Star Trek Online To Go Free-To-Play 'By The End Of This Year'

Perfect World, the China-based games company that wholly owns Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Studios, has revealed that the online MMO will be swapping to the free-to-play model before the end of the year. As part of the company's Q2 2011 earnings conference call, CFO Kelvin Lau explained that the free-to-play model is currently in production, and the game will be updated before the year is up. "When Perfect World acquired Cryptic, one of our contributions was to share our free-to-play experience with Cryptic," he explained. "Cryptic is working on the free-to-play model for Star Trek Online," he continued. "This is going to be launched by the end of this year as well. So I think with the free-to-play model, we have bigger potential in the U.S. market and also in the Chinese market." Publisher Atari announced back in May that it was divesting of its interest in Cryptic Studios, originally calling the development house a "discontinued operation." However, Perfect World quickly stepped in and acquired the studio, paying approximately €35.0 million ($50.3 million) for the STO and Champions Online house.