I’m still clueless on as to how fast it happened, but it did. The guys who made Diablo 2, left Blizzard to make a new gaming company has been disolved again. With all staff fired and Intellectual properties divided among the companies that invested the most money into Flagship Studios, things can’t get any uglier for these poor fellows. Hellgate London was Flagship studio’s flagship project and one that sunk immediately after it’s maiden voyage. Who to blame? i dunno. maybe the guys who rushed Flagship to release Hellgate London 10 patches too early or Flagship studios who didn’t seem to do well in fixing the bugs and delivering the experience that they promised during the hype-stage of the game development. Flagship studio’s closing this saturday and i don’t even want to imagine how the Hellgate Fanboys would react to this, well i for one bought it and played through the end but was disappointed due to the lack of variety, story and the worst of all, lack of replayability. Well that was until Stonehenge patch when lots of stuff got changed and bugs squashed but I guess it was too late. The Flagship studios staff has been fired, but we’re given 30 days worth of pay that came from the pockets of the higher ups and Flagship IP’s and IP rights transferred to Hanbitsoft (who took over Mythos) and Comerica (A non gaming company, taking over the Hellgate IP).

I’m still reading on as to what happened because clarifications from the companies and those who are involved are still pouring as i type this. Meanwhile, you can read along with me :

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39866/Flagship-Studios-Closure-Confirmed-All-Staff-Fired-All-I-P-Lost

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/12/flagship-studios-entire-staff-fired-all-intellectual-property/

Related posts:

1. Flagship’s Official Announcement regarding the Layoffs and IP conditions
2. Hellgate:London Demo
3. Hellgate: London EU and US servers now Online
4. Standalone Hellgate London Stonehenge Patch Download
5. Hellgate London demo Error and bugs Fixes