Bethesda Softworks - Fallout Bought Outright

Bethsoft's original deal with Interplay for Fallout was a limited license, with Interplay maintaining ownership of the IP. Word via Briosafreak's Fallout 3 Blog today is that Interplay sold the entire Fallout IP to Bethsoft on April 4th for $5.7m:

Under the APA, the Company sold all of its rights to the IP to Bethesda for a total amount of $5,750,000.00 payable to the Company, subject to various conditions, in three cash installments.[…]

In a complete reversal, Interplay now has a license from Bethsoft to develop a Fallout MMORPG. Hit the link for the full post and a link to the original SEC filing.

More information.

Teeheehee.

Crap! Crap! Crap!

Not impressed, unless they do a Bioware and get Obsidian to make the games for them!!

This move is going to look really stupid if the game comes out and bears no resemblance to Fallout 1 and 2 except for token Pipboy art. They should have just developed their own post-apocalyptic RPG and saved themselves >$5 Million.

Fallout 3 will probably be a HUGE success and the disgruntled "old time" fans will weep and gnash their teeth.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
Fallout 3 will probably be a HUGE success and the disgruntled "old time" fans will weep and gnash their teeth.

Oh, man, that'll be so great!

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
This move is going to look really stupid if the game comes out and bears no resemblance to Fallout 1 and 2 except for token Pipboy art. They should have just developed their own post-apocalyptic RPG and saved themselves >$5 Million.

The "base investment" of Bethesda now stands at 6 million, yeah. Add to that whatever their development costs are…one would almost call it a risky gamble. But it's Bethesda, so it'll be a sure-fire hit!

So Interplay is now reduced to taking handouts and doing contract work for what was once their own IP.

And people say there is no justice.

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
This move is going to look really stupid if the game comes out and bears no resemblance to Fallout 1 and 2 except for token Pipboy art. They should have just developed their own post-apocalyptic RPG and saved themselves >$5 Million.

I assume 5 mil included not just art but lots of other design stuff they can use in fallout3. Not to mention all the coding that was done. I doubt they would be stupid enough to pay that much for som games name and few clips of art. Surely they are going to use great deal of what they got from purchase.

In comparison I heard that darkfall the mmog still in alpha was on sale for 2 mil.

Well, they did get $5.7 million. Maybe they needed the cash. Does anybody have a guess what the Fallout IP was worth?

Heh…you beat me to the punch, zakhal!

Originally Posted by zakhal
I assume 5 mil included not just art but lots of other design stuff they can use in fallout3. Not to mention all the coding that was done. I doubt they would be stupid enough to pay that much for som games name and few clips of art. Surely they are going to use great deal of what they got from purchase.

The 5 mil buys them the right to develop spinoff titles with their partner companies, as they've done with the Elder Scrolls Travels series.

I read it as all rights, as even mmo rights which was the only thing interplay had left it owned. iirc.

As in Beth is the sole owner of all Fallout related materials and rights.


BillSeurer
"Fallout 3 will probably be a HUGE success and the disgruntled "old time" fans will weep and gnash their teeth."
Right casue Fallout fans dont want a good game, they jsut want to complian.
Really glad you thought that through before you posted it in public.

Wasn't interplay's total debt around 8 million?Wouldn't this and the other deals they did basically put them back in the black?

Well yes maybe, but there are no employees left and mostly likely no money to pay new ones if there were any willing to take a job from Interplay.
Whom btw has Not paid an employee salary in a year or two to the employees whom did stay on and try to save the company, afaik.

Not to mention iirc, even when Interplay got a little money they constantly tried to get out of paying employees that tried to stay and save the company.

They are sort of like a publsher whom cant publish since they cant afford to back a game and a developer whom cant develop casue they cant afford to pay employees.

I guess they maybe inturns or something that would work for nothing, but its probably not going to get veterian talent, imo.

I doubt the assets produced by BI for their version of FO3 will prove useful, or that they were even made available!! Be interesting ti find out though!!

Whatever else it means, I guess we can now take for granted that Bethesda plans to give a long lease of life to the Fallout IP over several games. I am amazed at the value of the IP though, considering the so-so sales of the originals, the abysmal spinoffs, and the totally unproven ability of Bethesda to make a successful fallout game. I would not have expected such a move prior to a successful FO3 launch. They must have quite a bit of extra cash.

Dies ater

*filler*

Originally Posted by Corwin
I doubt the assets produced by BI for their version of FO3 will prove useful, or that they were even made available!! Be interesting ti find out though!!

They already had all those assets, together with everything from Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, FoBOS1 and the never finished FOBOS2: Vagrant Lands (quoting a Bethesda dev about the FOBOS assets "blargh!").

They already had the possibility of creating Fallout games for handhelds and spin-offs, giving a few conditions. They now have everything and full trademark and IP rights.

Ok this was surprising, and that's all I can tell right now, still trying to find out the long term repercussions…

Originally Posted by Corwin
I doubt the assets produced by BI for their version of FO3 will prove useful, or that they were even made available!! Be interesting ti find out though!!

I remember them saying they got everthing Fallout related when they first bought the licence, but that they will not use any of the already-made fallout 3 material.
So this time they paid 6mil for just the mmo rights nothing else, since this was the last piece to the entire franchise.

None of this matters though since Bethesda won't make a proper Fallout game from any of this.

Little correction:

Bethesda only bought the rights to make FO3 and possibly up to two sequels. Now they bought the whole licence and give Interplay the right to create an FO MMO.