Given the huge popularity of some social games on Facebook and MySpace, it was inevitable that scammers and spammers would start digging up ways to abuse the system. Deceptive advertising is part of the problem. One common scam offers in-game currency for filling out a survey and requests a mobile phone number the results can be texted to. The user then finds themselves with a $10/month subscription billed to their phone until they cancel. Sometimes details about these charges are buried deep in Terms of Service that people rarely read. A recent TechCrunch article examines the problem and the implications it has for honest game developers in considerable detail. At least one of the industry leaders, Zynga, has responded by cracking down on some of these scams, but if social game currency ends up anything like MMORPG currency, things will likely get worse, so be careful with your phone and credit card numbers.

• More: Protecting Your Game Passwords

Cryptic Studios has set a release date for Star Trek Online, confirming rumors that it will be available early next year. The game will launch on February 2 2010 in North America, and February 5 2010 in Europe. Closed beta is currently underway and they are still accepting beta applications on the official site. Here are some recent Star Trek Online screenshots.

_{Image © 2009 Atari}

Nope, it's not a game - it's a new way to voice chat while you're online. Blabbelon is a Web-based voice chat solution hoping to supplant popular programs like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. Unlike the latter services that require the host to run a server, Blabbelon simply requires you to log onto their site and create a room (or a "Blab"), which other users can then join. It's free and uses a push-to-talk system that can handle thousands of chatters. Blabbelon also employs Skype's SILK super wideband audio codec, so the sound quality should be quite good. The press release is available on Business Wire.

The market for fantasy MMORPGs has become quite crowded in recent years, with scores of free titles flowing out of Asia on top of a flurry of North American and European efforts. Some of these games garnered considerable interest at launch, but they haven't been able to turn that into ongoing success. Aion is NCsoft's lastest offering in this genre, building on their vast experience with earlier MMORPGs such as the Lineage series.

_{Image © 2009 NCsoft}