Hellgate: London Celebrates Success in Korea

Flagship Studios sent over a press release this morning announcing that Hellgate: London has become “the most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years.”

Flagship Studios’ Hellgate: London Celebrates The Most Successful Online Korean Launch In Three Years

San Francisco, CA (April 11th, 2008) – Flagship Studios today announced that its action role-playing game Hellgate: London has become the most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta test. Hellgate: London is the first online game in over three years to use a monthly subscription business model.

After launching the open beta on January 15th, Hellgate: London quickly rose to the ninth most played online game, fifth most popular RPG and most popular online beta game in PC Cafes*, with over 1 million accounts. Hellgate: London was released commercially on February 22nd, and achieved record sales in its first week of presales.

(To become the most successful launch in Korea for over three years is an incredible achievement,) said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. (This milestone wouldn’t have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our publishing partner, Hanbitsoft, and our dedicated community in Korea. We look forward to expanding the Hellgate universe and building upon this success in the future.)

(Flagship Studios are well aware of how the Asian market operates very differently to the Western territories) said Alex Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft, (By listening to players’ feedback and through constant updates to the game, Hellgate: London will continue to be an incredible success throughout Asia.)

Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies, and events. Whether online or off, a player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.

For more information please visit the official Hellgate: London site at www.hellgatelondon.com
*According to Gametrics and Game Report

About Flagship Studios
Flagship Studios is a creator of innovative entertainment software, designing games that focus on ease of play, replayability, and fun. The studio was formed in 2003 by former executives and developers from Blizzard North® and represents the creators of the worldwide, best-selling Diablo® franchise. With members that are renowned within the gaming industry, Flagship Studios and its Flagship Seattle division embody a team that has worked together for over a decade and have numerous #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards to their credit. For more information about Flagship Studios log onto www.flagshipstudios.com

About Hanbitsoft
HanbitSoft, established in 1999, is one of the largest online game publishers in Korea as well as in Asia. After establishing itself as the No. 1 publisher in Korean PC game market, HanbitSoft has continuously invested in developing and publishing excellent and promising online games. HanbitSoft has broad portfolio of online games ranging from casual games to high-end MMORPG’s, either developed in-house or by external development studios such as Studio Mars (Neo Steam) IMC Games (Granado Espada), Flagship Studios (Hellgate: London, Mythos), etc. Most of its games already have been introduced in the Asian market as well as in the North and South American market. For example, PangYa, a fantasy-themed online golf game, is now in commercial service in more than 12 countries including Japan, USA and Brazil. Now, HanbitSoft is focusing on pioneering overseas online game markets in an effort to be a global leading publisher.