview about Mythos in regards to the unveiling of D3 just a week or so ago? And now this?

I really feel sad for all the fans of Hellgate. This may be the nerdiest thing I say, but I've experienced a loss of a favourite MMO myself, and for some people this loss is felt deeply. With MMOs popping up on the market like mushrooms after a rain, how many of them have a long-lived future?

Not many.

I have played Hellgate and it's too bad that the game it is today wasn't the game it was at release. If it had been, we wouldn't be reading this news. I do feel sorriest, however, for those who forked out 200 bucks for a "lifetime" membership that only lasted them 8 months.

Roper, genius of Diablo, really blew this one. He should've gone with the ArenaNet founders when they all ditched Blizzard.

Well, you have to feel a little sympathetic to the devs themselves, too. They really did try to make something out of Mythos.

I agree 100%. I've been playing the Mythos beta for months and it's a damned shame if it never sees the light of day in North America. It's really fun.

My heart does go out to the Flagship guys. Being lead by Schaeffer and Roper, fans had unrealistic expectations, and probably they did too, of what they could accomplish. They bit off way more than they could chew and it blew up in their faces. To have "flagshipped" a part of the slang lexicon in the US is not a compliment. :(

Did I read that incorrectly, or was the Hellgate IP license and server operation moved to another company? If so, that means that the game will still go on.

The way I've read it is that the Mythos IP -may- continue its development but more for a Korean audience. Hellgate is definitely in the netherlands at the moment.