Perpetual Entertainment, the company developing Trek’s MMORPG Star Trek Online, appears to be having some financial problems. Gaming site Gamasutra is reporting that the company has fired 35 employees including at least 8 who were working on Star Trek Online. The problems seem to be stemming from delays related to their premiere game Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising. Perpetual is just 2 years old and has yet to release any games. It would be a shame to see their problems result in more delays or even the shelving of the exciting new Trek MMORPG.
UPDATE: Perpetual Founder/President Spins the layoffs
The following has been posted on the official Perpetual forums
As some of you may have heard we have made some staffing changes at Perpetual. We are proud to announce that we are within a month of being content complete on Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising , our upcoming AAA MMO title. As we achieve this major development milestone, a number of content production roles come to an end. The Gods & Heroes team remains over 80 talented people strong as we enter the final phase prior to launch — play-testing and tuning to deliver the highest quality game possible. In addition, because we value the feedback our beta testers have been giving us, and because we want to ship the highest quality game possible, we have moved our target ship date from the spring to the summer of 2007. This extension of the testing and tuning phase of the project will allow us to focus entirely on making a great game – which is our #1 goal.
Perpetual remains 100% committed to shipping a fantastic Gods & Heroes game and to continuing development of the much-anticipated Star Trek Online .
Chris McKibbin
President & Co-founder
Perpetual Entertainment
So there you have it…it is all business as usual. Who is buying it?
Related: New Trek Game To Be ‘Like A Whole New Series’
man that would be horrible, and yet it wouldnt be the first time a potentially amazing trek game got shelved…
*cough*secretofvulcanfury*cough*
I know david, U know i was wondering who exactly holds the rights still to Vulcan Fury because they tapped all the dialogue for the game…………..we need to start a petition…………….
It would be terrible if Perpetual went under.
Star trek Legacy just came out, and looked like a great game in production, but it turns out that it is not at all as good as expected. There have been practically no new Star Trek games lately, and I have had my hopes on Star Trek Online for quite a while. I really hope that this is just a minor setback
Hang in there, Perpetual!
Well only the Legacy computer version has been rated poor so far, but that is mainly because it was a game designed specifically for the console. The verdict is still out on the xbox 360 version.
They should do a regular Star Trek RPG. Like Baldur’s Gate; or failing that, like KOTOR. I think that would work really well with the universe in a way that an arcade-style shooter doesn’t. These are starships, not fighter planes.
Bring back Secret of Vulcan Fury!
I think that Secret of Vulcan Fury was the best Star Trek game to never be released.
The screenshots and demo movies were amazing….
You would think that with today’s level of technology in home PC’s that such a game could be run easily now.
acb
If the dialogue is really complete and still available, you can add me to a petition to get the game written/released
Hey, if you want to see images and more about SofVF just try http://gaming.trekcore.com/secretofvulcanfury/
Enjoy!
A Final Unity is the best Trek Game Ever not ot mention Birth of the Federation .
A Final Unity is the best Trek Game Ever not to mention Birth of the Federation .
star trek online looks like crap anyway.
Wow, what a bad time to be laid off… a week before Christmas. Probably so they wouldn’t hae to pay bonuses. “Merry Christmas! Here’s a pink slip!”
The gaming business is a fun and rough one. I have been in it and experienced many a cancelled production and layoff. This reading another one of these brings back the memories. In fact this company I believe is in the city I live in. Funny it seems like a few months or more back they were hiring. I hope they survive it get the releases finished. Time will tell.
Well, I’ll be supporting Gods and Heroes, just to help ensure their success so I get my S.T.O.!
instead of a game, i once heard someone say they were considering releasing SOVF as a CG Movie using the voice tracks of the game they recorded…
after all, these are James’ and DeForrest’s last performances as their famous characters and its sad the public never got to see something so priceless as that…
Been waiting for trek onlnie for a long time, hope it happens.
Noooooooo!!!! I wanted to be online and be on a starship and fly around with other star trek buddies and land on planets and have a really good trek time…
(data trying to boot STAR TREK MMORPG)
http://databsod.ytmnd.com/
i’m not going to get that am i. jeeze, this reminds me when they were talking about URU: Live. it’s like whoa, cool! a MYST online game. adventuring and stuff instead of killing endless amounts of monsters. a new take on multiplayer games! ok, no CYAN has no money. yeah bye bye.
Is there still a petition for Secret Of Vulcan Fury I still want the game.
Por favor, como se puede desperdiciar un juego de este nivel !!, reconsideren el lanzamiento de star Trek, SOVF y continuar osadamente donde ningún juego ha llegado antes…
Además se hace un tributo con los actores que han partido y se puede revivir la serie clásica, a través de juegos y secuelas de esta índole.