Posts Tagged ‘flagship studios’

One year later: Hellgate resurfaces

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Oh Hellgate, the saga continues. It seems as though Korean publisher HanbitSoft and Namco have come to an agreement over the contested rights to Hellgate. Hanbitsoft now plans on relaunching the MMORPG in both North America and Europe.

logo-hanbitHellgate: London has certainly seen better days, and you’ll remember the financial demise of creator Flagship Studios saw Hellgate’s days come to a very rapid end. Post Flagship Studios, Korean HanbitSoft, the exclusive publisher of Hellgate: London, stepped in and claimed that it intended to take over not only Hellgate, but Flagship’s other project, Mythos. After this, that, and the other, it turned out that HanbitSoft owned only the rights to Mythos, and not Hellgate.

It seems as though that scuffle has been settled, as HanbitSoft is clearly taking point on this new initiative, and plans on re-rolling out the title this year. The plan is to release Hellgate: Ressurrection (an appropriate title if I’ve ever heard one) in the Korean market as well as parts of South East Asia. Presumably, based on the success in these markets, HanbitSoft will then roll the title out to North American, European, and Japanese markets in 2011.

“We would like to thank Namco Bandai Games America for allowing us to acquire the Hellgate publishing rights and are thrilled to have eager gamers worldwide return and enjoy the franchise,” said HanbitSoft chief executive Kee-Young Kim. “Hellgate: Resurrection is heading towards success in Korea such that we decided to push ahead with launching the game overseas next year. We will do our best to get the game to the fans as soon as possible.”

Hellgate: Ressurrection also promises to be just that – a complete re-do. The new version is slated to have a completely revamped content section. Gone as well is the level cap, and HanbitSoft is already working on an expansion pack titled Hellgate: Tokyo which will be released in Korea in March. The looming question is, how much? Will HanbitSoft offer Hellgate is a subscription based title, similar to industry behemoth World of Warcraft, or, will they stay more in line with their current climate, and offer the MMORPG as a free-to-play title with microtransaction monetization methods? My bet is leaning a whole lot towards the latter.

Namco Bandai Games America senior director of business development Zack Karlsson comments, “We are pleased to participate in the revitalization of Hellgate through this agreement and are deeply gratified to allow HanbitSoft to take the lead on this franchise and bring this game to the people who seek it.”

YouTube Preview Image

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in industry news | No Comments »

 

Runic Games on track to release new free-to-play this year

Monday, February 9th, 2009

We all know the phrase, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’, and while I’ve still yet to figure out exactly what that means, Reading Sid Shuman’s interview with Runic Games boss Max Schaefer put me one step closer to understanding.  You might remember that Max, along with Travis Baldree and a host of other former Flagship Studios employees jumped off that sinking ship and decided to have a go at it themselves with Runic Games.

Max Schaefer is an industry veteran, having worked on Blizzard’s Diablo II and Warcraft III, as well as producing Flagship’s Hellgate London, and the now, nowhere to be seen, free-to-play title Mythos.  And while I’ve covered the big ol’ drama over at Flagship Studios regarding their IP and who owns what and where what may or may not be played, Schaefer and co. seem to have put that debacle well behind them and are currently hard at work developing a yet to be named free-to-play action RPG.  In his interview with gamepro.com’s Sid Shuman, Schaefer discusses the upcoming title, the business model, and challenges facing indy developers in a less than ideal economic climate.

When asked specifically about Mythos, and how it’s development influences Runic’s new title, Schaefer responds,

“We’ve begun work on a game that is very much in the spirit of Mythos. We’re starting from absolute scratch, of course, but we’re still committed to the idea of an easy to play, action-RPG. This time we plan to start with a single-player version, and then expand to an MMO.”

“…we’re already running around randomly generated dungeons, killing monsters, equipping the loot that drops, quaffing healing potions, and opening chests. The basic feel of the game play is already there. It’s not ready for screenshots quite yet, but it won’t be long!”

