GamersVue

Warcry reports that Star Trek Online has been cancelled. Well, not officially cancelled, but the company that used to be called Perpetual and used to have the license to make Star Trek Online had to give back the license. Some other company could now restart developing the game, but they won’t get any existing code from Perpetual.

Scott Jennings calls it an impossible license. But apparently the reasons for Perpetual giving up the license are less about design possibilities, and more about financial possibilities. Perpetual already cancelled Gods & Heroes which was already in the beta and had pre-order boxes shipped to retailers. And they did some clever legal and financial engineering, including creating a new company, P2 Entertainment, and transferring all their assets including the Star Trek Online license to that new entity. People who were owed money by the old Perpetual sued them over that move. Investors had to write off their investments, as the old Perpetual went bankrupt.

For us players all that just means that we won’t see a Star Trek Online game before 2015, if ever.

[Edit: Rumors have it that the new STO developer will be Cryptic Studios.]

[Via Tobolds]

[1/18/07 Update]

P2 Entertainment To Lay Off Star Trek Online Dev Team Today

Dana Massey posted on 17 Jan 2008 3:11 pm

P2 Entertainment will officially lay off members of the Star Trek Online development team this afternoon, according to multiple sources at the company. The news comes as no surprise after reports earlier this week that they had suspended development.

In cooperation with P2, Cryptic Studios interviewed members of the Star Trek Online development team at Cryptic’s Los Gatos office Tuesday for positions on unannounced projects. They had no comment on reports that they would take on the game and license.

P2 did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

[Via WarCry]

[06/13/08 Update]

[Play.tm] is reporting that Cryptic Studios (makers of City of Heros) has a new MMO in the works and will be announced to the public on July 27th. It’s still pure rumor that Cryptic Studios picked up the Star Trek MMO license after Perpetual had to sell it (read above).   However, things are looking up for a possible Star Trek MMO.

FiringSquad has learned that publisher Bethesda Softworks, the current owner of the video-PC game rights to the Star Trek franchise, will not be publishing a game based on the upcoming J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek movie. Company spokesperson Pete Hines confirmed this news with FiringSquad today.

Hines also stated that Bethesda Softworks’s sister company, the new MMO based developer ZeniMax Online Studios, will not be taking over the development of Star Trek Online.

When asked if Bethesda Softworks was going to continue publishing Trek games or if it would let its current license expire, Hines only told FiringSquad cryptically, “TBD.”

[Via N4G]

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[PogoWolf's Vue]
Why can’t a company figure out that if a GOOD Star Trek game was built that it would sell?  Can anyone NOT figure out how to make a game in the Star Trek universe?  Has there even been a good Star Trek game??!  Ok.. perhaps the old Arcade version… maybe.  Or the old school computer BASIC version.

Hmmm.. perhaps I should make an web based version of the old BASIC Star Trek game.  Would anyone play it?

A lawsuit filed by industry public relations firm Kohnke Communications against former Star Trek Online developer Perpetual Entertainment has reportedly been dismissed in court following a mutual resolution by both parties.

A Kohnke representative confirmed the resolution to consumer site Shacknews, commenting, “The parties have reached an agreement, but we can’t detail any further than that. Part of the agreement was that we would not detail.”

The suit had alleged fraudulent transfer, breach of contract, fraud and other charges, with claimed damages totaling between $80,000 and $280,000, stemming from Kohnke’s claim that it was owed payment for its work promoting the canceled title Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising.

The suit also claimed Perpetual sold the Star Trek Online license to a separate corporate entity, P2 Entertainment, before liquidating its assets, without disclosing details of the transaction to the PR firm.

The resolution comes just after, according to consumer site Kotaku, Perpetual had issued a formal response to the suit, calling the PR firm’s claim “vague, uncertain, ambiguous and unintelligible” and asking a judge to dismiss the case.

Perpetual recently ceased its work on Star Trek Online, whose license and content — excluding the game’s code — will reportedly be transferred to another Bay Area development studio, where work on the game will continue.

As for P2, they maintain a business focus on their Perpetual Platform, and will additionally focus on the casual games market.

[Via Gamasutra]