Interplay Loses Rights to Fallout MMO

[viranimus]

snip

Then I suggest you might wish to read my followup post that explains why Bethesda and conversely obsidian were bad hands for the franchise.

Ref

My support of interplay has nothing to do with nostalgia of Interplay of old. My support of interplay is because legally they were in the right and they got crushed by the devil they made their Faustian deal with.

(Why yes I love not being able to click my mouse on anything for fear of picking up another useless piece of pixelated garbage)

Then you actually hated the original Fallout games I presume?

Your assumption is quite correct predominatly because I did not play them near their release. I played them in like 2009/2010 where I was not wearing nostalgia goggles and found them to be infuriatingly tedious, poorly made, unintuitive and unenjoyable junk. Let me clarify. I dont care about the original team who made the original fallout games. My point is not the development of the content. The point is the problem with the industry (and honestly consumer based capitalism in general) that this scenario represents.

However, your assessment of being angry just to be angry is way off base and incorrect. Ive watched this for quite a while now (since just before the release of Fallout 3) and have supported interplay in this fully the whole way. (Partly cause I hoped it would bring the company back to enough level of capability to create a new Descent game instead of allowing the IP to fall into obscurity with the possible death of the IP holder)

 

[Dastardly]

Interplay Loses Rights to Fallout MMO

Hardly surprising, given Interplay's history since the original sale of the Fallout IP. Seems to me that most of the folks that made Interplay Interplay have moved on, leaving only the name behind.

Bethesda has done an excellent job updating the game, turning it into a first-person experience, and (with the exception of parts of New Vegas) maintaining the tone of the originals. More than once while playing Bethesda's games, I've found myself already thinking, "Man, I wish I could play this with friends."

The property is in the right hands.

 

[Dastardly]

EDIT: Also, the assessment that Bethesda ever owned the IP is blatantly incorrect. Go back and read the actual terms of the agreement. Interplay licensed the franchise to Bethesda and it was set to return to Interplay after Bethesda made 3 installments in exchange for Interplay being able to make the MMO. So the other assessment is correct. Bethesda used their overwhelming monetary clout to strong arm interplay into conceding any and all claims to the property. Really it is completely irrelevant if this incarnation of Interplay has nothing to do with the orignal interplay. What this is about is a company, who has made more profit than they know what to do with, utilizing it to buy out companies, and use litigation to crush competition so they can make even more money and expand that even further.

I'd like to clear up a little of what appears to be misunderstanding here.

Bethesda made an offer when Interplay was in financial trouble. Interplay said, "No," and made a massive counter-offer. Bethesda said, "No," and Interplay said, "Okay, we'll go with your price but we retain the rights to make an MMO."

Bethesda then said, "Okay, but there are some conditions:

1. You have to secure funding by X date.
2. You have to begin development by Y date.
3. You have to finish by Z date."

While Interplay technically fulfilled the first two requirements (they got someone to write them a little check before the deadline, and they threw together a couple art assets so they could say, "See? Development!"), they didn't fulfill the third. What's more, Bethesda was basically arguing that their "fulfillment" of the first two points was not a good-faith attempt to begin, but rather a token effort just to keep the IP in their pocket -- like me doodling some numbers on a post-it to show my boss, "See? I'm working!" Further support for this idea came in the form of Interplay's continued financial insolvency.

Is it possible that Bethesda named these terms specifically because they expected Interplay would fail to meet them? Sure, it's possible. Maybe even likely. But Interplay had two chances: They had the chance to work hard and meet the terms, and before that they had the chance to say, "No deal."

 

[Freaky Lou]

Your assumption is quite correct predominatly because I did not play them near their release. I played them in like 2009/2010 where I was not wearing nostalgia goggles and found them to be infuriatingly tedious, poorly made, unintuitive and unenjoyable junk.

I bought and started playing the original Fallout like a month ago and am loving it so far. Odd.

Anyway, I really don't want there to be a Fallout MMO at all. It'd probably spell the end of the IP, and it's my favourite IP. =[

It also would probably not even be good, due to the problems people have already pointed out in this thread.

 

[Hungry Donner]

As a publisher, you do not license the rights for a game to be developed without also giving the developers funding. That would be like Lucasarts giving Obsidian the rights to a Star Wars game, but telling them to sod off elsewhere in order to find the development money.

Bethesda wasn't the publisher of Interplay's Fallout MMO.

A better example would be the C. S. Lewis estate licensing the Narnia film rights to the Walden Media publishing company. The estate wasn't involved in making the movies, funding the movies, or ensuring that they were made - it was simply giving Walden Media permission to work on the project. If Walden had failed to produce any films eventually the agreement would have expired and returned to the estate. (As it is the license has expired and has yet to be renewed.)

