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A new studio called Runic Games has arisen from the ashes of Flagship Studios’ demise. I managed to get a hold of Travis Baldree, founder and president of Runic Games and formerly the creator of Mythos, to ask him a few things about his new studio and the plans he has in store for it.
Check it out here.
Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper has finally come out of hiding to grant an interview to 1up.com regarding the immenent closure of the aforementioned company, and a breakdown of the events that transpired during all these recent months, from the rumors that the company was in trouble, the fiasco over the Hellgate: London IP, and to the mass layoffs that took place most recently.
Roper was up-front about the problems with Hellgate: London, beginning with their failed revenue model:
“…when we originally came up with the concept of doing the game, the whole idea of continuing content was pretty amorphous. How that was going to happen, who pays for that — we all kind of assumed that would come out of the revenue. The subscription money we did get, we all poured directly into keeping the game online, keeping it up and running. But the development demands far outstripped the revenues. There just wasn’t a good contemplation early on of how that would work.”
Roper goes on to blame the ‘PC market’, among other things, for the failure of Hellgate: London, despite repeated press releases about the game’s supposed success in Korea. Never mind the fact that Blizzard and Valve managed to move several million in sales of their respective titles through traditional boxes as well as digital distribution (like Steam and Direct2Drive) in that year alone.
“Some of them were just bad timing in the PC market. The PC market was lousy last year. Some of it was the fact that we were an independent studio. We didn’t have unlimited money, and we had to ship when we had to ship. Part of it was because we overreached, and that was a design problem that was totally our fault. We tried to do too much. We tried to be a standalone game and a free-play game and an MMO and an RPG and a shooter. We were trying to be something for everybody and ended up really not pleasing many people at all….”
It’s true Hellgate: London saw over a million sign ups for its open beta in South Korea, but it’s readily apparent that only a small margin of these sign ups ever subscribed to the game, most of whom stopped playing the game. Hellgate sits at an abysmal 69th place with a less than 0.1% market share, according to the Korean game chart tracker.
Bill goes further in depth about the company’s failings as well as his personal reaction to the entire fiasco.
“I think that’s a thing that the general world never sees. They just assume, “These guys make games. They have this business. They did it. It didn’t work out. They move on.” It’s amazingly difficult from an emotional standpoint. You don’t start a company, two companies, and pour five years into doing something and not become emotionally attached. It’s impossible. For me, personally, it’s been incredibly difficult, because this is the first company I’ve ever started, you know, and been a part of. I kind of always lived and died by the games. As anybody could tell you, during the last days of Flagship, I was pretty much a wreck.”
“It’s pretty disappointing. I understand that, unfortunately, the Internet seems to be a haven for people who like to just get out there and throw out the most vitriolic and aggressive stance they can. But there’re no secret piles of money that the company’s somehow magically making. I haven’t been paid in almost two months, and I’ve been putting money out to try and get people taken care of. That’s the flip side. When people think, “Oh, wow, these guys are starting their own company. They’re gonna sell it. They’re multibillionaires!” They don’t really see the other side of it, that when that doesn’t happen, you continue to invest your lifeblood into it because that’s why you started it in the first place. When we started Flagship and the first nine of us were there working at Tyler [Thompson]’s house, we had to pay the guys minimum wage so they could legally be employees. None of us were sitting on tons of cash. We were burning through savings to get the company started up. The unfortunate ending on the other side is not that we made a good-but-not-great amount of money, so we let everybody go and kept that good amount of money. I think that we, again, were probably thinking more with our hearts than our heads, and any money that came into the company at all was turned around into chasing Hellgate — trying to make it better, doing the patches. We didn’t get a lot of support financially. We poured pretty much every penny the company had into doing that.”
In the great words of TF2’s Heavy:
Much, much more of the debacle can be read here for those with interest. It’s an eight page interview, so brace yourself!
While not strictly related to Blizzard, we’ve been following the progress of the former Flagship Studios’ developers, so this is relevant.
