Flagship Studios

This article is about the American company. For the Japanese company, see Flagship (company).

Flagship Studios was an American video game developer founded by Bill Roper along with Max Schaefer [it], Erich Schaefer [it], and David Brevik, former Blizzard North executives. The latter three had been collaborating since their 1993 founding of Condor Studios, later renamed upon acquisition by Blizzard Entertainment. At Blizzard North, the Schaefers and Brevik created the Diablo franchise, while Roper oversaw development of the Warcraft and StarCraft series.

Flagship Studios

Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	2003
Defunct	August 2008
Fate	Dissolved
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, United States
Key people	Bill Roper (CEO and co-founder) Max Schaefer (COO and co-founder) Kenneth Williams (CFO and co-founder)
Products	Hellgate: London Mythos

Flagship Studios had a partnership with Namco Hometek and HanbitSoft to cover an international market for game marketing and distribution. The company dissolved in August 2008 because of financial troubles.

Founding

In June 2003, Blizzard North executives Bill Roper, Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik emailed Blizzard Entertainment's then-parent company, Vivendi Games, threatening to resign unless provided financial protections and communication on Vivendi's intent to sell Blizzard.^[1] Vivendi accepted their resignations effective immediately, spurring them to found Flagship Studios and recruit similarly disgruntled Blizzard North employees.^[2][3]

Titles

Hellgate: London

In March 2005, following months of teasing concept art for an unknown game, Flagship Studios' first title named Hellgate: London was announced via an exclusive article in the computer magazine PC Gamer. It was formally released October 31, 2007 as an action role-playing game (RPG) in the same vein as the Diablo games, but with the twist of being played in 3D, primarily from a first-person perspective. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic demon-infested London, following a great battle between demons and humans. Unlike regular first-person shooters, the game features RPG content in the form of e.g. random quests, and where a character's combat efficiency is more determined by statistics than player reflexes. In addition, the game features random levels, uncommon in games of similar perspective and scale. Expectations from the game were high, as earlier games the developers have been involved in, especially titles from Blizzard Entertainment, have become best sellers with few exceptions.^[4] However, it received mixed reviews, and complaints by many gamers that the game was released in an unfinished state, which was later admitted by CEO Bill Roper.^[5] The company no longer owns the intellectual property rights to the game.^[6]

Mythos

Mythos was a game under development by a division of Flagship Studios commonly called "Flagship Seattle". An online RPG, similar in style to Diablo, the game was used to test the networking technology behind the multiplayer component of Hellgate: London. It was expected to be free to play and download, although the financing model was never set in stone.^[7] Following the layoffs at Flagship Studios due to the financial issues, the intellectual property rights over Mythos have now been claimed by the Korean company Hanbitsoft, which was offered as collateral for loans earlier in the year. Mythos lead designer Travis Baldree and Flagship Studios co-founder Max Schaefer have subsequently formed the new game company Runic Games along with the remaining staff of 14 behind the game from Flagship Seattle.^[8] Runic Games developed the Diablo-like action RPG Torchlight.^[9] They have since left Runic to found Double Damage Games.

Closure

On August 15, 2008, co-founder Max Schaefer announced that the studio had shut down.^[10] Max and Erich Schaefer then formed Runic Games, which dissolved in November 2017.^[11]