Development
Initially, Perpetual Entertainment developed the game from 2004 to 2008 until its bankruptcy in January 2008. The license to develop the game and art assets were transferred to Cryptic Studios; however, the code remained with Perpetual Entertainment and its Perpetual Game Engine.
Cryptic Studios officially announced the development of Star Trek Online on July 28, 2008, as a countdown timer on Cryptic's web site reached zero and the new official site was launched. A letter was sent out from Jack Emmert, the game's online producer, detailing some aspects of Cryptic's approach.
Cryptic originally announced (and since released) a Windows version of STO. During the Las Vegas conference in August 2008, Cryptic announced that there would be neither Linux nor Mac versions for the original launch, though they did not rule out the possibility of later port releases. Console versions were announced several months before the release, with no specific console platform specified, but Cryptic has since announced that all console versions of their games are on indefinite hold due to difficulties "on the business side of things," largely referring to the fees assessed by Microsoft for their Xbox Gold premium online gaming service and the difficulty in asking a player to pay both that and the Cryptic subscription fee to play a single game.
Star Trek Online was released in North America on February 2, 2010, in Europe on February 5, 2010, and in Australia on February 11, 2010. Customers who ordered the game in advance were able to gain access to the game on January 29, 2010 (before the official release date), via a bonus 'head-start' which was included with pre-order packages.
Read more about this topic: Star Trek Online
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