Flagship’s Community Manager, Taylor Balbi, has revealed to VE3D that all Ping0 and Flagship Studios staff have been made redundant. According to Taylor and the VE3D article, employees were notified at a company meeting and subsequently informed that the offices will be officially closed on Saturday. The source 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.
As mentioned earlier, word of the studio’s closure reached HanbitSoft, leading to an early press release regarding the control over the Hellgate: London intellectual property that lead to a stern rebuttal from an official source in Flagship Studios, which, subsequently lead to a HanbitSoft lawyer posting the following sentence on our very website: “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, but the fate of the US, Japanese and European version of Hellgate: London remain a mystery.
In short, Flagship’s time has run out, and all intellectual property may have been lost, all staff fired, and the studio closed. Flagship, we hardly knew ye…
Further Confirmation: A person going by the name of GLC who is claiming to be a former employee of Ping0 has made the following post on SomethingAwful to further confirm the company’s demise:
Former Ping0 employee checking in here. I feel bad for some of the talented guys on the staff who busted rear end to try and get a game out on a ridiculous schedule, but I think we all kind of saw this coming after the game came out and basically bombed. Flagship bit off way more than they could chew and made a lot of development and structural mistakes in how they went about things. They had a lot of big dreamers on staff, but not enough nitty-gritty people who knew how to get shit done. It sucks, but that’s life I guess. I didn’t always agree with the decisions of the leadership, but it doesn’t surprise me at all to hear that three of them (probably Roper and the Schaeffers) dug into their own pockets to pay people. Nothing about them, Max Schaeffer in particular, ever made me think they were less than standup guys.
I think it’s less that they aimed too high than that they tried to aim that high and do it quickly, and they didn’t do anything the easy way. They had their own server architecture, their own client, their own chat, their own graphics engine, their own everything basically. Plus they wanted a game that could support thousands of concurrent connections with no downtime, had an engaging single-player campaign, and could support an ongoing, persistent world. It was like picking everything that’s hard to do in a game, and then putting it on a brand-new company (two of them, really) with people who hadn’t worked together before.
Plus you had Ping0 doing the back-end and multiplayer, working off a forked codebase, and trying to make sure that what they were designing was open enough that it could be marketed to other companies. And then Mythos, with a team working out of Seattle under Travis Baldtree (who is a fucking genius, by the way), which had to fit into things somehow even though it wasn’t as much of a priority. It was just a really chaotic situation all around. Hopefully the talented guys I met there will bounce back quickly, it’s a lovely time to be unemployed in the bay area.
Kotaku’s closure story contains further confirmation from their own anonymous source.
Amol Deshpande, Chris Schillinger, Jesse Jones and Ray Li all list their Flagship-Ping0 positions as having ended in July 2008.
Update: The official forum appears to be no longer moderated is inundated in spam.
Update: Programmer Producer Patrick Harris now has his positions at Flagship Studios listed as ‘past jobs’ and is no longer employed at Flagship Studios.
Update: Eric Liu is no longer in the employ of Flagship-Ping0. Having served for seven months as a QA Manager and Automation Engineer, he was promoted in October 2007 to International Producer, a position he held until the studio’s closure.
Update: Flagship-Ping0’s IT Manager, Brent Shinn, Grant Watters, Greg Brown and Jonathan McEvoy are the latest Flagship-Ping0 employees to have listed their positions as previous experience on LinkedIn.
Update: Flagship-Ping0’s Project Manager, Jack Wood, is now also an ex-employee. Jack had many important responsibilities, including: stakeholder, investor and regional distributor liaising; final say on all patch and product launches; and oversight of day-to-day end user support.
Update: Lead Graphics Engineer, Chris Lambert, is the latest to go. Chris was with the company for four years.
Update: With the help of one of our readers, we discovered that the poster going by the name of GLC on SomethingAwful is none other than one “Kalan Kier”, former Ping0 QA Manager.
According to GLC’s Something Awful user profile, his AIM screen name is “kkieratnl”.
A quick search on Google for “kkieratnl” reveals an archived forum post by GLC.
A further search on LinkedIn for “Kalan Kier” reveals that according to Kalan Kier’s LinkedIn profile, he was never a Ping0 employee. However, the LinkedIn Directory appears to have cached his former profile’s headline which indicates that he served as a QA Manager at Ping0.
Update: Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio claims that Hellgate players won’t be charged even if they are unable to unsubscribe due to the feature’s removal from account pages and is locking discussions related to the very subject, subsequently directing them to a ‘main thread’, in which she allows spam and posts her own; preventing any serious discussion from taking place.
Coincidentally, Diane publicly launched her own community support company the day after Flagship’s closure was made public.
Update: Community Manager Taylor Balbi publically denies having anything to do with the statement that was made to VE3D.
“Nothing Official has been stated about what is going on, everything you see or hear is speculation and rumors.”
In breaking news, Korean news website TheGames.co.kr reports that HanbitSoft is taking full control over the Hellgate: London intellectual property from Flagship Studios. At present, HanbitSoft co-owns the IP, which was developed by Flagship Studios and published by Electronic Arts in Europe and the United States.
