Bethesda Softworks - Officially Owner of Fallout 3
 

From Gamebanshee comes news that Bethesda Softworks now officially owns the rights to Fallout. Interplay has given up on their rights to Fallout for a payment of 2 million US dollars.
Gamebanshee has the full press release, so here's a snippet:
More information.

O_o

When I read that a settlement was reached, I wasn't expect this at all. So I guess the Fallout MMO is dead…

The original contract required them to have started development years ago - and they were never able to demonstrate this. They may have made some progress towards this product, but it kind of sounds like it was dead a long time ago. Interplay had been making bad decisions every since they got into publishing and stopped making any good decisions when their original talent mostly left after being bought by Titus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srdR5…h_e_se&list=SL

Three part history there including some light coverage of the lead up to the suit. After a certain point their history reads like a list of bad legal decisions and bad business decisions one after another

2 million dollars… they probably spent that on lawyers. Good that the rights have passed on to a company that is actively working on the ip.

This looks like the end of Interplay if you ask me. It might just be time to pull up the stakes and take the final payout.

Well its possible they could convert the engine they have developed so far to something else but I dont really think there is much hope for that.

Only $2M? What a waste. I suppose the lawyers made out like bandits though.

I can assure you that both parties spent waaayyyyyy more than that on lawyers. 2 million is probably a 'token amount' that was left over after legal fees in order to make the winning party satisfied with getting raped by a legal team.

Did anyone really think Interplay had a shot at keeping this? Not me, and at least there's a chance Bethesda will do more Fallout stuff. I hope they do, at least.


-Carn

Well now Bethesda you can go ahead and make your fallout MMO now. See having money and being an ass pays off. Wonder what the case against the makers of minecraft will be doesn't it?

It's not as if Interplay was gonna back to making games like FO 1&2. Imo, it's better this way.

What I don't understand is how Interplay (or the shell that used to be Interplay) even got 2 million out of this. They've been treading water on that MMO ever since the original deal got brokered; under the original conditions, the IP should have rightfully went to Bethesda after these years of Interplay's halfass attempt at the game.

Bethesda allowed New Vegas to be made, that by itself ensures they are better Fallout caretaker than Interplay has been ever since Herve took over.

$2m is quite small compared to the legal costs of continuing litigation for a few more years.

I used to work at a large entertainment company and we would routinely settle out of court for even some of the most ridiculous claims.

2 million and also getting the rights to FO1/2 etc isn't a settlement, it's painal. Then again Beth also bought the rights to say whatever they want about the settlement without Interplay being able to confirm or deny it, they might have paid a lot more in reality.

The legal back&forth seemed to have been going in Interplay's favor most of the way, if Bethesda really won like this then either Interplay ran out of money to keep fighting the legal battle and fund that pretense of an mmo or Bethesda got some dirt on Herve and blackmailed him into accepting this rape of a settlement (one of Zenimax's bosses has a sordid history in this kind of thing- how hard can it be to bait a moustachioed frenchman with an underage prostitute?).

:rolleyes:
You pull a lot of crap out of your unterhosen, good sir!

Romantic fiction about Mario's seedier look-alike aside, feel free to enlighten me.

Interplay violated their contract with Bethesda so the only way they stood a chance is either if they paid off the judge or the judge was an idiot that didn't know anything about contract law.

How did they violate the contract?