N'Gai Croal
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Sep 11, 2007 12:38 AM
Flagship Studios Ceo Bill Roper's Hellgate: London caricature
In Part I
of our four-part Q&A with Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper,
conducted at the January Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we
discussed the premise for the developer's first title, Hellgate:
London, and its extensive plans for the use of randomly created content
throughout the game. Parts II-IV come from a June phone conversation we
had with Roper that took place after some grumbling began
to brew as a result of Flagship's announcement of a two-tiered system
for Hellgate, in which people who paid the "Elite" $9.95 monthly
subscription fee would get not only regular content updates, but also
additional character slots, extra item storage, visual distinctiveness
from non-subscribers, and more.
Having long been curious about
the potential of subscription-based online games like Phantasy Star
Online whose structure deviates from that of traditional large-scale
massively multiplayer online games, we decided to reconnect with Roper
to discuss Hellgate's creative and financial model, which we think,
should it become successful, will be one of the most influential
developments in the industry in recent years. In today's installment,
Roper clears the air about Flagship's two-tiered system and explains
why he believes non-subscribers will still get a great experience when
Hellgate ships next month.
We last spoke in January. Give me an update on where things are with the game.
Sure.
We actually, just yesterday, started our friends and family alpha, so
we sent out about our first hundred invitations to people that are
actually friends and family or people that we've done a lot of beta
testing with over the years. It's kind of the first generalized acid test of the game: our downloader, our installer; the
whole shebang. Now we are just working on finishing up a few things, a
lot of polish, balance, tweaking; you know, making sure things work
'cause we are both single-player and then the multiplayer. So we've
been content locked for quite a while and we're definitely on that push
towards release.
There's been a lot of discussion online about the
business model of the game. Going back to the genesis of Hellgate:
London, at what point did you know that you wanted to go with a sort of
hybrid model: a base game that would have standard PC game retail
pricing, and then an optional premium subscription model on top of it
as well.
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