GameCyte has a new interview up with two of them who have started a new studio, Runic Games, who are Max Schaeferand Travis Baldree. The interview delves deep into why the company moved, why they think FSS failed like it did. It specifically mentions the current state of FSS right now as well. Specifically Max makes an emphasis on the fact that for all intents and purposes Flagship Studios is closed down, and Bill is just there to finish off the closure.
Max then goes on to talk about his brother and his involvement with the team. It then goes on to talk about if FSS had any chance of staying open. They then talk of the sorts of games they want to make with the new studios.
Next they talk about the game’s (Mythos) differentiation with Diablo 3 and Sacred 2, as well as the whole colour issue in Diablo 3. Lastly they mention that Namco at the moment is just handling the box sales of Hellgate London, but there is no current knowledge of what they plan to do with the game later.
WarCry network has posted up a new interview with Runic Games founder, Travis Baldree. He talks of the new studio, talks a little bit about Diablo 3 which may be their direct competition later, the sorts of games they want to make as well as what payment systems they are thinking of doing.
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”, like we have with blackjack games, 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. Also unclear is what, if any, impact his will have on other gaming sites such as new bingo sites.
Source: TheGames.co.kr
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, while wanting to play deal or no deal online, 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.
Thanks Scapes, you’re the best!
IGN’s VE3D is also reporting the news.
Hey there fellow Mythonians.
Are you tired of having to pester Flagship Studios for small tidbits of news about the game?
Are you bored of not having any recent exclusives?
Are you eager to hear about some new and exciting information about Mythos?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you’ve come to the right place!
That’s right! We here at Mythos Guru have gone out of our way to do the job for you. You won’t have to wait in line to get one measly question answered. You won’t have to leave your kids alone in the car, baking under the hot sun, as you dash to your news press to find the latest goss on the game only to find a police officer waiting for you with a warrant and a pair of silver handcuffs when you return. You won’t have to sit there doodling words and pictures on your wall hoping they will be the new exclusives for Mythos.
All you simply have to do is feast your eyes upon our wonderous interview with the amazing Max (Note: Max may or may not actually be amazing, but the interview is indeed wonderful!). Not only do you get exclusive new information at Mythos Guru about the game’s upcoming new modes of transportation, brand new ways to live and die, new ways to dress and express, as well as the secret race that was going to be put in until Max was abducted!!!
You will see the answers to these questions and more by read not one, two, or even five, but twenty four whole questions that will make you wish that you could hibernate until open beta!
So what the hell are we talking about? Read the Exclusive Interview with Max Schaefer and find out!
Enjoy 
This interview was conducted by Kotaku with Ivan Sulic and Guy Somberg to discuss the state of the game and the general workings of the company.
We first heard back from Flagship’s marketing communications manager, web manager and writer Ivan Sulic, who said while he couldn’t speak about Somberg’s emotions, he guessed they were “like anyone who spent a lot of time and effort on something that wasn’t received as well as hoped… And then a few of our friends and coworkers left. It’s a bummer”.
Bummers aside, though, Sulic said that nobody’s been taken off or left the Hellgate team except for systems programmer Peter Hu, who’s been able to work on some other projects now that the game is well underway. Said Sulic, “Everything else is pretty much business as usual”.
Said Sulic, “We’ve actually had very few people leave. Flagship is still fully staffed and working on both Hellgate and Mythos… I think we have about 100 employees now”.
Some people have moved on from Flagship, said Sulic, due to simply moving up on their career paths or being tired of windy San Francisco, but said those departures don’t constitute cause for alarm. “People finish a game, want to work on something else, and then leave to do just that. It’s pretty typical in this industry. I don’t know the exact number, but we couldn’t have had more than five or six departures. Still, if those five or six dudes are people you work with everyday, it can’t feel great”.
And Somberg himself joined the conversation. “Ivan said it quite well”, he said. “Things here at Flagship are running business as usual. We’ve just put a build of Chronicle 2 onto our test centre, which has represented a lot of hard work from everybody at the company, myself included”.
