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Every day we ponder if now is the time to stuff our credibility into a rocket, shoot it into the sun and become the world's most irreverent and depressingly unqualified development studio. But we have to admit, interviews like Gamasutra's new one with Bill Roper, in which he details how the downfall of Flagship turned games into a business for him, give us pause.

At one point, he says, "It was a really dark time. It cost me a lot more than just the money we'd put into the company and things like that. It cost me a lot on a personal level with friends and loved ones that I wasn't able to keep in the process." ... So, wait, it's not just drawing pictures of gigantic guns and space babes while you tighten up the graphics on level three? Looks like we'll be keeping our day jobs.

Hellgate: London will apparently continue on as a free-to-play title according to IP owner HanbitSoft, reports Gamasutra. Namco Bandai planned to pull the plug on the servers January 31, but HanbitSoft asserts the game will push forward. Forward and upward, allegedly, as the Korean publisher plans to update the game and strengthen community features.

The first patch HanbitSoft plans to release "soon" will combine the game's two modes, along with balancing game and class issues. Could the title that helped bring down Flagship Studios find an audience in the nurturing arms of the Korean developer?

When former Flagshiper Steve Goldstein came up for air, his lungs weren't filled with the dank stink of failed game design. Leaving behind his role as business development director and general counsel for the Hellgate: London developer, Goldstein resurfaced as senior counsel at the law offices of Stubbs Alderton & Markiles LLP.

The move may not be as big of a leap as you might think. Goldstein used to work as an associate for the LA-based law firm, which specializes in corporate, securities and IP cases. In his new role, he will work to grow the firm's video game and interactive media practice and expand the organization's list of game industry clients. We imagine the money is better, and the grinding much much less.

Phil Shenk has become the latest to row ashore following the sinking of Flagship Studios, announcing the launch of a new development studio awesomely named Gravity Bear. Shenk will serve as the CEO, while according to Shacknews another Flagship survivor, former Hellgate: London senior software engineer Kevin Klemmick, has climbed aboard the dense grizzly as technical director.

The studio is the third to emerge from Flagship's splintered remains, following the founding of Runic Games and Turbine's new Redwood City, CA branch in recent months. Nothing yet has been revealed regarding Gravity Bear's focus or future projects, though we have to wonder if the experience of being sucked into Flagship's financial hellgate was enough to sour the company on dabbling once more in anything remotely MMO.

Max Schaefer, co-founder of Flagship Studios, admits that things didn't go exactly as planned with its first title Hellgate: London; however, he believes the developer's sophomore effort, Mythos, is coming together much better. Schaefer tells Eurogamer (via GI.biz) that Flagship was "probably biting off too much" as a new developer with Hellgate and was rushed at the end, but with Mythos it's focusing on core features and taking time to polish.

Schaefer hopes Mythos can "put a dent" into some of the big MMOs out there and he believes the free-to-download-and-play model of the game -- with item sales bringing in money -- gives the developer a chance against the boxed subscription-based MMOs.

Things are not well at Hellgate: London developer Flagship Studios according to Guy Somberg, an audio and gameplay programmer at the fledgling studio. Somberg wrote on his personal blog a month ago – which was recently dug up by GI.biz – that people are leaving the company "in droves" following the poor sales and negative feedback of its post-apocalyptic jaunt.

Somberg does have some hope for the future (wait, isn't London occupied by demons in 2038?), saying that the game is doing well in Korea and has yet to start in China. He concludes that he likes the job, but that all the artists and programmers leaving the company is taking a toll on the future of Hellgate: London and Flagship as a studio. Well, we're hearing good things about Mythos ...

Last year's launch of Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London was not exactly what we'd call a family album moment, its release plagued by client crashes and enough bugs to have the Orkin man calling for backup. Still, one person's trash is another's treasure, as Bill Roper and company have announced that in the two weeks since the Korean launch of the Hellgate beta more than a million accounts have been registered. According to Flagship, this makes the MMO the most successful online game launch in Korea in the past three years.

Hellgate's beta officially kicked off in Korea on January 15, and according to Korean online game tracking service Gametrics, the game quickly found an audiences with gamers in PC Cafes, ranking ninth among online games, fifth among RPGs, and was the most popular beta being played. This was followed by a commercial release on February 22, a launch that Flagship boasts achieved "record sales," though it's a record that we're pretty sure will be broken soon enough.

Do you still care about Hellgate: London? We don't ask out of an attempt at snarkiness, we're asking with genuine curiosity. We ask because there's a big update for subscribers dropping today and we just want to know if that describes any of you. Or maybe you're a former player and just want to keep up with changes. For example, even though out brief fling with the game ended months ago, we were still interested to hear that the game was adding Stonehenge, a large outdoor hub designed to break up some of the monotony of city living. There's also some balance tweaks to the character classes and a new Dueling Arena.

But do you care? Have you played? Are you still? Do you want to know what's going on in the world of Hellgate? Does this update pique your interest? Because we get the feeling that most of you have moved on or were never that interested to begin with. We look forward to hearing if that's right or off-base.

Hellgate: London sprang forth on Wednesday and, well, reviews have been skewing average. Hellgate changed a bit over the years. Then there's the details of its optional subscription program and what it means for the game in the long term. Hellgate is now out there for the consumers to vote with their wallets during this cluttered holiday season. As for the reviewers, they don't seem to hate the game, but do get hung up on pesky flaws that pile up.

