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HanbitSoft pays dearly for the price of supporting Hellgate
- May
- 21
5:34 pm Hellgate London
Thanks to Syl for bringing this to our attention.
An article in the Korea Times has surfaced with the dire news that HanbitSoft has sold 2/3’s of its company to a relatively unknown company due to “the companies sharing the same vision.” Riiight. Here are some highlights of the article:
“HanbitSoft CEO Kim Young-man on Monday sold two thirds of his shares to a relatively unknown game company named T3 Entertainment, making it the new largest shareholder of Hanbit.
Kim, who founded Hanbit in 1999 as a local distributor of hit game “StarCraft,” said he will remain as the chairman for a while. But when reporters asked him about Hanbit’s future on Wednesday, he passively handed over the questions to Kim Ki-young, the chief executive of T3.
‘I decided to sell the shares because the two companies share the same vision of becoming a leader in the global game market,’ the outgoing CEO said in a press conference held on Wednesday.
The semi-retirement of the Hanbit founder shocked people in the gaming world because of the dedication and contribution he made to the computer gaming industry. Hanbit is one of the founding members of the Korea e-Sports Association and Kim served as the chairman of the organization in 2001 and 2004.
As the next step, Kim decided to finance a massive game project called “Hellgate: London,” which was developed by the same team that created “StarCraft.” He expected it would be a new milestone of Korean game industry’s history. But the new game didn’t do very well, yet, and Hanbit recorded a 7.2 billion won loss last year [approximately $6,931,741.68 USD].
Now having yielded about two thirds of his shares to the newcomers from T3, Kim showed that he no longer has the same power he used to have.
When a reporter asked whether there will be downsizing of the organization, the old Hanbit boss said the company will need more manpower, not downsizing. But an executive of T3 immediately rebutted his remark by saying ‘T3 aims to have a small but strong organization. We will reduce the organization where there is a need.‘ ”
Hellgate has a new feature; the power to destroy other companies. Sorry SEA Hellgaters, it doesn’t look like the future is very bright at all for you guys.
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23 comments
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Posted by Delacroix, on May 21st, 2008, at 7:07 pm. Heh, HanbitSoft has been Flagshipped! |
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Posted by Aerows, on May 21st, 2008, at 7:59 pm. Whoa, that’s not good news at all for the SEA players. Given that they are now banning people for even mentioning the SEA players, I guess they certainly won’t be getting any support now. Way to go, Flagship, you are bringing everyone involved with you down, too. I wonder how “Rock Star” Roper feels knowing he’s killing off his partners’ businesses along with his own? It takes a very special individual to destroy both their own business and others too. I wonder if they can be sued for something like that? It isn’t as though purchasers of the game would consider suing, because the chances of getting anything out of a class action law suit over something like HG:L would be nil. Failure to keep promises to business partners and causing them to also lose money could potentially lead to court. It might not result in much but the negative publicity would certainly not be good for FSS. Mountain Man replied on May 22, 2008 ‘I wonder how “Rock Star” Roper feels knowing he’s killing off his partners’ businesses along with his own?’ Honestly, I doubt he even recognizes his own complicity. He already blames the customers instead of his own company’s incompetence for Hellgate: London’s lack of success, and I doubt he’ll take any blame here, though I have little doubt that Hanbitsoft only bankrolled so much of the game because Roper promised untold riches from Founders and subscribers. |
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Posted by Andrea, on May 21st, 2008, at 9:28 pm. Ah, the drama never ends. I wonder what this means for Hellgate: London and Mythos. With HanbitSoft in the tank and new management taking over, it’s curious to see how the new company will handle the further development of Hellgate: London. |
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Posted by Radio Babylon, on May 21st, 2008, at 9:31 pm. “Hellgate has a new feature; the power to destroy other companies.” if only it had the power to destroy FSS and that toad roper. |
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Posted by StreetCleaner, on May 21st, 2008, at 9:37 pm. lmao classic. I wonder how much they actually funded to FSS. |