Enjoy
GameBanshee has updated their Hellgate London section of the website with an item database, a skill database, quest database, many high resolution screenshots as well as exclusive screenshots from the Abyss Chronicles and an interview about it with Tyler Thompson.
After months of demon-slaying and item collecting, we’re pleased to reveal a massive dose of fresh Hellgate: London content. Included in the update are an interview with Flagship Studios’ Tyler Thompson about the Abyss Chronicles, a massive quest database, a skill database, and an extensive equipment database that details every known (pre-2.0) rare, legendary, and unique named item in the game.
And, to help you track down weapons and armor that meet specific criteria, we’ve also set up an advanced search page. Should you ever find yourself looking for a one-handed weapon with over 1000 ignite attack strength, a piece of armor that increases your critical chance and your accuracy at the same time, or maybe a Focus item that adds a rank to all Evoker skills, we hope you’ll find this page to be invaluable.
Rounding off the new content are six exclusive Abyss Chronicles screenshots, a new class section, a mini-game page, and dozens of high resolution (2560×1600) screenshots from the original zones and the Stonehenge Chronicles. And, as soon as we get a chance to spend some time on the test center, we’ll be going through all of this content and updating it with the 2.0 changes. Enjoy!
A snippet of the interview can be seen below.
GB: What can we expect from The Abyss Chronicles? What were your primary goals when developing this particular update?
Tyler: Our Chronicles are designed to be much more than a patch and the Abyss Chronicle is much more significant in scope than our first Chronicle. We’ve added a long laundry list of new features with this update, but the four big goals were making a new set of levels with new boss fights and some really cool rewards, three new skills for each character class, the Blademaster rebalance and the Consignment Shop. The new levels should give Subscribers a lot of new content to run around in. The new skills really enhance the current character classes and allow for some completely new play styles – including the Summoner transforming into a demon who focuses on melee and summons freaky melee fighters. The Blademaster needed some love. He will be doing much more damage and have more viable skills with this update.
GB: Are you introducing any new unique items with The Abyss Chronicles update? If so, will these items only be obtainable in the new zones or will they also have a chance to drop in the original and Stonehenge zones?
Tyler: We have a large set of new items in the Abyss Chronicles. There are new armor lines for each faction which look pretty cool and have some interesting plus and minus choices for the player like Cabalist armor that adds to power but removes health. There are also some new weapons for every class – like a massive mace which has spinning blades when you swing it. With the exception of the new focus items designed for a melee Summoner, all of these items can only be found in the Abyss areas. All of them have unique versions which mostly are set to drop off of specific bosses.
GB: Also included in Patch 2.1 is a (much needed) rebalance to the attribute feed system on items. What can we expect from these changes? Will feeds still be dependent on which enchantments are present on an item (ie. critical bonuses requiring accuracy), or will they be calculated in another manner?
Tyler: Patch 2.1 will include a careful rebalancing of the feed system. We have a few ideas about how to approach the problem. One thought has been to make the enhancement’s feed requirements match your faction’s more common attributes. We are still talking about a few other ideas as well. To help players until Patch 2.1 comes out, The Abyss Chronicles has an NPC that will charge you palladium to redistribute your attributes.
GB: What’s next after The Abyss Chronicles and Patch 2.1? Can you give us a rundown of features and changes you’d like to implement into the game with future content updates?
Tyler: We’ve got a few different directions that we can go with Hellgate: London after Patch 2.1. I can’t really commit today on which path we will take – there are some high-level debates about this going on right now.
Enjoy
This article just made it’s way through my Google Alerts not too long ago:
A bold entrepreneur’s ambition of making South Korea the vanguard of the computer game industry has ended as an unaccomplished mission.
HanbitSoft CEO Kim Young-man on Monday sold two thirds of his shares to a relatively unknown game company named T3 Entertainment, making it the new largest shareholder of Hanbit.
We know Hanbitsoft as being the publishers of Hellgate London in Korea.