Similarly, Bethesda gave Interplay permission to work on a Fallout MMO, providing they met certain requirements in a certain time frame. Interplay (who is a publisher) was responsible for securing funding, getting the game developed, and publishing it.

 

[Hungry Donner]

Bethesda has a sister-company that was founded for the purposes of making MMOs, Zenimax Online Studios.

Not seen you around since Euro-Morrowind and the even earlier days of the TES forums. Nice to see you still kicking around, HD.

Euro-Morrowind, that's a name that certainly takes me back. It's a shame they faded away eventually. Silver Dragon (Ogre something over there) gave me a new link once but it never worked for me . . . although by then things were pretty quiet outside the French section.

Well with Earthrise, they are converting it to F2P. The player base is apparently dismal in numbers, with a lot of clans leaving the game (a few do remain). There's also been tons of issues with the games major pvp.

I can't speak for the game exactly though. I never bought/played it, this is all just what I've gleamed from the few posts made on the forums.

That's sad to hear, although MMOs are a tough genre to succeed in. Well, at least in the West. I hope their agreement with Interplay doesn't leave them burned.

 

[JPArbiter]

YES!Score one for the little guys... who have enough money to throw at a problem so as to get their way!!!!

Honestly I find this disgusting as honestly without question the law was 100% on the side of interplay and basically this boils down to Interplay accepting 2 million dollars to give up the remaining right they had to their creation. (either because they knew they had jack shit in the MMO, or because they just could not keep the litigation going)

And the worst part of it is? the fact that the franchise is in damn near the worst hands humanly possible. (Why yes I love not being able to click my mouse on anything for fear of picking up another useless piece of pixelated garbage) So, bring on more copy pasta sequels! Hooray for supporting the rights of the publishers to make money, cause they use your money to do such worth while things!

/aneurysm

Edit: I would suggest correcting the byline as the Bethesda never had the rights to the MMO, so it is not possible for the MMO rights to return to them.

wow, there was so much wrong with that statement that I dunno where to begin.

1) the law was only about 50% on Interplay's side, that was why it went to court in the first place.

2) It may have been interplay who created fallout, but remember they sold that baby to Bethesda, and Bethesda re licensed the right to the MMO back to Interplay.

3)This whole lawsuit started cause Interplay was supposed to be developing the MMO, but could not get the money together and after two years had jack squat to show.

4) Remember that Fallout was a dead Franchise and Bethesda brought it back to the forefront, so I hardly think you can call it the worst hands possible.

5) Interplay's biggest blunder was that they tried to overreach, citing breach of contract on Bethesda's part, which would have allowed them to get the fallout rights back lock stock and barrel and get paid back royalties on Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Interplay was the money grabbing whore and had to be beat down. if they had stuck to "no we are totally working on the MMO." defense this might not have gone that far.

 

[x-machina]

I can't say that I'm surprised, that the larger company with deeper pockets won the lawsuit. But, I is a damn shame. Bethesda has done nothing but shit all over fallout since they got it.

 

[viranimus]

Ok more clarification.

A: The agreement was not ownership of the IP, it was a license of the IP and once Bethesda completed their 3 turns with the franchise it was set to return to Interplay. There was no relicensing because it was never a part of the deal. (unless you consider Bethesdas more recent attempts at Vaderizing) However oft a group who adores steam appreciation of the complex differences between licensing and ownership is unlikely to be understood.

B: If Interplay failed to comply with the terms of the agreement it puts them into breach of the agreement. However that would entitle Bethesda return on their money invested as in money, Not forcibly extracting rights of ownership on the IP. (though with Interplays financial situation it would pretty much be a certainty as they basically have nothing else of value to cover the debt)

C: Bethesda started their push for litigation long before Interplay was due to release the game. Bethesda initially claimed that interplay had nothing to indicate they would be able to meet the expected time line. Granted they ended up being correct, but even that is moot because Bethesda made the claim before the expected point of release. You cant claim Party A did not meet criteria X if Criteria X hasnt even happened yet. Interplay showed enough work to indicate it was complying, close enough and it was allowed to be continued on that delay, a delay that was also perpetuated by Bethesdas meddling.

D: Citing Bethesda is a good set of hands for the franchise to be in because they at least did something with it is like after 20 years of never being able to get a date telling your family you finally have a girlfriend only to bring her home where it takes your family all of 10 minutes to realize you brought a hooker home for dinner.

E: Interplay had no reason to try to get the IP rights back. They were set to return after 1 more released installment. Does it make sense to initiate litigation (that Bethesda initiated) to get back a property you are going to get back anyway? The only grab here was by Bethesda making an illegitimate claim to something they had no right to (ownership) and interfering in the agreement so as to help to ensure that interplay would not be able to retain focus on maintaining their end of the agreement. Putting Interplay into a compromised position, forcing them to accept unfavorable renegotiation of the arrangement which is exactly what occurred.