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Posted by Mr. Furley, on May 21st, 2008, at 9:40 pm. Roper may be responsible for the crappiest game in ages, but he may be the smartest man in the world. He suckered the players out of $$$ for his game. He probably got a bunch of $$$ from HanbitSoft. He even convinced some bank in the US to give him $$$. How can so many people fall victim to this guy? I don’t get it. |
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Posted by catman, on May 21st, 2008, at 10:10 pm. The sad part is they probably think from all this that the action rpg genre is simply extinct instead of the fact they made a crappy game, released it crappy, and nickel dimed everyone. Judging by mythos turning into an actual mmorpg with a persistant world it seems they think people dont want action rpg anymore… sigh… |
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Posted by Andrea, on May 22nd, 2008, at 12:11 am. How to get rich in 3 steps, by Bill Roper 1. Come up with a single page document in 72pt font that says “WE ARE THE CREATORS OF DIABLO. WE WANT TO MAKE AN ONLINE ACTION RPG THAT ALSO FEATURES DEMONS.” and show it to interested investors. 2. ??? 3. PROFIT! Project_Xii replied on May 22, 2008 “Hanbit recorded a 7.2 billion won loss last year [approximately $6,931,741.68 USD].” Holy crap! I remember saying once before that “the evil of Hellgate is like a virus that infects everyone, ruining lives”. I never realised how close to the truth I was. Yikes. I almost feel sorry for them. It looks like a smug sense of self confidence, an expensive suit and claims to the success of Diablo can really sucker in anyone. Kamen Rider Bigger replied on May 22, 2008 I don’t know which is more depressing. A. The high odds of that ACTUALLY being the original thought process B. The fact that IT WORKED. |
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Posted by Andvari, on May 22nd, 2008, at 6:43 am. To be fair, it appears ‘HanbitSoft Inc’ performance has been quite volatile and certainly fairly disastrous in the last 5 years: Net Profit / Loss (Won) The evidence to which Hellgate: London is significantly responsible for the recent turn of events is somewhat circumstantial. However, behind this press statement there certainly appears to be the implicit suggestion that the CEO was hoping for Hellgate: London to turn around the company’s misfortunes. Oooops! |
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Posted by Strangelove, on May 22nd, 2008, at 7:44 am. I doubt that Namco or EA will feel the draught, but i guess the days of Flagship as a company are nearing the end. Project_Xii replied on May 23, 2008 *stands with conductors wand poised in the air, victory ochestra quivering with anticipation* |
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Posted by Journey of The SEA Hellgate Players: The Saga Continues at You Got Flagshipped, on May 31st, 2008, at 3:39 am. […] For a recap, or those new to the program, the follow entries related to this certain HG:L related fiasco would be… HanbitSoft pays dearly for the price of supporting Hellgate […] |
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Posted by stormkeep, on July 11th, 2008, at 1:52 pm. LOL, blaming HGL for problems at Hanbitsoft is a bit overboard…they ain’t been doing so well long before HGL was even though of. |
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Posted by Flagship has been flagshipped? at You Got Flagshipped, on July 11th, 2008, at 2:43 pm. […] And if it was just a hoax from a news site, why would Flagship be angry with HanbitSoft’s new management if this was just a lie? We’ve also been getting some supposed secret tip offs that […] |
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Posted by Time to make things more confusing! at You Got Flagshipped, on July 31st, 2008, at 1:19 pm. […] Now, however, our old buddies at T3/HanbitSoft (If you’re confused as to who T3 is, read here) are surfacing up again with new news, as reported by Gamasutra. Here’s the interesting bit […] |
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Anonymous replied on May 21, 2008
How does this really affect the SEA players? They’re under the jurisdiction of IAHGames, not HanbitSoft.
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SEA citizen replied on May 21, 2008
FSS does not deal with IAHGames directly, IAHGames deals with Hanbitsoft so IAHGames is considered under HanbitSoft, and yes this will affect SEA players.
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Vortex replied on May 21, 2008
Hanbit controls the content patches.
IAH has a working patch,they are just not legally entitled to apply it on the server.
And since Hanbit is losing money,its more unlikely that SEA will never ever get proper support for its servers,since we know FSS is completely abandoned the SEA support ,in the previous post.
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Valtonis replied on May 22, 2008
IAH got the distribution from Habitsoft.
so everything goes through Hanbitsoft.
it’s FSS>>Hanbitsoft>>>IAH
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