Gameforge to Produce Star Trek MMO

I was surprised to learn yesterday that the German games developer Gameforge have just released a press statement to say that they have acquired a license to produce online games based on the Star Trek universe:

http://www.gameforge.de/content/view/401/69/lang,en/

Although the press statement doesn't refer specifically to the development of an MMORPG, Gameforge are renowned for producing this type of game, such as their existing games OGame, Gladiatus and the award-winning Ikariam, all of which adopt a free-to-play mode of interaction through your Internet browser.

It would seem then that Cryptic Studio's own Star Trek Online was not an exclusive license of the property, and it will be interesting to see how the games compare when Gamforge's own version is released. One would also hope perhaps that this will also encourage Cryptic to raise their bar now that they have some competition.