HanbitSoft states that the reason it is pursuing this course of action is because “It is hard for us to accept Flagship Studios’ requests for continued support in capital and funding any longer and because Flagship was being difficult”, and because it co-owns a direct stake in the IP, it therefore “has a say in reviewing and determining any course of action to be taken with Hellgate: London.”
HanbitSoft is expected to take full control over the IP. HanbitSoft goes on to state that in doing so, it will be able to “properly manage and develop Hellgate: London into a good game with proper content”, with its own in-house team of developers.
The report further states that the online service of Hellgate: London, which started in January 15, 2008 acquired 100,000 early users within the first two weeks of operation during which time HanbitSoft earned 3 billion won (approximately 3 million USD) for the sales of Hellgate: London in Korea. However, the number of players in the game significantly declined due to the lack of general out-of-the-box content and the sparsity of ongoing content updates. Since its Open Beta launch, Hellgate: London has gone from being the 9th most played game in Korea to 52nd post-commercial launch. (Source)
It’s anyone’s guess at this point as to what will happen to the Hellgate: London development team at Flagship Studios in San Francisco and how this will affect the development of Mythos, Flagship’s other game.
UPDATE: Flagship Studios has sent Hellgate Guru an official response via e-mail with regards to the story:
This story is an outright lie. We have no idea where they are getting their information from and have asked legal counsel to pursue the issue. We are mystified by Hanbitsoft’s conclusions and any attempt to take over the IP will be met with a strong and swift response, to “illegally take over the IP”. All right title and interest in Hellgate; London resides in Flagship Financing, LLC a wholly-owned subsidiary of Flagship Studios. We are outraged that Hanbitsoft would attempt to completely tarnish the reputation of its most vital developer. Hanbitsoft’s new management clearly does not understand the terms of its relationship with Flagship.
Because the story is already public, we feel that we would be doing a great disservice to the public by removing it from existence. We do however feel that it is only fair for us to publish an official response from Flagship Studios itself.
UPDATE #2: Respected industry website GamaSutra has confirmed massive layoffs are taking place at Flagship Studios today.
Gamasutra has received confirmation from a Flagship Studios representative that the Hellgate: London developer has seen significant staff cuts.
This morning, Gamasutra obtained information from a source close to the company indicating that staff at both the Flagship development team as well as online services subsidiary Ping0 were let go. Both companies operate out of the same building.
UPDATE #3: Someone claiming to be a lawyer representing HanbitSoft has requested for us to remove the story. We are ready to comply, but only if other websites and news sites reporting the story agree to do so as well:
We are U.S. attorneys for HanbitSoft. Your story is a repeat of a quote that is not accurate and we request that you pull it down. At the request of Flagship’s attorney, we must correct the record:
Please understand that the facts are (1) HanbitSoft is an exclusive licensee of both Hellgate and Mythos in Asia, with rights to sublicense the games; (2) in addition, HanbitSoft is a secured creditor who has been pledged the Mythos (but not the Hellgate) intellectual property as collateral for a loan; (3) Comerica, another secured lender, has been pledged the Hellgate intellectual property as its collateral for a loan; (4) Flagship Studios does not currently own the intellectual properties to either game, which are held in separate companies subject to the security interests of lenders, and Flagship Studios’ interest in those companies is also pledged to its lenders; (5) it is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos.
UPDATE #4: Several of our readers have sent in word that the Subscription options within the Accounts page on the official website have disappeared, as has the ability to unsubscribe.
UPDATE #5: VE3D got in touch with Scapes
In a telephone conversation Flagship’s Community Manager, Evan “Scapes” Berman, refused to comment on the current situation at the studio, or whether he was still in the employment of the company. Instead, he insisted that I direct all questions to ex-Blizzard man, Bill Roper. As of this time neither Bill Roper, Tricia Gray (Flagship’s PR representative) or HanbitSoft’s lawyers have responded to email inquiries.
Mythos Guru has gotten together with Flagship Studios to give away 10 hot new accounts. All you have to do is register an account on our forums and send a PM to me, Sol Invictus, entitled “CONTEST ENTRY” with your e-mail address within it to be eligible to win an account! In order to participate, you have to have 20 posts on Mythos or Hellgate Guru’s forums here. That’s right, it’s that easy!
And remember, your 20 posts CAN’T be spam! I’ll check on you.
Hey fellow Hellgate and Mythos Guru members. We know that many of you have been with us for a long time through our coverage of games by Flagship Studios and we also know that many of you came to follow their games because of them being ex Blizzard personnel. To cater to a wider audience, we’ve decided that it’s the right time to unleash our newest creation Blizzard Guru!
With the possible announcement of Diablo 3, or what is most undoubtedly going to be a new game from Blizzard at the upcoming Blizzard Worldwide Invitational, we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate it than by launching an entire website and community in dedication to Blizzard’s hard work and effort.
If you have any interest in all the is Blizzard related, you will surely come down to our new website that looks at everything that’s Blizzard including Starcraft 2, a possible Diablo 3 release looming over us, Blizzard’s old franchise’s as well as anything new that they can come up with!
