The third season of the original Star Trek series on Blu-Ray will ship with a promotional code that grants the buyer an exclusive Admiral's costume in the upcoming Star Trek Online MMORPG to be published by Atari. It appears that the item code will only ship with the set's first printing, as CBS/Paramount describes it as a "limited time offer."
The Star Trek MMO is being developed by Cryptic, the studio responsible for Champions Online. As of this writing, Cryptic has not announced any pricing information regarding Star Trek Online. Champions Online supports both microtransactions and a monthly subscription fee, so the technology certainly exists for Star Trek Online to generate revenue through sale of virtual items.
Promoting media releases with virtual item codes is usually a promotional technique reserved for material intended for children and tweens. The film IGOR on DVD, for example, shipped with promotional codes that users could redeem for a suite of exclusive movie-themed virtual items in the Habbo virtual world. The Star Trek Season 3 Blu-Ray release is much more of an expensive luxury product that's clearly intended to be purchased by adults. This could be a sign that virtual items are growing more appealing to the over-18 set.
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