Kim, who founded Hanbit in 1999 as a local distributor of hit game “StarCraft,” said he will remain as the chairman for a while. But when reporters asked him about Hanbit’s future on Wednesday, he passively handed over the questions to Kim Ki-young, the chief executive of T3.
“I decided to sell the shares because the two companies share the same vision of becoming a leader in the global game market,” the outgoing CEO said in a press conference held on Wednesday.
It’s interesting to note that Hanbitsoft made such losses last year when they went with Hellgate London and while the article does not specifically blame Hellgate alone, it seems to imply that it was one of the strong factors for the loss.
As the next step, Kim decided to finance a massive game project called “Hellgate: London,” which was developed by the same team that created “StarCraft.” He expected it would be a new milestone of Korean game industry’s history. But the new game didn’t do very well, yet, and Hanbit recorded a 7.2 billion won loss last year.
Now having yielded about two thirds of his shares to the newcomers from T3, Kim showed that he no longer has the same power he used to have.
When a reporter asked whether there will be downsizing of the organization, the old Hanbit boss said the company will need more manpower, not downsizing. But an executive of T3 immediately rebutted his remark by saying “T3 aims to have a small but strong organization. We will reduce the organization where there is a need.”
Sad to see the company have to sell a lot of it’s shares as it seemed to be quite a strong force in the Korean market. Good luck to their new ownership though and hopefully they can do well in the future with whatever game projects they decide to take on. Also good luck to Kim with whatever he decides to do.
Enjoy
IGN’s website, RPG Vault, has started a new section recently titled “Focus” where they invite a few leading industry developers to talk about an issue. While there isn’t anything strictly Hellgate or Mythos related in the article, one of the developers invited is from Flagship Studios.
Today, the “focus” discussion was about RPGs and the genre that certain games belong to, as well as how RPGs have changed over the years. The two industry developers today were Steve Bauman, the associate producer at Gas Powered Games (which incidently is making Demigod which you can read about on DemigodGuru) as well as Max Schaefer, who is the Co-Founder and COO of Flagship Studios.
In 1993, Max Schaefer, brother Erich and friend David Brevik co-founded Condor, which became Blizzard North when acquired in 1996. He served as Vice President of Blizzard North and a Director of Blizzard before the same trio plus Bill Roper and David Williams started Flagship Studios in 2003. Some of his credits include Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and Hellgate: London.
The article talks about Max’s previous games like Diablo as well as other games in the genre.
The very first test we did at the beginning of the Diablo project was to make a guy with a mace, a simple dungeon, and a skeleton. We set it up so if you clicked the on skeleton, the guy would walk over and whack him one. It was a “lightning in a bottle’ moment, and there was no question we were on to something big. Instead of instructing my character to hit something, I just did it with my mouse click. Everyone could enjoy this! It’s a theory we’ve continued with our current title, Mythos, an action RPG if there ever was one.
So for me, the term action RPG was invented to refer to those games that concentrate on the visceral, graphic imagery and action of the genre. The emphasis is more on battle than lore. All the trappings can be there - the leveling, the stats, the magic loot, the crafting, the questing… It’s just that there tends to be less emphasis on dialogue, story or role-playing.
[...]
However, take the example of the 500-pound gorilla in the room, World of Warcraft. People generally agree it’s a classic RPG, but in reality, it’s also an action RPG: playing it takes a good amount of dexterity, there’s a decent amount of action, and there’s more an overall context than there is a specific story. But if there’s any title that defines the RPG market, and influences how developers must approach the genre, it’s World of Warcraft.
While many have tried, it’s probably futile to try to be a WoW-killer. Not only did the game have great talent with a virtually unlimited budget and timeline, it has also had many years of well-subsidized development post-launch. No publisher in its right mind would commit the resources necessary to beat it at that game. It’s just way too risky.
Steve’s discussion can be seen on page two and talks about his views of the genre.
The whole discussion is a very interesting read and provides some insight on how the genre has evolved.
Enjoy
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