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.'"

Canceled Cancellations Not New

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.

Re:Canceled Cancellations Not New

Well.. send a copy of whatever info you get along to your credit card company, along with the most important piece of information: Your desire for them not to accept any more charges from the company. Make it the CC company's problem, and see how quickly it gets resolved.

I'm pretty sure the CC companies would take you at your word, ANYWAY, but a lil' proof doesn't hurt.

Your word doesn't matter

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.

Another way to cancel.

Since they won't let you cancel, then call your credit card company and cancel with the credit card company.

Re:Another way to cancel.

New York, NY, July 22nd, 2008

In a surprise move, AOL announced today that it has successfully completed acquisition of Flagship Studios. Citing 'synergistic' account-cancellation policies in both companies, an AOL spokesperson verified that customer support services will be switched over immediately in order to preserve the customer base.

When questioned about future support for the Hellgate: London online game, or the takeover of any other facet of the business, the spokesperson replied, "Huh?"

###

Re:Another way to cancel.

Are you sure that spokesperson wasn't one of the customer service representatives?

Re:Another way to cancel.

Mod the parent post up so people who are in this mess can see it. In addition, after calling the credit card company, you can also ask to subsequently block all charges from said source (i.e., Flagship Studio or whatever you would see in your billing statement). I don't know if all CC companies do this, but this kind of feature is usually put in place for the repeated bogus/spam charges where you get billed for something bogus, and you keep getting billed for it once a month. This way you don't have to call every month.

Re:Another way to cancel.

if your product wasn't delivered/provided as promised, you can fill out a chargeback form with your credit card company. A couple dozen of those from different people and the credit card company will look into what happened, see they're all valid, and immediately approve all chargebacks against that company. Cancelling your card is a lot more of a pain, though a good way for the retention department to increase your credit limit lol.

A Good Thing

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.

Not a huge suprise

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.

Fuck EA

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...

Sounds like a job for Captain Chargeback...

"Nice clusterfuck you got goin' there. Be a pity if the rats all filed chargebacks before they left the ship..."

Reminds me of...

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!!!

Hee hee hee

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...

Obligatory Penny Arcade reference

Disparities... [penny-arcade.com]

Rumours and Hear-say

"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"

Re:interesting

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).

Re:interesting

insert game sucks compared to insert game.

I might say the same about WoW.

• WoW sucks compared to flamethrowing your cat.
• WoW sucks compared to flamethrowing your ex-girlfriend's cat.
• WoW sucks compared to flamethrowing Richard Stallman's beard.
• WoW sucks compared to playing Bait the KDE Developer: 'OMG! Why did you call that a full release?!'
• WoW sucks compared to Goatse Online - Revenge of the Receiver.
• WoW sucks compared to seeing how many AC Slashdot trolls you can post in one night (bonus points for non-sensical first posts!).
• WoW sucks compared to a Jolly Good Wank(tm).

Re:interesting

Both of you go to Digg, without any dinner.

Re:interesting

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.

Re:what next?

Chances are that there's wording in the subscription contract that negates any 'right' to accessibility or usability. There was a class-action suit against Ultima Online ten years ago, over what amounted to lag, and it's been standard boilerplate since.

Also, while Flagship and Ping0 are going the way of the dodo, the Hellgate and Mythos IP are owned lock, stock and barrel by two other companies. Chances are that HGL will continue to limp along for a while, but the likelihood of serious patching and new content is low.

Re:what next?

the likelihood of serious patching and new content is low

Business as usual then?

Re:Dupe

Is this a metaphor for Hellgate? The first post is bug-ridden and then you're going to "go under?"

Re:Their other games?

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.

Re:Blizzard

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.