B
Bluebottle
Guest
Before anyone complains - some folk consider HGL not an MMO, though it has a subscription base and allows for a large number of players to be online at one time and groups of them can form instances... I think it' a significant contributer and bellweather towards PC MMOs.
I cannot believe the seemingly disasterous plummet of a mainstream game such as Hellgate London in such short order. Consider the timeline and major events:
November 07 Huge Launch much fanfare, sold out on most store shelves prior to Christmas. Significant "Founder" membership drive between Nov 07 and Feb 2008 (reportedly many thousands of founder subscribers each shelling out $150 for one "lifetime" subscription some bought more than one).
March 2008 - much more fanfare, cool new features and Stonehenge expansions availble, regular subscriptions pick up. Comerica reportedly signs a major deal for the overall IP rights and potential spinoffs - books, the Movie, The TV Series, the Shulgoth cuddly toy etc.
April 2008 Major expansion into Korea - deal signed with leading Korean distributor - things looking even better - huge sales numbers.
May 2008 - The development team seem to be going gangbusters, some really useful updates - Item Mail, additional storage, shared storage - things are starting to really look good. New cool items appearing every few weeks!
June 2008 Launched in Japan - Hellgate London rockets to the top of the sales charts - many accolades towards its seeming success.
July 11 - WHAT JUST HAPPENED - almost the ENTIRE development and support staff get laid off with 30 days "redundancy" - all sorts of strange reports about possible bankruptcy, the Korean distributor claiming rights to the IP. Finally some sort of semi-official "announcement" appears in the official forums on July 15th from Bill Roper declaring that HGL is still alive, regrets that the staff are laid off, assures us that the core members are still there and that all subscriptions are now free... no further billing and that's all we hear!
July 17, a post goes up on the official Hellgate Forums that the Forums will cease on July 18 - so no idea how any more detail will be provided. What about the "lifetime" subscribers - some who may have only enjoyed as little as 5 months of gameplay? What about the subscriber who was just charged for a 6 month block?
It boggles the mind to even begin to understand how such a hyped-up, reportedly stellar game as recently celebrated as a phenominal success in Japan only a few weeks ago comes to such an immediate demise so quickly - to sum it up - "it aint natural"!
Now there's a mass speculation about what will happen, lots of really unhappy people, threats of lawsuits.
I'm just sad since I just bought this for my Dad's 75th birthday, he likesFPS/Multiplayer games and lives over in the UK and we've been meeting up to play Hellgate regularly and it seems to work just fine between the UK and California..... so what does Bill Roper think I should say to my dad?
I cannot believe the seemingly disasterous plummet of a mainstream game such as Hellgate London in such short order. Consider the timeline and major events:November 07 Huge Launch much fanfare, sold out on most store shelves prior to Christmas. Significant "Founder" membership drive between Nov 07 and Feb 2008 (reportedly many thousands of founder subscribers each shelling out $150 for one "lifetime" subscription some bought more than one).
March 2008 - much more fanfare, cool new features and Stonehenge expansions availble, regular subscriptions pick up. Comerica reportedly signs a major deal for the overall IP rights and potential spinoffs - books, the Movie, The TV Series, the Shulgoth cuddly toy etc.
April 2008 Major expansion into Korea - deal signed with leading Korean distributor - things looking even better - huge sales numbers.
May 2008 - The development team seem to be going gangbusters, some really useful updates - Item Mail, additional storage, shared storage - things are starting to really look good. New cool items appearing every few weeks!
June 2008 Launched in Japan - Hellgate London rockets to the top of the sales charts - many accolades towards its seeming success.
July 11 - WHAT JUST HAPPENED - almost the ENTIRE development and support staff get laid off with 30 days "redundancy" - all sorts of strange reports about possible bankruptcy, the Korean distributor claiming rights to the IP. Finally some sort of semi-official "announcement" appears in the official forums on July 15th from Bill Roper declaring that HGL is still alive, regrets that the staff are laid off, assures us that the core members are still there and that all subscriptions are now free... no further billing and that's all we hear!
July 17, a post goes up on the official Hellgate Forums that the Forums will cease on July 18 - so no idea how any more detail will be provided. What about the "lifetime" subscribers - some who may have only enjoyed as little as 5 months of gameplay? What about the subscriber who was just charged for a 6 month block?
It boggles the mind to even begin to understand how such a hyped-up, reportedly stellar game as recently celebrated as a phenominal success in Japan only a few weeks ago comes to such an immediate demise so quickly - to sum it up - "it aint natural"!
Now there's a mass speculation about what will happen, lots of really unhappy people, threats of lawsuits.
I'm just sad since I just bought this for my Dad's 75th birthday, he likesFPS/Multiplayer games and lives over in the UK and we've been meeting up to play Hellgate regularly and it seems to work just fine between the UK and California..... so what does Bill Roper think I should say to my dad?