We will not only deliver all the up to date news on these issues, but we’ll provide you guys with a place that has friendly staff, the most relevant information, a great community as well as lots of new features on our forums that you’ll surely love!
So come pay us a visit and start contributing, because in the words of a Space Marine… “Hell, it’s about time!”
Flagship CVO David Brevik has posted an official statement to the recent news that’s been hitting the web regarding the blog post that Guy Somberg posted up early last month. He had this to say:
Hello,
I would like to respond to some of the recent coverage that Flagship Studios has received as a result of the publication of Guy Somberg’s blog.
Everyone has good days and bad days. Guy was having a bad day. It was his friend’s last day of internship and he found out another friend was thinking of leaving. He vented, exaggerated, and posted information that was inaccurate.
We will be the first to admit that Hellgate: London did launch with some problems. The game would certainly have benefited from a couple more months in the oven, but as an independent developer we didn’t have the ability to delay our ship date. It can be difficult to stand by and see something that you put your heart and soul into, week in and week out, get the initial reception Hellgate got. It can put a strain on any developer and some days it can get to you. Thankfully, after some very hard work by all the people here, including Guy, the game is much better now and we believe in the future of Hellgate.
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. 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.
All our Directors and Founders are still working at Flagship, and all of them are working on Hellgate: London or Mythos. The team size for Hellgate is as big now as when we shipped. We are putting all of our efforts into these projects and I think it will show in the upcoming Hellgate Abyss Chronicles.
Sincerely,
David Brevik
CVO
Flagship Studios
This is the real deal, and I believe I speak the truth when I say that it will be better to let Flagship show what it has to offer with the upcoming Abyss Chronicles instead of paying too much credence to sensationalists.
Our newly established network of websites, in extension of Hellgate Guru and Hellgate Guru and Mythos Guru, is looking for a few skilled staff to fill the following roles: News Poster, Content Developer, and Forum Overseer. The positions that prospective staff members would like to fill entail the following titles and responsibilities:
News Poster
Must be ready and able to post up-to-date news on the respective game, with updates based on Google Alerts, official websites or gaming news websites.
Content Developer
Depending on the game, the content developer will be required to produce guides, walkthroughs, character profiles, or strategies. Depending on the expertise of the individual, content such as skill calculators or other interactive media are much desired content.
Forum Overseer
The responsibility of a forum overseer is twofold: moderate the forums, and to encourage and maintain activity within the forum by creating new posts, responding to existing posts, and drawing traffic from the internet at large in order to grow the community and its forums. Forum overseers are encouraged to maintain a positive, and friendly attitude towards users.
Sites
Champions Guru
News Poster (1)
Content Developer (1)
Signature Artist (1)
Forum Overseer (2)
Demigod Guru
News Poster (1)
Master Strategist / Content Developer (1)
Forum Overseer (2)
Starcraft Guru
News Poster (2)
Writer (1)
Master Strategist / Content Developer (1)
Forum Overseer (3)
World of Conan
News Poster (2)
Article Writer / Content Developer (2)
Please feel free to send me a PM or an e-mail if you’re interested in taking up any of the positions.
Former PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Greg “The Vede” Vederman has posted a video guide on how to optimize your computer for peak performance in Hellgate: London on YouTube.
The guide includes a step-by-step walkthrough on how to:
download drivers and optimize your video card settings
update Windows Vista for optimized DirectX 10 graphics
set a large custom page file size to reduce lag / hangs / crashes
optimize your in-game settings for max stability and framerate
play Titan Quest in case you don’t like Hellgate
If you want to get your game running as smoothly as possible on whatever your current rig may be, you’ll want to check out the guide here.
Hello readers! Whatever website of ours you belong to, be it Hellgate Guru, Mythos Guru, or Demigod Guru, you have probably heard that we have had IRC channels set up for each of our websites.
Today, we have decided to set up a brand new network called AxisIRC, after a group decision between the staff members of our various websites and community leaders to provide an improved service over the old network.
The services we will now provide will include hosting a multitude of gaming channels, easy channel registration, nickname registrations and most importantly, a strong potential for growth, in terms of both channels and users.
To connect to this network, simply direct your mIRC, HydraIRC, Trillian or other IRC client to the following address:
Server: irc.axisirc.com Port: 6667
Currently active channels include:
#HellgateLondon
#Mythos
#Starcraft2
#Champions
#Demigod
After a bit of forum downtime today, the site changes announced yesterday are now complete and the Hellgate Guru and Mythos Guru forums now share the same domain and user base. I’m happy to say that all of your accounts, posts, polls and other information from the Mythos Guru forums have been fully retained and carried over to Hellgate Guru.
You can still use the old forum URLs to enter the two sites (hellgateguru.com/forum and mythosguru.com/forum). The front pages also remain as before (hellgateguru.com and mythosguru.com) and they too will be seeing some upgrades, though no further mergers are planned.
We hope you enjoy the new combined forums and if you have any comments or questions don’t hesitate to ask.
Hellgate Guru was founded in mid-2005 and has ever since been one of the most popular fan sites and forums devoted to Hellgate: London, catering to a wide range of interests, as well as having a dedicated team of staff members who keep the website full of constant updates, news and generate activity and hype around the game. More
