Ughh where to start? The story has bounced back and forth as to the fate of Hellgate: London, but the fate of Flagship Studios is pretty much sealed. After word hit the Hellgate community that Hellgate might be switching hands and subsequent denials were issued, confirmation began making its way around the gaming news circuit that Flagship and its online service subsidiary Ping0 had layed off a significant portion of the two companies.
Source: Gamasutra [ more info ]

What followed that article, for me at least, was a mess of back and forth legal shenanigans between Flagship and it's creditors over who now has exclusive rights to the Hellgate IP. There's so much news out there about the drama surround Flagship's closure and the impact on Hellgate though, that's it's really hard for me to list all the sources I used in researching this topic before committing to the comic.

Ultimately Flagship is making a scorching entrance into the Zapper. We'll just have to wait and see if Hellgate and Mythos follow suit.

Thanks for the story lead James M.

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Today's Pimpage: The Shadowbane and Horizons Istaria flies are eating Mmmm Delicious! Popcorn from the Mmmm Delicious! Popcorn Emporium.

That is sad news... Flagship has been active with the HGL(Hellgate:London) community trying to fix problems. HGL is a pretty good game.

I will only say this.

Flagship Studios has proven that there are far worse developers than those involved with Star Wars Galaxy.

I did not honestly thought that was possible.

Hellgate seemed like a new and unique game. Hopefully it will survive. Nice touch with the popcorn actually lol'd.

I feel bad for the people who bought lifetime memberships. And last I heard, the asian servers will be kept up and running by one of Flagship's partners. But the US Servers are still in limbo.

And as much as I felt Hellgate was rushed out the door and needed work. Flagship in no way compares to Raph Koster and his predecessor's horrible mismanagement of what probably should have been the easiest IP to turn into online gold.

Something from the official forums i was reading this morning...you can believe it or not..i choose to believe it.

[From] an official statement from Flagship Studios [by Hellgate's Community Manager, Scapes,] with regards to "recent news" follows:

"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"

Source: Hellgate: London - Official Forums [ more info ]

Spektacles:
What you're quoting has the title:
Official Statement on Recent News (06/11/08)

In other words, a response to a blog post that's a month old, and has nothing to do with the recent media coverage (ie last few days)

That response was from June 11th, Spektacles. It's not due to recent news.

Also, the Gamasutra article has a couple of updates about the legal status of the Hellgate and Mythos IPs. Flagship doesn't own either of them. Their lenders own the licences as collateral for loans. Unless Flagship can repay those loans, they don't control the IPs.

Though their creditors are working to keep Hellgate and Mythos alive, mostly because the one creditor operates Hellgate in Asia.

I kind of knew Flagship was heading for rough waters when I got a look at Hellgate in Beta. I just hope that the employees who were let go can find work elsewhere.

I got to say, I would love if the game ended in SoE's hands. Anther game to set in the Station Pass would be great, likely bring new players, and SoE has proven with Matrix and Vanguard they do their best to fix the games they acquire.

I am an active Hellgate player. I've been watching the Forums over at the Official Site for quite a while now and given that the Official Updates from Community Manager Scapes have all but ceased for nearly a Month now I think it is safe to say that the bell is tolling for Hellgate: London.

As with most Forums there has been quite a bit of mud in the water as the Flame Wars go back and forth about what is happening but I agree with what Woody said. Once other gaming news sites began to report on things like who has the rights to what then you can put money down on the fact that the end is nigh.

In a Genre of games where you can't swing a stick without clubbing an Elf or a Halfling it was nice to have a game where Humans were the focus and the setting wasn't High Fantasy but high Tech instead.

I'll continue to play the Single Player mode even if they shut down the Online one. Hopefully for those of us that love the game they will make some of the Online content available to Single Player before the end comes.