• EuroGamer (70/100): "Our reservations are balanced out against the obvious talent and effort that has been ploughed into the game - and the simple fact that every time we put Hellgate down, either during its extended beta period or while reviewing it, we were itching to get back to it within hours. It's compulsive, it's good fun and it's certainly addictive; perhaps as the online service evolves, it'll even be worth coming back to for a further evaluation. For now, though, this is a game too deeply flawed to deserve the masterpiece status we'd all hoped for."
• Game Daily (70/100): "It's easy to write Hellgate off as a mediocre game, but the truth is it's not altogether bad. In fact, it has some truly excellent innovations, like the item augmentation system that can imbue common items with special properties. Hellgate also has a machine that increases the level of an item, so players don't have to ditch useful armor or weapons because they outgrew them. Additionally, the game has a fantastically wicked sense of humor that comes out in the NPC dialogue. The problem is, the game tries to be a little bit of everything, but no one aspect gets fully developed."
• GameSpy (60/100): "Sadly, nothing says that Hellgate: London was pushed out the door too early better than the buggy state of the game's multiplayer. Since the game was pushed live on October 30, the multiplayer servers have been plagued by registration problems and downtime (which, naturally, results in the official site and forums getting overloaded and crashing). More problematic are a couple of nasty bugs including frequent crashes to desktop, slowdown and lag during combat and a weird display bug that makes all the character models on screen disappear, leaving the player as just a disembodied weapon floating in mid-air. GameSpy editor Fargo ran into a reproducible bug where he'd actually lose one of his weapons every time he was dual-wielding and logged off, which, as bugs go, is an inexplicable gamebreaker."

PC gamers eager to clean London's streets and sewers of demonic infestation this Halloween can expect to do so against a backdrop of "orchestral, rock, and ambient" music as Splinter Cell: Double Agent composers Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan have once again partnered for Hellgate:London's apparently eclectic soundtrack. Additionally, those who pick up the game's obligatory 'collector's edition' will also find the soundtrack CD neatly tucked away inside.

Both gentlemen seem to be making a habit of working together, as in addition to the aforementioned Double Agent, the pair has also tag-teamed on other titles, including the TMNT movie tie-in and Spyhunter: Nowhere to Run. Individually, Velasco has lent his musical touch to such games as God of War as well as a Castlevania arrangement for the Video Games Live concert series, while Dikiciyan's credits include titles like Stranglehold and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

[Via press release]

Clever! What immediately springs to mind when you hear the word "hellgate"? Simple: it's a gate leading, ostensibly, straight to Hell where all sorts of freakish ghoulies live. Tack "London" on the tail end of that and you've got one scary-ass video game title. What better day to unleash Hellgate: London upon an unsuspecting world than October 31st, All Hallows Eve, Halloween! Unfortunately, despite having one of Europe's premier cities right there in the title, Europeans will have to wait until November 2nd (oh, that's not so bad) to play Flagship Studios debut title.

That date is all they're sharing for now. If you're looking for details about that $10/month optional subscription-based service – featuring "huge amounts of content on an ongoing basis in the form of quests, character classes, demons, items, etc." – you'll have to wait some more. That information is "coming soon."

Games for Windows Magazine (via Hellgate Guru) reports that the optional MMO mode in Hellgate: London will cost players $9.95 per month. The subscription service, provided in addition to a single-player campaign and basic online functionality, will benefit from a continuous stream of content from developer, Flagship Studios, as well as several other features.

Compared to the once-off package, these include round-the-clock support services, a lack of server queues, four times the amount of characters allotted to each player, increased item storage, guild functionality and other typical MMO offerings. In essence, the monthly fee acts as a gateway to a different business model, netting you an "elite" version of the post-apocalyptic RPG.

The absurdly lucrative business model that powers an MMO like World of Warcraft must be the ultimate temptation and source of envy to those publishing games in the more traditional vein. Whereas most transactions end once the game is purchased, consistent online universes have the player not only buy the game, but continue sending money month after month. Much like slipping on a patch of oil deposited on the driveway by your neighbor's recently discovered geyser, it's not a financial prospect you can easily ignore.

According to official newspaper Shanghai Securities News this weekend, Electronic Arts was said to have reached a deal with Chinese MMO provider The9 to purchase a 19% stake in the company for about US $200 million. The newspaper cites unnamed sources and say that the two companies had reached a basic agreement but makes no mention of whether or not the deal has been finalized.

EA spokesman Jeff Brown has told Reuters that "there is no signed agreement with The9," while declining to elaborate further. However, having no signed agreement currently does not mean that the company is not in the process of working toward the outlined deal. Could the report be wrong or is EA playing coy? We'll just have to wait and see.

The9 has the rights to operate World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and Hellgate: London to China. The paper also reported a deal that would allow The9 to run EA's FIFA Online in China. Such an agreement has been rumored since EA named Hubert Larenaudie, with strong ties to The9, as president of EA Asia.

See also:
Joystiq interview: Hoyt Ma, The9

[Via WoW Insider]

According to Planet Xbox 360, the latest Official Xbox Magazine dishes out what its editors believe to be the top 5 games being secretly made for the Xbox 360. More or less the list is a wish list of games that most of us would like to see make an appearance on our beloved console. Many of them have been rumored for quite some time, but it's a nice list nevertheless. Check it out after the break.

During an interview with Next Gen, Namco Bandai's Zach Karlsson speaks to the possibility of Hellgate: London arriving on the Xbox 360. Hellgate, for those who don't know, is sort of a hybrid shooter/MMO for PC. First of all, Karlsson notes that Namco Bandai is looking for a good multiplayer game to bring to consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3. He notes that the online space is essentially a platform in and of itself, thanks to the ease of portability between PC and 360. Next Gen then asks Karlsson if a 360 version of Hellgate is forthcoming. He doesn't confirm it, but states that it is very likely. Given the company's focus on the "online platform" and that EA -- the game's co-publisher -- typically extends its franchises as far as possible, it's definitely looking good.

[Thanks, Jonah Falcon]