“Our goal is to release the single player version of the game this year, and we’re well on track for that. The MMO will be a couple years later in all likelihood.”

An interesting approach.  Instead of biting off the entire MMO piece, Runic is going to release a single player version first, presumably work out the kinks and develop player interest and a community, and then take on the whole enchilada once it’s reached a ‘polished’ stage.  Smart.

Speaking to the free-to-play, microtransaction based business model, Runic is clearly in touch with what gamers want, and likewise what they do not want,

“We love this model [microtransactions] for MMOs for a lot of reasons, among them that people can play the game and decide if they like it or not at no cost at all. We fully expect a good portion of our players to never pay a penny. Those who want to speed things up or buy extras for their characters can do at their discretion. Done properly this is a fantastic way to run an MMO.

Like I mentioned above, we also plan to a single player version first, though. This will be sold at a low price point, and primarily available by digital download. We’ll probably get boxes on shelves as well — we’d like to get it as widely available as possible.”

Naturally, Schaefer gives a nod to the Asian free-to-play phenomenon, and talks about how it’s currently influencing Runic’s development,

“We are using many of the Asian MMOs as inspiration, as they’ve done such a great job with their communities. Our game will play much differently, of course, but we think those social features will match beautifully with the Diablo action style.”

And now to address that 900 pound Gorilla in the room; just how does a small independent gaming studio survive in today’s economic climate?

“The days of publishers freely throwing around big money are over. The biggest challenge young developers face is cost control. Publishers want games faster, cheaper, and better. It’s up to us to make it happen. We’ve structured Runic as a small, tight crew operating with full consciousness of the economic realities. Thus, we’re emphasizing efficient production pipelines, robust tools, and partnership with experienced and talented publishers who know how to run this type of game. Game developers have to continuously adapt to moving targets, and startups especially have to stay small and nimble. We learned a lot from the mistakes we made at Flagship Studios, and hopefully emerged smarter and better developers as a result.”

All in all, it sounds like the Runic folks have indeed learned some lessons from the Flagship incident, and are forging ahead with some great ideas, a great new title, and an outstanding business model.  While I couldn’t find them listed on the GDC site, here’s to hoping that Schaefer and Co. make it down to San Francisco for the convention, as I think we’d all like a look at those screenshots, and perhaps a hands on review.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in industry news | No Comments »

 

Hellgate: London rises from the ashes again: now free to play

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Hellgate: London has already seen a roller coaster of activity over its lifespan.  From a mediocre release, to a buggy at best game experience this title has had it rough.  Fast forward to a sinking Flagship Studios with employees leaving “in droves”, and leaving Hellgate: London up in the air.  Move a bit further along the timeline, and you arrive at Hellgate: London’s newest lease on life: free-to-play.

Back in October, we covered Namco Bandai stepping in keeping the Hellgate: London servers up and running until January 31st (this coming Saturday).  Although that date still remains solid for some parts of the globe, according to a press release by Korean publisher HanbitSoft Hellgate: London shall remain open and up and running; in a free-to-play format.

And now for a game of ‘he said/she said’.  Namco-Bandai, who co-published the game alongside EA, is sticking to their guns about Hellgate: London going dark as of the 31st.  Fine and dandy.  Enter stage left Hanbitsoft, which claims they now own the IP, engines and source code, acquired during the demise of Flagship Studios, and therefore have the rights to the game globally.  Previously, HanbitSoft was responsible for Korean operations of the game.

Following this saga hasn’t exactly been easy, but personally, I’ve been rooting for Hellgate: London to go free-to-play for a while now.  It simply makes sense, as there’s clearly an audience out there still involved with the game, and given it’s tumultuous history, chances are that a subscription model just isn’t going to cut it.  So why not make everyone happy all at the same time?  Open Hellgate: London as a free-to-play, monetize it via microtransactions, and continue development.

It looks like Hellgate: London is taking this very path.  HanbitSoft’s official press release indicates that further development and updates are in the works with core gameplay staying the same, but improvements on “strengthening community features”.  To accomplish this, the next large-scale patch, scheduled for “soon” will “combine the two game play modes, unifying the split two communities into one.”

