You Got Flagshipped
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Flagshipped.com has insider source
- August
- 18
6:31 pm Hellgate London
Yes, this is the news I was talking about. We received some emails from a dark shadowy figure claiming to be a former FSS employee with intimate knowledge of the ongoings there. We were skeptical at first with this and there will be more news to come of it all (unless we scare him away). Take this with a grain of salt if you’d like, but I believe the source.
First the source tells us that FSS DID NOT PAY anyone out of their pockets. The 30 days salary line was a load of garbage. People are still unpaid for PTO (paid time off). The source also tells us that FSS creditors will get paid before the employees do. Here is the letter that was emailed to the employees.
July 20, 2008 To all former Flagship/Ping0 Employees: The Board of Directors regrets to inform you that the final payroll has not yet been paid out as of today. We are doing everything we can to get the final payroll paid to our employees. At this time it is likely that the company will file for bankruptcy. In that case, employee claims will be the top priority on the list of debts of the company. You will receive your W-2 after year end. If your address changes between now and then, please contact ********** at ***-***-**** to let them know your new address. Sincerely, Flagship Studios/Ping0
The source also tells us that at FSS founding parties, instead of talking about future gameplay or art, they’d look at luxury car catalogs to see what kind of things they’d get with their money. The source also tells us that individually the brass there weren’t all bad but they played off each others worst traits, ignoring problems, self satisfied and appointing the least qualified to key positions in the company.
This explains quite a bit in my opinion, and as I said you can take take this with a grain of salt if you’d like, but we stand by our source.
There will be more to come of this I hope…..there are many questions to be asked and many that we hope to have answered. On that note I leave you with what sold us that we have a legitimate source here. The scanned copy of the termination letter issued to the employees on July 11, 2008. Stay tuned guys…we hope to have more info coming in the near future.
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25 comments
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Posted by Agamemnon, on August 18th, 2008, at 7:51 pm. Why am I not surprised any more. |
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Posted by Wolfetone, on August 18th, 2008, at 7:53 pm. First image isn’t loading for me. I MUST SEE THE IMAGE! |
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Posted by Delacroix, on August 18th, 2008, at 8:12 pm. According to http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1020/ |
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Posted by Andrea Lannister, on August 18th, 2008, at 8:24 pm. This doesn’t surprise me one bit. |
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Posted by Necx, on August 18th, 2008, at 8:42 pm. ROFL. To bad there isnt anyone really left just a few last hope fanboys and some wayward haters. ah well be funny to photoshop that image and put “You’ve been FLAGSHIPPED!!” on it. Andrea Lannister replied on August 18, 2008 http://i35.tinypic.com/n3qn9i.jpg Here you go. Agamemnon replied on August 18, 2008 Ha, I was in the middle of making my own as well. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v519/Agamemnon582bc/HellGate/flagshippedletter.jpg qim replied on August 19, 2008 Yours is better. :-D soydeedo replied on August 19, 2008 LOL, I have to agree. =) Gaylight Run replied on August 20, 2008 yes, agamemnon, i normally consider you to be slightly on the agitated side, but your re-imagining of the memo is infinitely funnier than the others |
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Posted by Andrea Lannister, on August 18th, 2008, at 9:09 pm. Nothing surprises me anymore. |
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Posted by Origami, on August 18th, 2008, at 9:46 pm. “The source also tells us that FSS creditors will get paid before the employees do.” You and your source should learn the law. Secured creditors before employees before other unsecured creditors. It’s not determined at Bill’s whim. Upon winding up order of priority is: 1. unpaid tax 2. secured creditors 3. liquidator’s/administrator’s fees 4. employees 5. all other unsecured creditors 6. anything left goes to shareholders Gapes replied on August 18, 2008 the issue is them claiming to have paid everyone out of pocket initially |
