Bill Roper on the closure of Flagship Studios

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 20th August 2008
Comments (7) Stumble
Bill Roper has said that the main problem with Hellgate: London was that it over-reached itself.

Bill Roper has said that the main problem with Hellgate: London was that it over-reached itself.

Bill Roper, co-founder of the now-dead Flagship Studios and one of the lead designers of Diablo 2, has discussed the closure of Flagship and the effect that Hellgate: London had in a frank and open interview on 1-UP.

Roper described the day he had to fire the majority of his ex-Blizzard staff as the hardest day of his professional life, though things weren't exactly easy before or after that. Roper then offered an insight into the financial position of his company, claiming that Flagship was often misunderstood because of the attachment to Blizzard and Diablo 2.

"There are no secret piles of money that the company's somehow magically making," Roper told 1UP. "I haven't been paid in almost two months, and I've been putting money out to try and get people taken care of. That's the flip side."

"It probably goes against popular belief, but just because we all used to work at Blizzard doesn't mean that we're all millionaires, although that sure would have been great."

Roper admitted to liquidating $400,000 worth of assets in order to pay the salaries of his staff, many of whom he felt directly responsible for.

"Hellgate came out, and it wasn't as good as it should have been. There's a myriad of reasons for that. Some of them were just bad timing in the PC market. The PC market was lousy last year," said Roper.

"Some of it was the fact that we were an independent studio. We didn't have unlimited money, and we had to ship when we had to ship. Part of it was because we overreached, and that was a design problem that was totally our fault. We tried to do too much.

"We tried to be a standalone game and a free-play game and an MMO and an RPG and a shooter. We were trying to be something for everybody and ended up really not pleasing many people at all. I think we should have picked one or the other."

You can read our Hellgate: London if you're interested in reading a bit more about the game, or you can pass on your thoughts directly to the forums.
Quote Cobalt 20th August 2008, 12:34
HG:L was a fairly decent single player experience IMO, but the multiplayer content didn't add any value and I'm guessing thats what sucked most of the money out of the company. If they had kept a more hands off approach to multiplayer then they would probably had some success.
Quote Mister_X 20th August 2008, 14:30
I hope the Franchise survives in some form. I think its a fabulous universe that has a ton of mileage in it. And with the lessons learned in Hellgate, Hellgate 2 would have been stunning.

That said, Hellgate was getting more solid and refined as time went by, but fickle PC gamers wouldn't hang around for "what might be".
I applaud them for trying.
Quote seveneleven 20th August 2008, 15:49
Quote:
The PC market was lousy last year

WTF is that fella talking about?! The PC market was at it's prime last year with more AAA+ titles than we had seen in the past 5 years (Bioshock and the Orange Box to name but 2).
I think they deserve it - the only succefull multi-genre title has been GTA and it was a perfect combination.No one has been able to top it.
Quote naokaji 20th August 2008, 15:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cobalt
HG:L was a fairly decent single player experience IMO, but the multiplayer content didn't add any value and I'm guessing thats what sucked most of the money out of the company. If they had kept a more hands off approach to multiplayer then they would probably had some success.

QFT

singleplayer was ok, but the multyplayer was lacking (or, in other words, could have used several monthes of polishing).
Quote spectre456 20th August 2008, 21:48
Quote:
Originally Posted by seveneleven
WTF is that fella talking about?! The PC market was at it's prime last year with more AAA+ titles than we had seen in the past 5 years (Bioshock and the Orange Box to name but 2).
I think they deserve it - the only succefull multi-genre title has been GTA and it was a perfect combination.No one has been able to top it.

i think when he said the market was lousy, he was referring to the market from the developer's and publisher's point of view. when that many quality titles come out, the less likely your game is gonna sell well since there is more choice for the consumer and more competition for you, even if the genres are different(unless you hype it up really well so that ppl buy even if it is mediocre). last year was nirvana to us but a struggle for some dev's.
Quote mayakovski 20th August 2008, 23:01
The problem with HG: L, is that they spent 90% of the budget on the intro and 10% on the game. The intro was so good, that virtually any game would have seemed like crap after it.
Quote Joeymac 21st August 2008, 03:43
Never played the game.... looked very dated with neon crap, glowing stuff all over the place and bland everything else. But it had an expensive FMV intro you say? They still make those??
Seems like these guys were pretty clueless.
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