Hellgate: London Closing January 31, 2009

Bandai Namco announced that Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London MMO will remain free and operating till January 31, 2009:

Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.

NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.

For questions regarding the shut down or additional information about Hellgate: London, please visit the game's official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.

The co-publisher also confirmed to Gamespot UK that the game servers will be shutdown permanently following that date.

Hellgate: London is just another example of a rushed title that got better too late, after losing the majority of its subscribers. Share your comments about the closure below.

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Wow... this from a game that I was actually looking forward to before it came out. Oh well, I suppose it does show what happens when you rush a game.

Yeah, unfortunately HG:L blossomed too late. There is so much potential for the unique MMORPG model they set and it's regrettable that none of that will evolve or be built upon now. =/

Scratch up another (potentially) great game into the MMO red book. ='(

By the time the final patch rolled out, it was a terrific game. I'm sorry to see this one go. Every 'lifetime subscription' person, however, should be reimbursed in full.

Kalia:
By the time the final patch rolled out, it was a terrific game. I'm sorry to see this one go. Every 'lifetime subscription' person, however, should be reimbursed in full.

Is that the official word? I heard that they would keep the servers up untill feb 2009 as thats 15 months since the game launched, hence the $150 founders will get their moneys worth such as if they just subscribed per month.

I was in the beta for this game and forked over my cash for the boxed product even knowing how broken it was at the time. I like to think it was my contribution for them to fix the game a bit, guess it didn't work out so well. Still have the game completely unopened, will play it through once single player just to get my moneys worth.

That makes sense now. I was wondering why Namco was extending service till January, instead of axing it immediately (as most publishers would do) and avoid further losses.

I guess that's a sneaky way to avoid forking refunds for the lifetime subscription sub =/

I don't know. Technically, 15 months equals the 10 bucks a month regular subscribers paid but the game was basically unplayable for about 4 months so...meh. I am just eternally grateful that I didn't get sucked into that idea. We paid subscription fees until they stopped accepting them.

Such a shame as it was a darned good game after a time. It's too bad that they can't patch it one last time to add a TCP/IP connection for people who might like to play together.

I agree completely with Kalia, HG:L already have support for client based gameplay and a TCP/IP support would definitely keep it alive for years to come, through community support and updates.

That's one of the things that really piss me off about scrapped MMOs. Developers and/or publishers refuse to hand over any bits of source code or support to the community, even when the game is effectively killed for good. =/

They probably don't want the modding comunity to do a better job then they did. I imagine if you released the source code and modders/private server owners did a better job then you, it may be a little embarasing.

Sadly, it's more related to contractual and legal reasons rather than embarrassment.

For example, usually development and publishing companies list the source code and/or IP as part of a closed contract, in addition to 3rd party plugins and/or code which cannot be distributed in an open format.

So, for a developer/publisher to release a game to the community, it requires that they own every single bit and byte of the game.

The best solution for this, would be to have a software law or consortium that would enable distribution and modification of a 100% defunct software under GPL rules (barring any profit thereafter to any developing entity).

Maybe in the near future :)

My hat's off to Flagship for trying something a little different. Too bad it didn't quite come together. Even as it plays now, the game gets very repetitive with too little variation in those randomly generated maps. Another one bites the dust.

Sigoya:
Sadly, it's more related to contractual and legal reasons rather than embarrassment.

For example, usually development and publishing companies list the source code and/or IP as part of a closed contract, in addition to 3rd party plugins and/or code which cannot be distributed in an open format.

So, for a developer/publisher to release a game to the community, it requires that they own every single bit and byte of the game.

The best solution for this, would be to have a software law or consortium that would enable distribution and modification of a 100% defunct software under GPL rules (barring any profit thereafter to any developing entity).

Maybe in the near future :)

Yup, any source code they COULD release would have to be totally their own work. As a lot of coding is based off snippets coded by others and almost every company buys licenses for things like physics engines, shaders, etc, those elements couls never be legally released to the public.

Only companies of extremely talented coders who build everything from scratch could ever release sources, ID being a prime example with their quake 3 source release. They could never release the source for Q4 though, as i'm fairly sure it uses Havok for its physics.

So this is what happens to an MMO that's rushed out of the door and losses most of it's subscriptions before the game gets better?
AoC anyone? Might see that one crash soon too then

Unahim:
AoC anyone? Might see that one crash soon too then

Looking at FunCom's track record, I highly doubt that AoC will be scrapped any time soon. We all know the issues that faced, and still facing AoC, but if you remember Anarchy Online's launch some 7 years ago, you'd know that FunCom learns and adapts from its mistakes, and tries to improve over time.

every time i read a article about a mmo shutting down, i cant help but remember AC2 =[
to bad that the legal issues already mentioned will keep these lost games from ever seeing a nostalgic return. Maybe in a few years someone will buy the rights to some of these lost mmo's and offer them as f2p or something simmilar.