Slashdot Mirror
Viacom, Activision Stand Down From Red Alert
GameIndustry.biz has the word that Viacom and Activision has settled their dispute over the Star Trek license. The settlement was reached last Friday in a confidential agreement that ends a series of suits begun back in 2003. From the article: "If the two are collaborating on new Star Trek projects, however, they remain under wraps. The last Star Trek game announcement came from online game developer Perpetual Entertainment, which announced in September that it was producing a massively multiplayer game based on the sci-fi series."
Let's hope Berman's hand isn't in the MMORPG. I don't want to be defending the Federation from Nazis.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Hard to say. There haven't been any recent announcements about work on the MMORPG. I think the MMORPG market is currently saturated leaving little room for newcomers even if they have a big name license like Star Trek. And given that the performance of Enterprise has tarnished the brand a bit, this wouldn't be a good time. Still, there could be money to be made. If I were them, I would wait a couple of years before seriously pushing the project forward.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Assuming you mean Star Trek and not Star Wars the second time...
Actually, while the market did seem very crowded in most of 2004, World of Warcraft proved they could grow the market, and brought in literally hundreds of thousands of new MMOG players. These people are all potential customers of a Star Trek MMOG.
Another thing is that, while the fantasy space is very crowded, the sci-fi space is not. There are only a few sci-fi based games out there, most notably Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, and Anarchy Online (plus City of Heroes if you count superheroes as sci-fi). And of those only SWG has really hit it big. There's plenty of room for another 200K+ subs sci-fi game, and several companies are working on exploiting that niche. Look for Imperator Online and Tabula Rasa to come out late this year/early next year as examples.
Finally, like Star Wars Galaxies drew in a bunch of Star Wars fans, Star Trek Online will draw in a bunch of Star Trek fans, who otherwise are not playing MMOGs. So the chance for success is quite good. I'd much rather be a company putting out a Star Trek Online game than one putting out Generic_Fantasy_MMO_#27.
Bruce