In an announcement that might possibly surprise a small flock of marmosets somewhere on the coast of New Guinea, Perpetual has ceased development on Star Trek Online. Apparently the license and content has been transferred to another development company in San Francisco, but the code Perpetual had developed has not. While not a surprise, it’s still interesting to see the (very) rough specifics of how the license was tranferred. What does this move mean?

1. Development won’t be starting from scratch, but that might be easier.
2. The estimated “time to release” for STO should now be measured in half-decades.
3. Never try to play silly buggers with game development when you’re tied in with one of the most recognizable IPs out there, or Paramount will phaser your “kibbles’n'bits” off.

No word yet on who the new development company is, or what the plans are for STO, other than the fact that this obviously didn’t scare Paramount away from the concept of Roddenberry’s universe as an online environment.

Some will argue that this could ultimately mean we’ll see a better game than we otherwise would have, but without knowledge of exactly what Perpetual actually had…that’s just playing a rousing game of “Wild Guessing”. What’s interesting to me is this…while I understand why Perpetual’s code didn’t go with the deal, what will they do with it now?

I’ve got five bucks riding on “Solar Journey Online” being announced soon by Perpetual, based around “The Starship Venture”, featuring Volcuns, Clingers and Remusians as the lead alien races.

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Tags: games, gaming, mmo, mmog, mmorpg, Perpetual, Star Trek Online