MMO news network Warcry has confirmed via unnamed "multiple sources" that Perpetual Entertainment has closed its doors. The posting corroborates similar information provided to Joystiq from a few secondary tipsters, and the company's web site has recently been replaced with a static contact page, but we're still labeling this one as a rumor until we hear official word from the company.

Perpetual has has its share of troubles recently, facing its second round of layoffs in as many years last September, putting fantasy MMO project Gods and Heroes on hold, facing a lawsuit from its PR firm and, last month, giving up the rights to the highly anticipated Star Trek Online.

P2 Entertainment -- formerly known as Perpetual Entertainment -- will no longer be developing the Star Trek Online MMO. Instead, the IP has been passed on to an as-yet-unnamed California-based studio, who will be continuing development while P2 refocuses on the casual games market.

WarCry reports that the unnamed studio will be receiving rights for the Star Trek IP, and the game's content, but will not have access to the code previously developed at P2. This will inevitably slow development of the MMO even further, as the new studio must start from scratch with the title's back-end.

Star Trek Online was the only title currently in development at P2, following news of Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising being placed on "indefinite hold." P2 is also embroiled in a legal battle with former PR firm Kohnke Communications, who are suing for finances owed them after the effective cancellation of Gods & Heroes. Coupled with news of Spacetime's MMO cancellation, we're beginning to think that it's not a good time to be a MMO developer (unless, of course, you're Blizzard).

[Via Massively]

Dark days are ahead for Perpetual Entertainment. After placing their mythology-based MMO Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising on indefinite hold, the Star Trek Online developer is being sued by their former PR company, claiming thousands of dollars worth of unpaid invoices, breach of contract, as well as several charges of fraud against the developer and its employees.

The public relations firm Kohnke Communications had been in charge of marketing for Gods & Heroes, and is now claiming over $10,000 worth of unpaid invoices for their work, in addition to bonuses that would have been due to Kohnke upon the release of the MMO. In total, Kohnke seeks to claim between $70,000 and $280,000, which, according to the law document, are reflective of what Kohnke would have earned after Gods & Heroes' launch, depending on sales numbers and other factors.

Kohnke alleges that Perpetual Entertainment took steps to directly avoid paying the PR firm for services rendered on the canceled title. Perpetual placed Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold following numerous delays and layoffs. After acquiring new investors, the company shifted focus to Star Trek Online, taking the sci-fi MMO in a more casual direction.

There was some crazy financial news recently for Perpetual, the publisher of long-in-development Star Trek Onine. The practical upshot is that the company is in new hands, and, according to Shacknews' source, they're taking the game in a new, more casual direction.

That doesn't necessarily mean you'll have to match three dilithium crystals to engage your warp drive, but there is a possibility the game may shed subscription fees in favor of asking players to pay real-world cash for in-game items.

Perhaps this move is for the best though. With a new Trek film still a ways off and no versions of the series getting new TV episodes, we'd imagine that the place on the Venn diagram where hardcore gamers and Trek fans intersect is getting smaller every day.

Following last month's news of delays and downsizing at Perpetual Entertainment, Warcry Network reports that the company has put development of their mythologically-themed MMO Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising on "indefinite hold," as the team reorganizes and seeks out new investors.

Perpetual co-founder Chris McKibbin has posted an open letter on the Gods and Heroes community page, stating that the team was overly ambitious in terms of the game's development, and that shelving the title gives the team opportunity to focus attention elsewhere. Despite the significant amount of time invested in Rome Rising, placing the game on "indefinite hold" means it will likely never see the light of day in any finished form.

McKibbin states in his letter that the team has shifted all of their focus to their IP-driven MMO Star Trek Online, and their Perpetual Platform Services division, which develops middleware for MMO development.

Clash of the Titans fans take heed, as Perpetual Entertainment has once again postponed the release of its upcoming Roman mythology MMO Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, laying off 30-40 employees as the project transitions from development to playtesting. The announcement marks the second such delay the game has suffered, the first coming in late 2006 when budget concerns resulted in 35 of the San Francisco-based MMO developer's employees losing their jobs.

Explaining the rational behind the layoffs in a recent interview, Perpetual CEO Chris McKibbin cited a need for "a much smaller, more focused and agile team," rather than the larger team required for the game's actual development. In a positive spin, the executive notes that Perpetual plans to help those impacted by the layoffs in finding new positions with other developers, or working on the studio's other MMO Star Trek Online.

In addition, while Gods & Heroes was originally planned for release this fall, McKibbin downplayed the delay, noting that "we have been targeting a fall launch and we are extending the time in beta to focus on quality and polish ... from our standpoint we want to give our game more time to get to [that level] of polish, rather than rush to a ship date."

When we first saw the video of a hacked Super Mario World level that could be completed without touching the controller, we figured it was a fluke -- the fevered creation of a singular obsessed mind, never to be duplicated.

We were wrong.

A bit of digging has turned up at least ten more examples of inevitable Mario movement, collected together below. Like the best Rube Goldberg devices, these videos stand as a mesmerizing testament to careful design and meticulous planning. We sit in awe.