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Bethesda Sues Interplay Over Fallout License, MMO Plans

Posted by Soulskill on from the stop-slacking dept.

Bethesda Softworks has filed a complaint with the District Court of Maryland to forbid Interplay from selling older Fallout titles. The complaint alleges that Interplay failed to hold up its end of an agreement that required it to submit marketing and packaging details to Bethesda for approval. In addition to that, Interplay was supposed to initiate full-scale development of a Fallout MMO by April, 2009, gathering at least $30 million in funding to work on the game. "If Bethesda prevails, Interplay would lose the rights to develop the Fallout MMO. There is little to show for the progress of the Fallout MMO in public venues, although many speculate that a mysterious title called Project V13 is in fact the Fallout MMO."

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Gog.com by Carra · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've bought the original Fallout games from gog.com a few months ago. And thanks to the lack of DRM you can't deactivate those anymore!

    1. Re:Gog.com by ewanm89 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As Bethesda is one of the company that tries to do the least DRM they can get away with (Elder Scrolls: Oblivion IV only requires a disc in the right volume label) and fallout3 only uses the most basic disc inserted check securom is able to do. I do not think they'll go as far as to deactivate the legacy games. Also, not that interplay were under the terms of the contract still legally able to sale the legacy games, they just were suppose to allow Bethesda to check marketing material and were suppose to have started dev of the MMO version. The first is actually quite important in the RPG world, as with the rights transfer so did who said what is and isn't officially Fallout lore, and all RPGs take lore seriously as it's a fundamental point of RPGs.

  2. Shame on Bethesda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At least they aren't going after the Russians who created the most hardcore online PVP game (mod), Fallout Online. Unfortunately, the English server sucks unless you like building stuff constantly and resource gathering. :( http://fonline2238.blogspot.com/