FO: Other Bethesda might lose Fallout to Interplay
- Thread starter Fnord
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Any other Fallout game
At this point I'd rather have Fallout stay with Bethesda. What would Interplay do with it?
Fnord
SasqWatch
I honestly have no idea. Unless Interplay gets a serious cash injection, chances are that they won't have the money to make a new game (they might end up selling the licence again). On the other hand, I don't agree with what Bethesda is doing to Interplay.
Asdraguuhl
Keeper of the Watch
Sell it to Obsidian, where they would turn Tim Cain's temporary contract into a permanent one and have him take the lead of the next Fallout game.
What greater news could there be ?
That sounds good in theory, but I don't see how that would really be any different than Bethesda letting Obsidian make more games like FO:NV.
The difference would be that Obsidian would have to use an engine not made by Bethesda and I have no high hopes that they themselves could make a good one...(see DS 3)....
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Asdraguuhl
Keeper of the Watch
Clearly, the engine to be used would be an uncertainty, which at worst could go horribly wrong. Although, ironically, I think that the outdated engine in FO:NV was its worst element affecting the game in a negative way.
Should Bethesda give Obsidian another Fallout game to develop, I guess it would probably be after FO4 with again an outdated engine by that time.
Regardless of engine, I would love to see Obsidian and Tim Cain have total control of a Fallout game with good writing, dialogues and meaningful C&C, something which is not exactly Bethesda's trademark.
Should Bethesda give Obsidian another Fallout game to develop, I guess it would probably be after FO4 with again an outdated engine by that time.
Regardless of engine, I would love to see Obsidian and Tim Cain have total control of a Fallout game with good writing, dialogues and meaningful C&C, something which is not exactly Bethesda's trademark.
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Sell it to Obsidian, where they would turn Tim Cain's temporary contract into a permanent one and have him take the lead of the next Fallout game.
What greater news could there be ?
Where would Osidian find ca. 10 times the money they weren't able to pay a couple of years back for the Fallout brand? Now there are two Fallout million sellers in a row and an MMO in development. It's a proven brand.
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human_male
Math and girls is hard.
I couldn't cope with reading that but I assume Interplay got paid. I wonder if they succeed in getting the agreement declared null and void they're prepared to give Bethesda their four plus million back. I'm thinking not.
And what do they want it back for anyway? They're not going to make a game. They had the rights for all those years and what did they do with it? Nothing. And would anyone else buy it from after all this?
And what do they want it back for anyway? They're not going to make a game. They had the rights for all those years and what did they do with it? Nothing. And would anyone else buy it from after all this?
Iply's last full released game was FOBOS (?), so it isn't like they did nothing with the Fallout IP and if they'd had the money Van Buren would have been released. So nothing constructive, maybe, but they did have plans.
If interplay won this current case the contract would (presumably) revert back to the previous one in which Bethesda had the right to make 3 Fallout games but interplay owned the IP itself. Bethesda would still be able to make one more but would presumably have to pay Interplay their royalties for sales of F3/NV/"F4". My quick calculation suggests it would be easily more than (close to 2x) what Bethesda paid for the licence outright just for the two games already released- and that's assuming they sold 'only' 3M copies each and ignoring DLC.
I suspect iply wouldd licence the Ip if they won- including MMO rights, quite possibly- rather than sell it outright. Herve could probably survive quite well on royalties and it would do away with that boring game development stuff that never seems to go quite to plan.
If interplay won this current case the contract would (presumably) revert back to the previous one in which Bethesda had the right to make 3 Fallout games but interplay owned the IP itself. Bethesda would still be able to make one more but would presumably have to pay Interplay their royalties for sales of F3/NV/"F4". My quick calculation suggests it would be easily more than (close to 2x) what Bethesda paid for the licence outright just for the two games already released- and that's assuming they sold 'only' 3M copies each and ignoring DLC.
I suspect iply wouldd licence the Ip if they won- including MMO rights, quite possibly- rather than sell it outright. Herve could probably survive quite well on royalties and it would do away with that boring game development stuff that never seems to go quite to plan.
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Fnord
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It is possible that they won't even have to do that, if the court rules that Bethesda intentionally misled Interplay, or are trying to redefine the contract without first consulting Interplay. What started the issue was not that Interplay demanded their licence back, but that Bethesda decided to take Interplay to court over the Fallout MMO. The contract stated that Interplay had the rights to creating an MMO based on Fallout (plus continue to sell the older games), but when Interplay first launched the MMOs website, Bethesda decided to take them to court over using certain iconic images, like the Vault boy (they also have claimed that while Interplay may sell the old Fallout game, they may not use things like the old box art and advertisement material, due to this containing iconic images). Interplay claims that this was never the intention of the contract, and that by licencing an IP, you would also get the rights to use what the IP contains, not just the name. Bethesda have told interplay that they may not use
thus in effect they make Interplay's right to the Fallout licence useless. This is where the whole meeting of the minds thing comes in.
human_male
Math and girls is hard.
Thank you for explaining. That puts it in a whole new light for me. I now agree with Interplay.
Dhruin
SasqWatch
Interplay ripped off staff and didn't pay them entitlements (among many other things they didn't pay) - I don't really see why I should care about their well-being for a second.
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This news pretty much sucks. Bethesda is definitely trying to screw Interplay over, but if Interplay did manage to get Fallout back it wouldn't be good for us gamers. I hope the court simply rules that the contract stays the same, but that Bethesda must honor their agreement and allow Interplay to create a MMO with all Fallout proprietary items. The MMO may never get finished anyway. As a huge fan of the Fallout franchise since its first iteration (F3 was okay, NV was awesome) this is just disheartening.
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Actually, Interplay have to release the MMO by 2012, that's part of the contract. If they don't they lose the rights to make anything Fallout.
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Fnord
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But now Interplay might claim that Bethesda intentionally hindered the MMO development, and thus they can't be bound by the original time limit.
And I don't want the licence to go back to Interplay either. In fact, I want it to go to Obsidian.
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That would be the absolute best case scenario (well, unless Troika was still around). However, at least Bethesda has let Obsidian develop a game using the Fallout license, maybe the will continue to do so for the "spin-offs".
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I wonder if Bethesda is paying Interplay any royalties while this case is being litigated. Litagation, that I believe started this December.