Flagship Studios is an American computer game company . It was founded by Bill Roper in collaboration with Max Shefer, Eric Shefer and David Brevik, formerly high-ranking Blizzard North employees who are developing the Diablo series of games [1] . They began working together as a team in 1993 when they founded Condor Studios , later acquired by Blizzard Entertainment and renamed Blizzard North. Flagship Studios was founded after the dismissal of part of Blizzard North employees due to disagreements between Blizzard Entertainment and Vivendi , which were caused by Vivendi's doubts about some of Blizzard North's projects [2] . The main platform for which Flagship Studios developed the game is PC .
| Flagship studios | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type of | Private company |
| Base | 2003 |
| Abolished | 2008 |
| Reason for Abolition | Bankruptcy |
| Location |  USA : San Francisco |
| Key figures | Bill Roper (CEO and Co-Founder) Max Schaefer (Executive Director and Co-Founder) Kenneth Williams (CFO and Co-Founder) |
| Industry | Computer and video game industry |
| Products | Hellgate: london Mythos |
| Site | |
To integrate into the international market, partnerships were concluded with Namco Hometek and HanbitSoft [3] [4] .
Flagship Studios was declared bankrupt in August 2008 [5] .
Content
Games
Hellgate: London
Announced in March 2005, in an article by PC Gamer . The game was released on October 31, 2007 . Before that, it existed as an unknown game in the form of concept art. Presented as an RPG, very similar to Diablo, however, unlike it, it was three-dimensional and it had character control in the first person. The game takes place in post-apocalyptic London, which was captured by demons, and illustrates the struggle between demons and people. The developers focused on the fact that the game will not be an ordinary shooter, it will have more RPG components, such as quests and a greater dependence of the character’s fighting condition on characteristics than on the player’s skills and reflexes. Another feature of the game was the random generation of levels, which is usually not typical for games with such a perspective and scale. Although the expectations from the game were very high, as former Blizzard Entertainment employees were involved in its development, and it became a bestseller (with few exceptions) [6] , however, it received conflicting reviews in the gaming press and complaints from many players about its incompleteness , which was subsequently recognized by Bill Roper [7] . At the moment, the company does not own intellectual property in relation to the game [5] .
Mythos
Mythos was developed by Flagship Studios under the name Flagship Seattle. It was a Diablo-style MMORPG game designed to test the network technology that was a component of Hellgate: London . It was planned that it would be free for downloading and playing, although until the end its financial model was not defined [8] . After being fired from Flagship Studios, intellectual property in Mythos was transferred to Hanbitsoft as collateral for loans. Also, the chief designer of the game, Travis Baldry, and the co-founder of Flagship Studios, Max Schäfer, subsequently founded the gaming company Runic Games along with 14 former employees of Flagship Seattle [9] . Runic Games developed a similar to Diablo RPG called Torchlight [10] .
See also
- Blizzard north
- Blizzard entertainment
Links
Notes
- ↑ Flagship Studios Opens with a Splash . Flagship Studios (November 22, 2003). Date of appeal May 31, 2010.
- ↑ Robert Howarth. Flagship Studios Interview . IGN (October 27, 2003). Date of treatment July 16, 2008. Archived April 27, 2012.
- ↑ Namco Partners with Flagship Studios
- ↑ HanbitSoft, FSS, and Hellgate: London
- ↑ 1 2 Green, Jeff. Bill Roper speaks out at last . 1UP.com. Date of treatment May 31, 2010. Archived February 12, 2012.
- ↑ Dave Spohn. Hellgate: London Interview . About.com (November 13, 2007). Date of treatment July 17, 2008. Archived April 27, 2012.
- ↑ Stuart Bishop. We ballsed things up with Hellgate, Roper admits unopened . CVG (February 25, 2008). Date of treatment July 17, 2008. Archived April 27, 2012.
- ↑ Tim Surette. Mythos detailed, will be free . GameSpot (March 22, 2007). Date of treatment July 17, 2008. Archived April 27, 2012.
- ↑ Suzie Ford. Runic Games Interview . WarCry (August 11, 2008). Date of treatment August 11, 2008. Archived April 27, 2012.
- ↑ Press - Torchlight - Runic Games . Runic Games. Date of treatment May 31, 2010. Archived April 27, 2012.