Re: Information on Star Trek Computer Games in her
Actually, a game publisher (ex. Simon and Schuster) has to buy a license to make Trek games from Viacom, who owns Star Trek. In the past there have been multiple licenses giving rights to only one series each. Interplay bought the TOS/-movie era license, Spectrum Holobyte (later Microprose) bought the TNG license, and S&S bought the DS9 license. Activision then bought exclusive rights for ten years to ALL the series in 1998 for millions of dollars. However, just shortly after the release of Star Trek Elite Force II earlier last year, Activision then cancelled their license agreement (with roughly five years left) and sued Viacom for a breach of contract. Since Star Trek Shattered Universe was already in production beforehand it was permitted to continue development and be released. Activision can no longer commission any new Star Trek games.
A game development company differs from a production company in that they are the group of programmers who actually create a game. Development companies compete with each other for gaming contracts from publishers. The publishers are the ones with the necessary capital required to make games. Of course, some game pubishers have their own in-house development team resulting in lower overall development expenses.
Unfortunately, Star Trek Shattered Universe will be the last commercial Star Trek computerized game to be released for, at least, a couple years (projecting development time) if not much longer depending on how healthy the whole Trek franchise is, how Viacom attempts to sell the license(s), and if other game publishers are interested in buying the license(s). ...and all this can only occur -after- the lawsuit has been settled.
-DOSMAN
P.S.-If I am mistaken somewhere, please correct me!
