At this point I'd rather have Fallout stay with Bethesda. What would Interplay do with it?
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.
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)....That sounds good in theory, but I don't see how that would really be any different than Bethesda letting Obsidian make more FO games.
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 ?
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?
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.including without limitation any Fallout artwork, locations, graphic representations, story lines, creatures, monsters, names, likenesses, behaviors, environments (e.g., vaults), universes, settings, legends, characters, character classes, character professions, packaging, advertisements, text and translations, and any and all Fallout proprietary characters, trademarks, copyrights and artwork
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.
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.
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.
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.