Bethesda Softworks - Officially Owner of Fallout 3

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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:
January 9, 2012 (Rockville, MD) –ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that a settlement had been reached in the lawsuit filed by its subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks®, against Interplay Entertainment Corporation in 2009, Bethesda Softworks LLC v Interplay Entertainment Corp., seeking cancellation of the license granted to Interplay to develop a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) based on the Fallout brand. Bethesda maintained in its complaint that Interplay had failed to meet the conditions for the license and the license was therefore of no continuing validity.
Under the terms of the settlement, the license granted to Interplay to develop the Fallout MMO is null and void, and all rights granted to Interplay to develop a Fallout MMO revert back to Bethesda, effective immediately. Interplay has no ongoing right to use the Fallout brand or any Fallout intellectual property for any game development. ZeniMax will pay Interplay $2 million as consideration in the settlement, each party will bear its own costs of the litigation, and Bethesda will continue to own all Fallout intellectual property rights. Interplay will be permitted to continue to sell the original Fallout ®Tactics, Fallout® and Fallout® 2 PC games through December 2013, after which time all rights to market those games revert to and become the sole property of Bethesda. Under the original agreement pursuant to which Bethesda had acquired the Fallout property, Interplay was granted certain merchandising rights to sell those original Fallout games, but those merchandising rights will now expire on December 31, 2013.
More information.
 
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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...
 
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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=srdR55V7D-s&feature=sh_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
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.

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.
 
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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
 
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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?
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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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.

$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.
 
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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?).
 
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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!
 
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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.
 
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How did they violate the contract?

The lawsuit against Interplay arose after Bethesda Softworks acquired all Fallout intellectual property rights from Interplay in April 2007, and conditionally licensed back to Interplay certain trademark rights to make a Fallout MMO, provided Interplay secured $30 million in financing for the MMO and commenced full scale development of the game by April 2009. Bethesda alleged in its complaint that Interplay failed to meet either condition of the license back agreement but refused to relinquish its license and insisted it would develop a Fallout MMO. Bethesda filed suit to declare the license void.

http://www.bethblog.com/2012/01/09/...o-bethesda-softworks-in-interplay-litigation/
 
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