What is unclear is exactly where Hellgate: London will be available.  The press release is written in English, clearly targeting North American players, but due to the Flagship Studios situation, it’s still up in the air as to who can and can not operate the game, and where.

Related articles
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in industry news | No Comments »

 

Hellgate: London – alive for now, free-to-play Mythos – still up in the air

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Good news for Hellgate: London fans – it looks like you’re back in the game, at least until January 2009.  Hellgate: London, and the associated Flagship fiasco behind the game are quickly shaping up to be one of the great ‘WTF’ stories of the gaming world for 2008.

Let’s take a step back, and I’ll give you the $0.50 tour.  Basically, the saga shakes out like so:  back in June, Flagship Studio’s audio and gameplay programmer Guy Somberg wrote a length nine-paragraph blog article reporting that Flagship employees were leaving “in droves” including accountants, programmers, HR peeps, and game artists.  He continued on and noted that only one full time employee was still working on Hellgate: London, and that the game was still trodding on, even though the gaming committee had trashed the title, sighting that it was full of various bugs causing system slowdowns and complete crashes.  Shifting into damage control, Flagship Studios CVP David Brevik followed up the article, claiming that Somberg was “having a bad day” and that everything in Flagship land was sunny and bright.  The blog has since disappeared.

“Both our studios are currently fully staffed, with our San Francisco studio working on ongoing content for Hellgate: London and our Seattle studio working on our free-to-play MMORPG, Mythos, which should go into open beta within the next couple months,” said Brevik in his official statement. “In total, we have over 100 employees working for both studios. As is typical in the industry, after a game is released some people naturally want to work on something else and they leave the company to do so. But in total we have had less than 10% turn-over and have rehired for all needed positions.”

Shall I continue?

Basically the story takes a turn for the (even) worse, with CEO Bill Roper finally admitting that there was some truth to Somberg’s outcry on June 14th.  Instead of folks leaving in droves, it looks like they were forced to take an early vacation: they were canned by Roper and Co.

“The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer,” he said.

Now we all know that where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire, and sure enough, Flagship Studio’s smoky environment, sent some pretty clear signals to those that had a vested interest in both Hellgate: London, and Flagship’s free-to-play title: Mythos.  Korean based HanbitSoft, exclusive publisher of Hellgate: London and Mythos stepped into the foray and claimed that it intended to take over control of the titles.  Insert war of words here, including a juicy statement from HanbitSoft’s CEO Kim Ki-Young:

“Flagship not only lacked effort (in developing and maintaining Hellgate), but were only looking for personal gain. Firing all of the Flagship employees in order to protect the personal interests of its founding members only shows how selfish and irresponsible they are.”

Ouch.

As it turns out, HanbitSoft only has the rights to Mythos, and not Hellgate: London as well.

While this ensuing war of the words was taking place, Hellgate: London forums lit up like the 4th of July with everything ranging from wild speculation, to downright close to the truth.  Namco Bandai had been seen as a potential supporter of the Hellgate: London title, and this past Friday, they finally confirmed a number of rumors:

“[Namco] 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 appreciates the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.”

Phew.  What a tennis match of following he said/she said.

Which leaves us with one very crucial piece of the Flagship Studios puzzle: Mythos.  Mythos lead designer, Travis Baldree and Flagship Studios co-founder Max Schaefer didn’t take the collapse of Flagship sitting down, but rather, founded Runic Games.  The site was last updated on August 8th, 2008, and mentions Mythos, but gives no concrete details.  I’m going to take a guess, and say that the name may be well mired up in copyright issues and that we may never see this free-to-play see the light of day.  Again, only speculation.  On the other hand, if Baldree and Schaefer are as committed as they seem to be in Baldree’s WarCry interview, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a number of elements of Mythos incorporated in a new free-to-play premiered as Runic Games’ coming out party title.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in industry news | No Comments »