The MMO Crash of 2008

[420]

I was beginning to feel neglected that all these reviewers were listing all the failed games of 2008 without even mentioning Hellgate: London. Well, now there is an article that features Hellgate at the top of the list.

The MMO Crash of 2008

Here is a sample:

You Got Flagshipped
To start it all off was Hellgate: London. I can talk for ages about this game, listing the many faults found within it, and I still wouldn't cover all the troubles to it. Here's a game where you can effectively use in a conversation for the epitome to the definition of "everything went wrong." No one could have ever predicted that this game was going to bomb on the scale that it did. You had ex-Blizzard guys (some of which were the creative and original minds behind Diablo) getting together to make a game of their genre. But something went wrong. Maybe it was their CEO "following his heart" when it came to juggling with people's jobs or maybe it was the ridiculous advertising campaign in Korea, or maybe it was just not listening to your beta testers, but I'm willing to bet it was most likely a combination of all of the above. It's pretty bad when a term known as "flagshipping" is coined out of the endeavors you have taken.

Also this little quote caught my eye:

Out of professional courtesy, Namco is holding up the online servers until February 1, 2009, after which the game will indefinitely be dead (HanbitSoft bought the rights to both games but Namco refuses to hand over the American distribution rights for Hellgate).

I don't know how Namco can consider fucking over the entire American market "professional courtesy".

-420

[Mo]

Good article.  Wish he went into more detail all around.

Why do you say the N. American market is being fucked?  It's clearly not worth their money to keep the game going here.

[420]

Why do you say the N. American market is being fucked?  It's clearly not worth their money to keep the game going here.

The way it's stated implies that HanbitSoft wants the N.A. distribution rights but Namco "refuses" to do anything but let the game die. However, I believe HanbitSoft plans to continue developing and serving the game in Korea.

-420

[Mo]

There's got to be business reasons behind the decision that we're not privy to.

[Mercy]

They just don't want to look like jackasses when the Korean company would probably have pwnt their faces once they got the rights. I could honestly see it happening. lol.