Star Trek Online review

My son purchased Star Trek Online for $30 and did not realize that there was a monthly usage fee of $15/month. Unfortunately, he cannot afford a 15/month charge to play the game so we tried to immediately return the game. Of course the games was not installed nor activated but the store would not
accept the software back because it had been opened.

I do not blame the store because they have a clearly advertised policy that is well known. Fortunately, they have agreed to refund my son after I contacted the manager and explained the situation again. I do still hold ATARI responsible for their misleading advertising and pricing scheme. How can they justify charging people $30+ for a game that is useless unless they are willing to pay $15/month to play it after 30 days . . . I have never heard of such a racket! I have seen web sites that charge monthly fees to play online without an initial fee and other where you pay an initial fee and can access multi-player online games for free for the most part (some charge for additional special features) but never where a company charges both
an up-front purchase price plus a monthly fee that is 50% of the initial price just to use the game.

This pricing scheme is ridiculous but that is their right as the producer of the game to charge what they think they can for the game. The part I object to the most is the lack of advertising about the monthly fees for this game until after it is opened. I saw in only one spot on the box in small writing that mentioned that the game included a 30 day access to the online game. Unfortunately, my son did not interpret that to mean that you could not play the game after the 30 days unless you were willing to pay the addition $30/month fee. (Of course, he could have paid the $300 lifetime access but I wonder how long ATARI really is obligated to maintain the game server.) The thing that ATARI does not realize is that their lack of notice of this monthly charge and the true cost of this game is what makes them liable.

The packaging for this game is miss leading and reminds me of the medicine men selling snake oil -- the problem they faced is that they could only sell their fake product a couple of time before everyone got wind of what was truly in the bottle. I suspect with the internet, this "secret" will be out soon and there will hopefully be few people that will unwittingly fall for this.

I used to be a big fan of ATARI throughout the 80's and 90's working long hours so I could purchase an ATARI 800 and 800XL computer and later the gaming software for my PC -- needless to say, I am very disappointed in this company for resorting to this sort of gimmicks to sell their products. I truly had expected better.

By rh12345 on 11 Apr 2010