Tobold's Blog
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
 
Tribbles under new ownership

The reader who goes by the symbols = # # = pointed out the news that Perpetual Entertainment, the company that cancelled Gods & Heroes to concentrate on Star Trek Online, liquidated its assets last month and is now under new ownership under the name Perpetual, LLC. A letter was distributed to the employees stating that STO would be redesigned to be "more casual", and could possibly be financed by microtransactions instead of monthly fees.

Well, lets hope that the new owners have deeper pockets. The chances for STO to become the mythical "WoW killer" and have millions of subscribers were always slim. So maybe going for a broader audience and not requiring a monthly fee is actually a good idea for this particular game. Just because many bad games have a free-to-play plus microtransactions business model doesn't mean that all games with that business model have to be bad.
- posted by Tobold @ 4:25 AM Permanent Link
Comments:
Maybe an experienced studio could pull it off (velvet rope business model), but these folks have never delivered even one mmorpg to market.

I'm still having trouble figuring out how such a fantastic IP fell into the wrong hands. Star Trek could be a great mmorpg (unlike Star Wars), and to see it being developed by an inexperienced team is heartbreaking.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 27/11/07 09:19
 
Even free can be too expensive!
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 27/11/07 14:49
 
Star Trek games have a history of poor execution. I suspect this is just another example. Hey, perhaps SOE will buy them out? :-o
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 27/11/07 15:32
 
It's definitely not a hopeful sign. A family member of mine worked for Perpetual before they cancelled Gods & Heroes. They laid off a LOT of people and this new change seems unlikely to help them recover from that. Even if they manage to get a product out the door, the chances of it being a quality product after laying off so many people seems unlikely.

Star Trek Online could be a good MMO, but I don't think these guys are the ones to pull it off. It sounds like the next Horizons to me.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 27/11/07 23:32
 
One day later and only four replies.

Evil Tribbles Online is definitely in trouble.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 28/11/07 18:36
 
Given that the last couple Star Trek TV shows and movies sucked, it's no surprise that the computer games would suck, too. There's clearly a big pile of stupid in charge of the property now. Very sad.

Free-to-play can work, but only if the game is designed for it from the ground. I can't imagine it being anything but a failure if they try grafting it on now.
# posted by Blogger Polynices : 28/11/07 20:06
 
But free to play really isn't. If you like the game, you'll want the goodies, and pay for them. If you don't like the game enough to buy the goodies, you probably won't like the game enough to bother playing it often - if at all.

Simply add up the cost for all the goodies, and that's the default monthly fee for your velvet rope mmorpg of choice.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 28/11/07 20:41
 
Who knows, it might turn out OK. Hell, even LOTRO had a really rough start and almost never saw the light of day, but in the end turned out to be a pretty good game.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 28/11/07 22:35
 
"...could possibly be financed by microtransactions instead of monthly fees."

No thanks, I'll skip any product that does that regardless of the IP.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 29/11/07 10:21
 
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