EA Says: “We thought (Hellgate) would have been slightly higher quality than it turned out to be”
Electronic Arts’ David DeMartini has granted an interview to GamaSutra about his plans with EA Partners, and he also touches upon the subject of the failure of Hellgate: London, a game that EA heavily invested in.
“We’re certainly sad with the results for Flagship and what’s happened with Hellgate, because at the time we signed it, we were trying to get involved in a very complicated relationship between Namco and Flagship.
We were coming late to the party, and trying to do whatever we could to sprinkle the game magic on the project and get it headed in the right direction.
I think that’s an example where all three parties had the best interest of the game in mind, and sometimes the game doesn’t work out. Hellgate is still an incredible concept.”
EA certainly performed its due diligence with the game, but DeMartini believes that at that point it was already too late for the damage to be undone, as most of the game’s fanbase had simply left. DeMartini elaborates:
“We were co-publishing with Namco. I’m not going to dodge a bullet — we had people who were actively working with them on the title.
We thought it would have been slightly higher quality than it turned out to be, and I think the problem with the game was that by the time it got really good, we were four to six months post-release. That was too late; we’d lost the fanbase.
It was strictly an issue of the gameplay and game quality needing to be higher at the start. Unfortunately, Flagship was in a situation where they weren’t in a position to hold the game any longer, and the situation kind of took over.”
So there you have it.
