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]

It turns out it’s not all doom, gloom, and PR disasters for Hellgate: London in Korea. In fact, the action RPG has become the most successful online game to launch in Korea in the past three years, with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta and “record sales” in its first week of presales.

“To become the most successful launch in Korea for over three years is an incredible achievement,” said Bill Roper, renaissance fair performer and CEO of Flagship Studios. “This milestone wouldn’t have been possible for us to achieve without the incredible support of our publishing partner, Hanbitsoft, and our dedicated community in Korea. We look forward to expanding the Hellgate universe and building upon this success in the future.”

If subscription-based Hellgate: London can find an audience in Korea, then the sky’s the limit for Mythos, Flagship Seattle’s hugely superior dungeon crawler that employs the free-to-play, microtransaction-heavy business model most Koreans MMOs use.

Hellgate is the Most Successful Online Korean Launch in 3 Years [IncGamers via Blue's News]