From Hellgatewiki.com

Ping0 is Flagship's new online game hosting and distribution service. Ping0 (Ping-zero. Get it?) will host Hellgate: London's online gaming service, serve as a hub for patch and upgrade distribution, and function as a digital marketplace where games by any number of companies can be purchased and downloaded.

While working on the plans and technologies required to bring Hellgate: London into the MMO space, we felt the best chance to meet the demands of our game and our players would be to create our own online destination. This meant more than creating the technology, but also building up the infrastructure and coordinating customer service. Ping0 offers a unique combination of talents and experience in the realms of online gaming and publishing to offer a seamless, simple to use, stable and secure environment for gamers.
--Bill Roper, October 2006, TVG Interview

Ping0 Announced

Ping0 was born with a press release in August 2006].

Flagship Studios and HanbitSoft, Inc. have announced a new joint venture called Ping0, LLC which will manage all aspects of hosting online games. Ping0 recently entered an agreement with NAMCO BANDAI Games America to digitally distribute, host and manage the online component to Flagship's highly anticipated title, Hellgate: London.

"Supporting Hellgate: London is just the beginning for Ping0," said Bill Roper, CEO and co-founder of Flagship Studios. "We fully expect Ping0 to both handle the online components and digitally distribute all of Flagship's future titles. The company will also provide publishers and developers that want to bring their games online with a solution proven by one of the most highly anticipated titles in the industry."

The joint venture between Flagship Studios and HanbitSoft represents the strong commitment to online gaming shown by both companies from a development and business standpoint.

"Through Ping0, we will offer a turn-key solution for developers and publishers developing online games, from sophisticated MMOs to casual games," said HanbitSoft Executive Vice President Tony Park.

"Additionally, we are extremely excited about bringing our own titles to new markets through this joint venture."

The online component created by Ping0 is designed to take full advantage of the latest technologies while offering a solution for bringing many different styles of games into the online arena. The company also provides hosting and management solutions and will be the group responsible for creating the online gaming destination for Hellgate: London.

Ping0 is a full-service online gaming destination, and a service backbone. It will host Hellgate Online, and can support similar services for other games, as well as handling digital distribution.

Our infrastructure and software will allow us to distribute everything from patches and upgrades to existing titles that Ping0 services all the way to complete games. Our vision is to act as a way for companies to bring their games to the massive online market, through digital distribution and providing both software and hardware solutions. This includes hosting for other publishers, such as what we are doing for Namco Bandai Games with Hellgate: London, to acting as a publisher, in which Ping0 will acquire rights to games from developers and provide all of the services a current digital publisher does, including distribution, promotions and marketing.--Bill Roper, October 2006, TVG Interview

Flagship hopes to use Hellgate: London to show that Ping0 can stand up under the stress of launching an AAA title, and leverage that success into a business model they could pitch to other game publishers. They do not intend Ping0 as a service for just their own games; Flagship wants to host and promote and and support the online aspect of other titles, up to and including MMORPGs.

American Hosting Location

Information from a September 2006 press release.

Flagship have now sorted out their online hosting for the North American market and Online Game Services Inc. (OGSi) has been given the honor of providing the dedicated hosting.

Ping0, the recently announced joint venture between Flagship Studios and South Korea's HanbitSoft, Inc. has announced that it has selected San Jose-based Online Game Services Inc. (OGSi) to provide dedicated hosting services for Flagship Studio's highly anticipated online role-playing game, Hellgate: London, and other titles.

"We evaluated a number of options for Hellgate: London's infrastructure," said Peter Hu, CTO of Ping0, "but in the end, we were convinced that OGSi demonstrates a singular commitment to quality and a deep understanding of online game hosting. The flexibility that the OGSi business model offers us is also extremely attractive."

Hellgate: London is one of the most highly anticipated online game titles in the industry.

"We are thrilled to have been chosen as the infrastructure provider for Ping0 and Hellgate: London," said OGSi's CEO, James Hursthouse. "We believe that Ping0's decision to outsource the large-scale infrastructure deployment for Hellgate validates our commitment to offering high-performance infrastructure in ways that makes sense for the online games industry."

Hellgate: London's infrastructure will be centered in OGSi's state-of-the-art 2,000-square-foot dedicated game hosting environment in San Francisco, with multiple satellite data centers around the world.

See our Multiplayer page for much more information about Hellgate: London online.