Hellgate: London subscriptions suspended
Filed under: Horror, Sci-fi, Business models, MMO industry, News items, Hellgate: London
Exploring and fighting in post-apocalyptic London used to require a subscription but not anymore. Flagship Studios has announced that active Hellgate: London subscribers will not be billed nor will any new subscriptions be accepted. Normally, this would be welcoming news to players, but it's not because there is a chance that Hellgate: London could shutdown operations. Staff went first, and the forums are going next, tonight both the official Mythos and Hellgate: London forums will be pulled offline at 12AM. Due to financial circumstances Flagship Studios has come under hardships and had to layoff almost its entire staff. Ping0, an online services subsidiary was also affected. The fallout is a huge confusing mess, and Flagship used the rights to its intellectual property as collateral on loans for operating expenses. Now that Flagship is more or less collapsing HanbitSoft is stepping in trying to reign in both intellectual properties, Hellgate: London and Mythos, due to Flagship Studios defaulting on their original agreement.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Flagshipped.com said on 9:28PM 7-18-2008
From an announcement made today on the Official Mythos Forums, the _game_ along with the Mythos Forums will be closing tonight at 11:59 PM CST. Here's to hope it will back in one form, and with one company, or another.
http://www.Flagshipped.com
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Tateru Nino said on 9:50PM 7-18-2008
Our local EB Games store took all the discount stickers off of Hellgate: London yesterday, and I think put every copy of the game they had out for sale back at the original full price ($90USD) -- it had previously dropped to only $60USD.
I pity the poor folks who decide to pick it up.
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Neko Ali said on 11:08PM 7-18-2008
Well, at least Hellgate: London has the offline, single play version of it... So even if or when the servers finally shut down, people who bought the game can continue to play, although in a limited form.. I know I made sure to get the latest updates, even if most of the updates were for the online version.
Sadly, no such thing for Mythos. I can only hope that the creators manage to deal with the legal issues and retain the game, so they can continue to develop it at a later date. It's to nice a game to die before it really had a chance to really live.
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Calarius said on 9:17AM 7-19-2008
I tried Mythos during the beta, and I can say I was not all that impressed. I'm sorry to see games go away so quicly, but I'm not entirely surprised by this announcement.
Nice try, guys. Don't give up, you've done tings with promise. Maybe your developers can get in with someone more established and give it another go.
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