Star Trek Online
Posted: September 8, 2004, 6:34 pm
Mercury News
In a deal that underscores the convergence of Hollywood and games, a San Francisco start-up is expected to announce today that it will develop the first major online game based on Paramount Pictures' ``Star Trek'' franchise.
Perpetual Entertainment will develop an online game where thousands of players could transport themselves into a virtual ``Star Trek'' universe for a monthly fee. The company is the brainchild of two former Electronic Arts executives, Joe Keene and Chris McKibben, who were involved in the early efforts to establish EA's online games business.
Perpetual has negotiated a license with the owner of the ``Star Trek'' property, Viacom Consumer Products, and plans to release its game in 2007. The game will be an action-adventure game where players can explore all aspects of the ``Star Trek'' franchise, from the original ``Star Trek'' to newer TV shows such as ``Star Trek: the Next Generation'' and ``Deep Space Nine.''
In addition, Perpetual is announcing today that it has raised $6.5 million in a venture financing round led by Softbank Capital. The company earlier raised $4.5 million from Mobius Venture Capital, Manitou Venture Capital and China's Chengwei venture firm.
It's unusual for video game companies to raise money from VCs, who generally don't like making risky, Hollywood-style bets. But online game companies such as Mythic Entertainment and Turbine Entertainment have been successful in raising VC money because of the attractions of the online model. Online games have the potential to attract loyal fan bases who pay monthly fees ranging from $5 to $13 a month. A hit game can be a profit machine.
The market for online games has exploded in Asia, with some games such as NCSoft's ``Lineage'' series garnering millions of subscribers. That hasn't gone unnoticed among movie studios, which view games as a way of finding younger audiences and generating more revenue from aging properties.
Craig Cooper, a partner at Softbank Capital in Newport Beach, said that U.S. broadband penetration in homes has reached more than 50 percent and that makes the time for investing in Perpetual ripe.
It's also rare for a Hollywood studio to trust a start-up company with a valuable entertainment franchise. But Keene and McKibben say they have assembled an experienced team of 20 people since founding the company in the spring of 2002. They say they have worked out detailed plans to make a successful ``Star Trek'' game and are also in the midst of creating another undisclosed online game.
``There are tens of millions of `Star Trek' fans and tens of millions of gamers,'' Keene says. ``That's a large potential audience. When we thought of potential franchises to pursue, `Star Trek' was at the top of our list as an undervalued franchise.''
There is some risk in the project since the 38-year-old ``Star Trek'' concept so far hasn't generated top-selling games and doesn't appeal to the youngest gamers. Viacom and its previous game partner, Activision, even got caught up in a lawsuit last July over the way Viacom was exploiting the Star Trek property. The suit isn't settled yet.
``It's fair to say the fan base doesn't feel that the community has been given very many good games,'' Keene says.
But Keene notes that others have had great successes with science-fiction properties in the online space. LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment have snared hundreds of thousands of subscribers to their ``Star Wars Galaxies'' online game.
EA itself invested heavily in online games during the dot-com years but scaled back when the efforts, such as The Sims Online, didn't bear fruit as expected. But Keene says a start-up focused on networked games has a good chance at succeeding. Most of all, he says the game will focus on fun activities.
``You won't be killing rats all the time in the game,'' he says.
