Gamasutra’s Leigh Alexander reports that Namco Bandai, the current co-publisher for Hellgate: London, has announced the game is going to be closed down on January 31, 2009.
Hellgate: London’s launch back in October 2007 was marred with several problems and even denials and gross exaggerations. Though the announcement does not come to us as a surprise, it’s very sad to see a game that was launched as late as October 31, 2007 being closed down so soon. Even Resident Evil: Outbreak stayed up for four years and RF Online for two (Earlier this month, Codemasters announced they had failed to renegotiate the US/EU publishing rights for one reason or another 1)http://www.rf-onlinegame.com/news.php?id=8020).
In an earlier Shacknews interview, Flagship’s Bill Roper said that
We’re working hard on how to end gracefully… I would do a lot of things really differently [in future efforts]. I think that maybe part of the silver lining in all this—and there isn’t a lot in a very dark cloud.
Summa summarum it would seem the story of Hellgate: London was nipped in the bud thanks to the concept of “release now, patch later”. Whether blame for the debacle lands on the developer or the publishers is hard to say, but it’s all rather sad, isn’t it?
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