Electronic Arts (or EA) has almost been around since the birth of the gaming industry, in the last decade or so, they’ve began to become on of the largest gaming publishers on the planet. We’ve all played their games, but what many don’t realize is that electronic arts is to gaming what a standard book publisher is to books, they have money, and a lot of it. This doesn’t mean they are always directly involved with the game itself, but as a major financier, they hold some sway, especially over smaller gaming companies that rely on their bulging teats for sustenance. But developers beware, for the milk from those tantalizing breasts may become the very poison that destroys your project from the inside out. EA’s business model seems to be similar to that of the underpants gnomes in southpark.

They have a tendency to push some games through their system quicker then the coffee they had that morning. This can result in buggy, unfinished games that the masses simply snatch up regardless. The sad thing is that this business model actually works out for the publisher, but not always for the developer. This is contrary to the Blizzard business model which involves developing a game, testing, tweaking it some more, testing, tweaking, until a few years later, they’ve turned that morning coffee into pure gold.

It is now time, dear friends, to tell you to sad tale of the publisher known as “Flagship Studios.” Flagship studios emerged after Diablo developer, Bill Roper, and many of his colleagues had a falling out with Blizzard North. Their pet project was “Hellgate: London.”

Hellgate was in many ways the 3d successor to Diablo II, though due to blizzard still owning the rights to that title, their only claim (and it was a big one) is that the game was designed by the same minds that created the Diablo series. This drew in the fans like mad, and really raised the hype for the game. Being a small company, they jumped on the E.A. bandwagon to fund their publishing.

Hellgate was a good looking game, there is no doubt about that. The premise and lore were also nothing to scoff at, this was certainly become a title to look out for. The game was designed to appeal to both the casual and hardcore through different gaming modes. It had MMO qualities, and an intense focus on small group hunting.

The game was set for an October 31st release date, right on haloween 2007. E.A. had decided to use the holiday and the theme of their game to their advantage, to boost sales. The beta was in full swing, and many players complained that the game simply was not ready for a full release, yet the game was released on schedule.

And a frenzy it did create, Hellgate was one of the most anticipated games of the year. Many sheep (including myself, and some friends I duped into buying the game) leapt on the opportunity and snapped up the game as if it had been handed to us by Jesus himself. Much to our disappointment, the game was not the second coming of Christ. It was hardly complete, and in the same condition that the beta left it.

Several game breaking bugs were released with this game, such as not being able to see your party members on the same map. The extremely rare items were dropping without stats, making them useless. Basic necessities such as shared character storage options and a mailbox / auction house system were completely missing. There were issues with memory leaks causing the game to frequently crash. The classes were terribly imbalanced; pvp didn’t even exist for most of the games life. The game was short and incomplete as well.

Despite the massive amount of bugs, this game was a hell of a lot of fun. We had entire network parties devoted to it, and once we got past the frustration of trying to get all our characters visible to each other and actually got to venture out and slaughter evil together, it was freaking awesome. This game has so much potential, but much of the gaming community could not forgive its problems, and subscriptions began to decline. Flagship was still a small studio and from what I could tell were working their asses off to get these bugs resolved. however the pace in doing so was extremely slow, costing them more subscriptions. There was still hope, but it was dwindling. Then, came the killing blow that simultaneously caused every sphincter at flagship studios to loosen:

That’s right, Blizzard pretty much ripped every bit of claim to fame right of out flagships tiny hands at the announcement of Diablo 3. The eyes of the fans had shifted onto a new title to build their hope in, to obsess about, to worship. Hellgate subscriptions continued to dwindle until flagship stopped accepting money from its users for this title, until they felt it was worthy of charging money for again (an awesome move from a players point of view).

In march of 2008, Flagship studios began to get financial backing from a bank so that they would no longer “rely upon a publishers investment.” Which can be pretty much interpreted as E.A. finishing its cigarette, rolling out of bed, and telling Flagship Studios to get the fuck out of its apartment. In an interview with Pczone Magazine Bill Roper stated the following:

“The game would certainly have benefited from a couple of more months in the oven,but we didn’t have the ability to do so.”

Translated:

Bill Roper also stated:

“The challenges of an independent game studio are drastically different than those owned by a publisher, We’re fortunate that the online nature of the game has allowed us to continue to fix bugs, add content, and respond directly to our players’ wants and needs.”

Translated:

In august 2008, Hellgate: London was sold to HanbitSoft (the Blizzard of the far east) and Flagship Studios announced that the game servers would go offline for good on February 1st, 2009. Hellgate was a vibrant young lady, born on American soil, and full of so much promise and potential. But she fell in with the wrong crowd, and soon found herself alone, abused, and drug addicted. Only to be picked up by a horny Japanese businessman and carried across the seas never to be seen on US soil again. Hellgate London was a tragedy of epic proportions.

Had E.A. followed the Blizzard model, perhaps things might have turned out different for Flagship studios. Hellgate would have seen a release in late 2008 or 2009, been a wild success, and Bill Roper would have slept on a mountain of tits every night, instead of attempting to birth another game with great potiential.

This is not the only company to fall prey to Electronic Arts. Does anybody remember “Wing Commander” or “Ultima Online”? both classic games that helped form the gaming world into what it is today, and these games were developed by a company named “Origin Systems.” After Electronic Arts acquired the company, Ultima Online was released, and the game was wildly successful and had a huge impact on online gaming. So after Origin released its successor “Ultima IX” and the title bombed. E.A. issued a direct “Fuck You” to the company and cancelled all of its current projects, including “Ultima Online 2”, “Privateer/Wing Commander Online” and “Harry Potter Online.”

All it took is one failure for E.A. to cut the rope. The company sputtered along mainly to maintain Ultima Online and develop one final Ultima project that was scrapped when E.A. stripped the company in 2004. Another sad end to an era in gaming. Ultima online still breathes its ancient breath into this world, and is a grim shadow of its former developer.

Is there Hope for E.A? One could argue that they are putting out some quality titles, and that is true. In 2007, Bioware succumbed to the Iron Grip of Electronic Arts, yet they have done very well for themselves so far! It could be argued that Bioware was a strong enough company to hold its own against this demanding publisher. Bioware is still working on some extremely promising titles: “Dragon Age: Origins”, “Mass Effect 2” and the “Knights of the Old Republic” MMO. Will these games be a success under their new publisher? Or will Bioware suffer a fate similar to that of Origin and Flagship Studios? Bioware is only under their second year, and it seems to take 5-10 years the EA cancer to take effect, i guess time will tell on this one. Our hopes are prayers are with you Bioware, may you grow and prosper under this fierce titan.

Rest in peace, Flagship and Origin.