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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."

13 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. This is some truly shocking news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Interplay still exist?!

  2. Re:It's just not *right* by mrboyd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you had sold me your "legacy" for $5.75 millions I would feel quite right suing you if you didn't follow the terms of the contract. I know IP is a touchy subject here but Fallout isn't exactly "creative commons" material :)

  3. Sure it does! by denzacar · · Score: 5, Funny

    And it is crunch time!

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  4. Re:It's just not *right* by project-nova · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to wikipedia, Bethesda bought all and every Fallout IP when Interplay was unable to continue development on their version of Fallout 3 and had to lay off their main (PC) team in 2003.
    TFS says they still retained their right to sell the games they do not own any rights to anymore, as long as they get marketing and packaging approved bei Bethesda. So they can still make money with their old games as long as it doesn't interfere with Bethesda's new titles and gets their approval - that is a pretty good deal for a game studio that probably would have closed down if it weren't for Bethesda, don't you think?

  5. 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. Re:Gog.com by SScorpio · · Score: 2, Informative

      With Fallout 3 if you run the launcher it performs the disk check before running the game. If you directly run fallout3.exe it will directly start the game without the launch which would require you to select that yes you do actually want to run the game, and you won't have a disk check either.

  6. Dude! Come on! Give it SOME credit. by denzacar · · Score: 3, Funny

    DtU featured "legendary Flame Sword of Lolth".
    Also, "With the power of this sword, an infinite army will be at your command".

    It foreshadowed the coming of the Anonymous!
    How is that not worth all those bugs, and more?

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  7. 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/

  8. Re:It's just not *right* by ShadowRangerRIT · · Score: 2, Informative

    Interplay had little or nothing to do with the "legacy". Black Isle designed and wrote the both of the games you mentioned, Interplay just published them. Yes, Interplay owned the IP rights, but it doesn't mean they had some special attachment to them that no one could replace.

    --
    $_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
  9. Re:It's just not *right* by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 2, Informative

    Black Isle was owned by Interplay. I think you're confusing them with Bioware.

    --
    Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
  10. Descent Community screwed again... by d3jake · · Score: 2

    Great.... The Descent community has to wait another ten years before a glimmer of a chance that a Descent 4 will be produced... Anybody know how I can get my hands on the Descent rights, or who actually owns them..?

  11. "Trilogy" by Devistater · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think bethesda was pretty much ignoring them until fallout 1/2/tactics started being sold with labeling of "trilogy"
    That implies it includes FO3, which it doesn't. The reason beth put that part into the contract was they didn't want interplay screwing up beth's marketing for FO3, and it looks like interplay just ignored that part of the contract and tried to screw them anyway.