"I think that people had incredibly high expectations that we simply didn't meet", Flagship Studios' CEO Bill Roper admitted in an interview with PC Zone regarding Hellgate: London.
Hellgate: London was surrounded by tons of hype and anticipation, mainly due to the fact that the team behind it was responsible for the Diablo series. Unfortunately Hellgate: London ended up experiencing a rocky launch last year, and was blighted by major bugs.
"...we simply tried to do too much with the game", Roper says in retrospect. "Vista, DirectX 10, being both a single-player boxed product and a multiplayer online game, a simultaneous launch in seven languages across Europe, the US and South East Asia, and creating our own fully-featured online destination on top of all that."
The CEO says Flagship will take responsibility for not getting enough testing done while working towards its committed ship date for Hellgate.
He adds, that the issues when the game launched were less related to the total months of testing, "which were numerous", and had more to do with the vast number of issues that came up right at the end.
"The game would certainly have benefited from a couple of more months in the oven," Roper admits, "but we didn't have the ability to do so.
"The challenges of an independent game studio are drastically different than those owned by a publisher," he continues. "We're fortunate that the online nature of the game has allowed us to continue to fix bugs, add content, and respond directly to our players' wants and needs.
"We'll keep pushing on all fronts with Hellgate: London", Roper promises.
PC Zone magazine's full interview with Bill Roper can be read in its latest issue, #192, which goes on sale this Thursday, February 28.