In a press release this morning, Flagship Studios bragged about Hellgate: London’s success in Korea, claiming the game was the ninth most-played online game and the most successful new game to launch in the country in the last three years. And while both of those statements may have been true at one time, Flagship ombudsman Flagshipped.com has proof that it’s no longer the case.

The above chart, taken from a Korean site that tracks the games Korean gamers play using software installed on nearly every Internet café’s PC, shows that while Hellgate: London did in fact have a successful launch, the number of Korean players playing the game has fallen off dramatically since then. At present, it’s currently the twenty-fourth most-played online game in Korea.

To make matters worse, the game’s popularity has been rapidly decreasing throughout the rest of the world as well. In fact, based on the following comparison between the webtraffic to Diabloii.net and Hellgatelondon.com, it appears the two games maintain a mutually exclusive relationship, with many gamers choosing to play Blizzard’s nine-year-old action RPG over Flagship’s new one:

Additionally, Flagship recently disabled Hellgate: London’s /who command, preventing players from seeing the total number of people playing the game at any one time, further suggesting that Hellgate: London’s playerbase is continuing to shrink with each passing day.

Hellgate in Korea - Failure in the form of a chart [Flagshipped via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Later this week, Flagship Studios will offer up a beta version of the Hellgate: London single player 1.2 patch, which “will match the content, balance changes, and bug fixes found in the Multiplayer version of Patch 1.2.” ‘Better late than never’ seems to be Flagship’s mantra when it comes to Hellgate: London.

The developer also plans to start testing the upcoming 1.3 multiplayer patch soon. While the exact patch notes have not yet been published, Flagship promises 1.3 will introduce the Shared Stash (a feature originally promised for launch), gambling vendors, and an increase to the amount of money a single character can carry. In other words, it’s been five months since the game’s release and Flagship is still trying to match the content Diablo 2 shipped with nine years ago.

I know it’s fun to be down on Flagship and their unending stream of very public screw-ups, but… Well, but nothing. It’s just fun to be down on Flagship.

Patch 1.2 Coming To Single Player, Patch 1.3 Nearing Test Center [Hellgatelondon.com via Gaming Today]