Hellgate Guru

Joystiq, VideoGamer.com and a few other sites have an article up that talks about how Hellgate London did in Korea in tems of sales and accounts that signed up for it.

Bill Roper and company have announced that in the two weeks since the Korean launch of the Hellgate beta more than a million accounts have been registered. According to Flagship, this makes the MMO the most successful online game launch in Korea in the past three years.

Hellgate’s beta officially kicked off in Korea on January 15, and according to Korean online game tracking service Gametrics, the game quickly found an audiences with gamers in PC Cafes, ranking ninth among online games, fifth among RPGs, and was the most popular beta being played. This was followed by a commercial release on February 22, a launch that Flagship boasts achieved “record sales”

UPDATE: Kotaku also has the news up, but they follow it with an official press release:

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

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