Perpetual disbanding, STO in jeopardy [Updated]
Filed under: Sci-fi, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Star Trek Online
South Korean company Gravity was forced in a mandatory SEC report to spill the beans that Perpetual Entertainment is seeking liquidation of all its assets and will soon cease to exist as a company. Gravity had to disclose this information in compliance with US law to inform its shareholders that it stands to lose $9 million in investments in Perpetual Entertainment due to the company's failure. Perpetual Entertainment filed for liquidation on the 10th of October, just a day after it announced the cancellation of its Gods & Heroes project. While appearances are that Star Trek Online has remained in some kind of development (however limited) in the short term, Perpetual will soon be forced to sell all its assets to pay off its debts.
That means that either Star Trek Online is due for cancellation, or the project will be sold to a new development studio. Perpetual's continued work on STO is evidence that it at least hopes to keep the project alive by handing it off to another company. We don't know if Perpetual already has a buyer lined up or which company that buyer would be.
[EDIT: WarCry's Razor has suggested that the SEC report is misleading and that this was just a part of the process of ending development of Gods & Heroes. His suggestion might be worthy of consideration, but there is not yet enough evidence behind it for us to call this a false alarm. We've sent an e-mail to our press contacts at Perpetual Entertainment for clarification and when/if we get a statement, we'll let you know.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gr1zz said on 3:54PM 11-26-2007
Fallout 3 all over again... =-( *Cry*
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Scopique said on 3:58PM 11-26-2007
Sold...There's no way in h3ll that the world at large would let STO drop from the radar.
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Kamotracker said on 4:23PM 11-26-2007
Kaaaaaaaaaaaahhhn!
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Samuel Axon said on 5:24PM 11-26-2007
I doubt this is the end of STO. The fact that Perpetual announced that Gods & Heroes was to be canceled but did not do so for Star Trek Online, and that they've continued to release devlogs indicates that at the very least they are hoping to pass the project (and maybe even much of the team) to new hands; it's possible that they're already deep in negotiations to do so and just haven't announced it yet because there are still some loose ends.
Star Trek Online probably survived to be sold because of the franchise, while Gods & Heroes was less attractive to potential buyers and so was simply axed.
We'll see.
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