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Flagship Studios Going Under
Lunatrik writes "In a not entirely unexpected turn of events, Flagship Studios, the producers of the bug-ridden (at release!) game Hellgate: London is going under, as reported by multiple sources. In addition, many current subscribers to the game are finding themselves unable to cancel their subscriptions due to 'technical errors.'"
People have had trouble canceling their accounts since HGL launched, for god's sake. Half the system thinks that they've canceled, but the charge still goes through to the credit card... and of course, since they're supposedly not subscribed, they can't cancel a second time.
some massive amount of lawsuits?
if the game servers shut down completely do players/customers have the rights for at least getting their money back?
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
Since they won't let you cancel, then call your credit card company and cancel with the credit card company.
Fight Spammers!
They were releasing a lot of subscriber-only content so one who subscribes gets a crapton of new features. No idea if it's worth it, I didn't subscribe (and didn't play online as offline play had no lag).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It has nothing to do with WoW, it's more like Diablo with guns (or Serious Sam with RPG stats and equipment, if you prefer that).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
<insert game> sucks compared to <insert game>.
I might say the same about WoW.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
This is not really surprising. I was in the game's beta and there was really nothing memorable about the thing. Just Diablo 2 in 3d with a ridiculous modern setting and crummy level design (if you've seen one office building full of demons, believe me... you've seen them all). I'm glad to see that that sort of mediocrity hasn't been rewarded.
They don't have a choice. Consumer protection on credit cards is very strong. If you say "I'm not paying this" then you don't. The bank blocks the charge and that's that. If they company wants your money, they have to pursue you through other means. It's different with a debit card, since then the bank has already given the money to the company, so it is then somewhat discretionary on their part. However in the case of a credit card you are just disputing that you owe any money.
Been looking for this for awhile, Hellgate has been pretty much a flop. The lucrative SE Asia market never launched and rumors of a bad deal cut with those distributors allowed them to not pay a dime untill the game was what they wanted. Since the game has issues it was never launched, there goes about 15 million in rev that they had planned on.
In other news no one in the western market can understand their pricing model...
I really wanted to like this game I spent 4 hours trying to like this game... They missed a few small tweaks in UI could have made the game alot better... At least we have the real Diablo III soon.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
1) Find a promising unreleased property
2) Get your fingers in the pie via the back door by working a deal with one of the existing publishers
3) Force an early release to get the cash from package sales
4) PROFIT!
5) Refuse to bail out the developers when they're swamped with bug reports
6) Walk away laughing with money in your pocket
Looks like WAR is their next target...
"Nice clusterfuck you got goin' there. Be a pity if the rats all filed chargebacks before they left the ship..."
AOL... didn't they have an issue with subscribers not being able to cancel their 'subscription' ... in most cases for several months?
hmmm....
1)User/customer requests to cancel account
2)ignore their request as long as possible
3)Profit!!!
4)Deal with credit card dispute - haggle for a couple months to let the interest accrue
5)refund customer most of the disputed amount
6)Profit!!!
Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
Is this a metaphor for Hellgate? The first post is bug-ridden and then you're going to "go under?"
A second Korean company (that was also the Korean distributor for Hellgate) that they also owe money has taken ownership of all the rights/code to Mythos.
Just wait till something like this happens with Microsoft's upcoming subscription model for Office, and you get locked out of your documents. Fun times ahead. Be sure to save in ODF...
What?
More accurate would be to say they were going to release subscriber-only content - the last time I looked they'd so far released a new area to play in.
Oh, and you got a chest to keep stuff in for your other characters.
As far as I can tell, that is the sum total of what you get for subscribing to the game. I can't say I'm surprised by them not being able to sustain the business model, but I'll be sad to see them go.
Disparities...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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"
Flagship Studios deserves going under for releasing this game. The day I heard of this game's existence, back when it was in development, I expect it to be crap. The theme was contrived and uninspired and it continued the same old theme of too many contemporary games with the dark and dreary environments. It's like they use that to obscure their lack of imagination.
Interestingly, I did actually get this game for $20 a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity. It turned out certain aspects of gameplay were entertaining but the game overall was a big disappointment.
The most striking thing was how closely the developers copied Diablo. It really shows a lack of imagination, and that is reflected in the overall feel of the game. The monsters are all completely uninspired and the same generic crap found in a dozen other games with hell spawn. The randomized environments made for a game that got tedious quickly. You'd think that having only to build templates instead of complete environments they would have offered a far larger variety of locations.
Then there were the bugs. Performance was worse in DirectX 10 than it was in DX9, however in DX9 there were all kinds of issues. The game would hang loading environments, in bases it would consistently fail to load NPC or item models. It's ridiculous that after all these time these kinds of issues still exist.
The biggest insult of all was the subscription-based model. People were paying $10 a month for essentially nothing. If the people at Flagship Studios had any shred of intelligence they would have adopted a model similar to the one used in Guild Wars.
Well, with the company going under it would be nice if they gave up that additional content as a free download.
Both of you go to Digg, without any dinner.
Do it or I'll get the belt. Do you want the belt? Do you?
Bullshit. You can always quit. If you can't, you're addicted, and need help :)
I've quite many MMOs many times!
Looks like possible dark days ahead for Hellgate: London players. Though nothing is certain until the official word and IP ownership is decided if a legal battle ends up coming into play. http://www.flagshipped.com/
you might but you'll probably be wrong. Criticisms of WoW usually boil down to questioning the MMORPG formula (besides the point) or a perceived lack of attention to your most favorite activity in the game (PvP v PvE etc). The way blizzard treats it's customers, the art in WoW, the wealth of content, the game mechanics and the technical side of client and server are largely impeccable. Seriously, reading the flagshipped.com site or having a look at AoC really reminded me what an outstanding game WoW is and there really is no game in the genre that plays in the same league as WoW.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Well, I dont know about about oneelse but I swear I've never had such a bad experience with a games company for support.
Basically I purchased this game from play.com but it wouldnt accept my cd key, days later, and many minutes (try about another $16 worth) of calls to the support I was informed that my cd key has 'expired'
Since when is a brandnew game suppose to expire?
They promised that they would activate the account (which they never did)
I tried a few times to log on to multiplayer - then just gave up.
Amazingly terrible experience.
They deserve to go under - "and all who sail in her"
Not really. It's not like you'll get sued for leaving
I think that needs to be put to the test. Sue your guild leader for failed BT runs. I mean you have to repair, and repairing takes gold and gold takes time so you would be out of something tangible. You could claim mental angiush and suffering, hell sue that brat who called ya a nub in trade for libel... Just a coffee over dose induced thought.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Responsibilities fulfilled?! That is supposed to be marked Funny, right? Yes, some players might get annoyed, but dude, it's a game, that you are all paying for. Your post sounds like some CEO talking about a very important employee who is about to leave. As a paying gamer, you hold absolutely not responsibility that you won't be gone tomorrow, and I am pretty sure every gamer understands that....except you.