Granted the assessment that Interplay has the ability to avoid all this is very correct. They should have not accepted the deal, or any renegotiation of it and its been a downward slide of exploited loopholes ever since.

 

[duchaked]

well maybe Interplay can hope Bethesda will hire them to make an HD port of Fallout 1 and 2

 

[stickmangrit]

INTERPLAY SHOULD HAVE WON BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE BETHESDA. BETHESDA IS THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICE FOR A FRANCHISE, BUT THE ORIGINALS ARE CRAP TOO SO THE ORIGINAL DEVS SHOULDN'T WORK ON THEM EITHER. I HAVE NO REASON TO EVEN BE IN THIS ARGUMENT, AND AM CLEARLY TROLLING, SO WHY IN BLUE PERFECT HELL ARE PEOPLE STILL RESPONDING TO ME?

 

[Hungry Donner]

Ok more clarification.
A: The agreement was not ownership of the IP, it was a license of the IP and once Bethesda completed their 3 turns with the franchise it was set to return to Interplay.

This was the original agreement between Interplay and Bethesda, but then Bethesda went back and purchased the IP outright. It is this second agreement that involved licensing the MMO rights back to Interplay, and it is this second agreement that resulted in the lawsuit.

 

[Gather]

Now to look forward to another WoW-styled Theme Park styled MMO in the world of Fallout!

Hurray innovation

 

[Hungry Donner]

Now to look forward to another WoW-styled Theme Park styled MMO in the world of Fallout!

Hurray innovation

It's unlikely Bethesda (or Zenimax Online Stuidos, rather) will be doing anything with this in the foreseeable future.

 

[Earthmonger]

Euro-Morrowind, that's a name that certainly takes me back. It's a shame they faded away eventually. Silver Dragon (Ogre something over there) gave me a new link once but it never worked for me . . . although by then things were pretty quiet outside the French section.

Euro-Morrowind expanded into Euro-RPG. Old timers like Dragonnnnn, Sir, Imperator, Shadow, etc, began fading away. And Gordon (N^G) got married to Dragon_Legacy, lost interest in the site, and that was the final nail in the coffin. Everyone moved on; community dead. No bad memories though.

I was Moraelyn at Euro and TES, back then.

 

[lRookiel]

The idea of a Fallout MMO always struck me as odd anyway. Why should a place that is essentially a low-populated wasteland become an MMO filled with a bunch of people? I think it would take away some of the atmosphere of the game.

Your right there. However a coop mode wouldn't go a miss in the game as long as it was done well.

like 4 players max so it didn't spoil the whole "Lone wanderer" thing it had going for it.

 

[Hungry Donner]

The idea of a Fallout MMO always struck me as odd anyway. Why should a place that is essentially a low-populated wasteland become an MMO filled with a bunch of people? I think it would take away some of the atmosphere of the game.

Your right there. However a coop mode wouldn't go a miss in the game as long as it was done well.

like 4 players max so it didn't spoil the whole "Lone wanderer" thing it had going for it.

I agree that co-op seems the better way to go. I think a Fallout MMO is possible while maintaining the wasteland feeling, although it would be tricky. An RPG/RTS hybrid might actually be the way to go - something that promotes protecting your encampment and raiding others rather than having adventuring groups clogging up the wastes.

It would be interesting if you could join a community and help it increase its defenses, secure trading partners, and deal with raiders (or become them). Perhaps set it up so a community has as few central NPCs and most others are nameless protectors, which increase or decrease to compensate for the active player population. It would be great to visit a town and have most inhabitants be actual people, but they'd be replaced with NPC guards and what not during lean hours so they aren't easy pickings to gamers in other time zones.

Euro-Morrowind expanded into Euro-RPG. Old timers like Dragonnnnn, Sir, Imperator, Shadow, etc, began fading away. And Gordon (N^G) got married to Dragon_Legacy, lost interest in the site, and that was the final nail in the coffin. Everyone moved on; community dead. No bad memories though.

I was Moraelyn at Euro and TES, back then.

I recognize that name

I was sad to hear that Dragonnnnn passed away. He was fun; we had a bit of a race to see who'd hit 5k posts first, which was difficult without being spammy. He won, although funny enough he set up an unintended tradition of me being third to all of the major posting milestones (I'm a few months away from being third to hit 50k).

I was unaware that N^G and Dragon_Legacy got married, that is very cool news. Shame the forum couldn't persevere when he moved up, but I'm not surprised that happened.

 

[samsonguy920]

Good. Fallout Online was just going to do damage to the series, and I hope it never sees the light of day again.

I wouldn't consider that set in stone. Bethesda might just be up to the challenge of making one of their franchises into an MMO. Whether it be Elder Scrolls or Fallout, time will tell.