Star Trek Online Free-To-Play Transition Date Announced

The Trekkie game is not-so-boldly going where many MMOs have gone before sooner than you'd think.

As we previously reported, once Perfect World acquired developer Cryptic Studios, it decided to transition Star Trek Online to a free-to-play business model supported by micro transactions. Today on the Star Trek Online blog, executive producer Stephen D’Angelo announced the transition is taking place on Tuesday, January 21.

To appease the faithful subscribers of the service, Cryptic plans to grant them 400 free Cryptic Points, the in-game currency, each month starting December 1. Rather than distributing these points at the same time to every user, instead Cryptic is doling them out on the subscribers' "anniversary day" each month, a.k.a. the day they created their accounts.

I'm curious to see if the new business model helps Star Trek Online live long and prosper.