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Posted by Mythor, on August 18th, 2008, at 10:21 pm. I think I see where the confusion may have come from. In the interview in the post just before this, Bill says that the last pay check they paid came out of the Founders’ pockets - NOT that they paid the last pay check DUE out of their pockets. Note that that is just my own speculation/guess, but it seems to fit and the worker bees wouldn’t necessarily know where the funds came from for their pay checks, so… Sturdy replied on August 19, 2008 I find this to be the most likely answer. The last 30 days of pay was probably funded, but no employees of a company facing bankruptcy ever get paid severance. Most of the time secured creditors don’t even get it all back and come to agreements for a %. If there is anything left, then “administrator fees” magically suck up anything left. I do find it unethical they accepted founders (including my own) accounts when they knew they had a bad business model and revenue vs cost ratios that were unsustainable. ShadowOfADoubt replied on August 19, 2008 Well, not to be cruel, but there were plenty of warning light - no warning sirens - going off indicating that this game would fail. Even during the beta this was evident. There were a lot of critics right from the get go and you didn’t listen to them. It’s good that you think for yourself and made your own decision, but didn’t you wonder why so many people vehemently hated not only this game but Bill Roper himself upon launch? I would have done more research before forking over any money in what seems like a shady money grab. Sturdy replied on August 20, 2008 To be fair, there isn’t a game coming out of beta without issues. There were warning lights, but I didn’t really expect the total bomb that was dropped. I had the founders pretty much from day 1 with a friend, but the game was never as diablo3 as was promised in the pre-game hype. I think any game that fails you can look back and say “I told you so”, heck you could have done the same thing with WoW from its beta or first couple weeks of server issues. |
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Posted by SiXX, on August 19th, 2008, at 7:49 am. All is because FSS , or to be more specific Roper’s ignorance. |
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Posted by Crazychop, on August 19th, 2008, at 4:28 pm. |
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Posted by ShadowOfADoubt, on August 19th, 2008, at 7:06 pm. I remember way back in the Beta when I made that long post criticizing the design from a game developer’s point of view. It ended up getting tons of posts and I think it went over a hundred pages. There were a handful of people who could already see the game’s inevitable failure. However, for every one of these, there were about 10 others who wildly exclaimed that “it’s just a beta” or that “I’m asking for too much”. Anyways, I’m generally not one to dwell on things but after coming here and following up on all of flagship’s fails, I feel an immense smug satisfaction that somehow, justice was actually served. I understand a lot of founders got totally ripped off by this and feel very hurt. While I sympathize, I don’t really feel that sorry for them. We told them plenty of times what’s wrong with the game and how foolish they’d have to be to support it. When people willingly wear blindfolds and walk into a fire, even feeling the heat beforehand, they deserve no pity when they get seared. BTW, good job documenting all this stuff! Mountain Man replied on August 20, 2008 Yep, I was one of those “It’s just a beta. Flagship knows what they’re doing.” banner wavers, and I’m not particularly proud to admit it. I wanted so badly to like Hellgate: London that I naively took Flagship at their word up to and including their “our in-house build is weeks ahead” lie. Thankfully, I didn’t spring for a Founder’s account even though I was slightly tempted to. Then I got my retail copy and finally realized what a bunch of incompetent and dishonest hacks they were, and it went downhill from there. I, too, share your satisfaction in watching this company go down in a blaze of shame. |
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Posted by SpiritThief, on August 20th, 2008, at 8:57 am. Indeed, I’ve enjoyed reading this site over time and following up on the disaster as it unfolded before us, even long after giving up on the game. What will become of this website? Hopefully they can find other uses for it when FS:S news dries up. |
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Posted by Reddimus, on August 26th, 2008, at 4:59 am. “The source also tells us that individually the brass there weren’t all bad but they played off each others worst traits, ignoring problems, self satisfied and appointing the least qualified to key positions in the company.” I’ve been thinking this ever since Taylor went off on Spetznaz in a chatroom about him insulting his friends, naming Bill. It’s a bit to read into yea, but they’ve always conveyed that kind of atmosphere when any employees were talking about the work environment. Could they have ever gotten anything done? |
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Camu replied on August 18, 2008
Its not loading for me either. I must see the image as well!
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Gapes replied on August 18, 2008
there is no 1st image…just the termination letter…i flagshipped my own post
sorry guys!
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