Bethesda vs Interplay. This time it's real.

[nitnit]

I'm surprised that resident bethesda fanboy / crew memeber tron hasn't heard about or reported this - but there is now a lawsuit going on between Bethesda and Interplay. Luckily I'm here to explain the details and illuminate what the possible outcomes are, and how it effects your gaming!


Background History:

A little over a decade ago, Interplay was a great gaming publisher. Creators of classics like Earthworm Jim, and employers of some legendary developers like Black Isle Studio, most of the era's best CRPGs were published by Interplay. A few years pass, Interplay is owned by a new guy, and he pretty much runs the whole company into the ground. Interplay is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Bethesda wants to expand and become the next big developer. Fancying themselves as great RPG makers, they see that the legendary Fallout IP is being held by a company that is almost gone, so they offer a little over 5 Million dollars for the property. Fair enough.

Interplay asks that they can retain the right to republish the Fallout titles they made, and the rights to create an MMORPG. Interplay accepted, but either out of stupidity or desperation, the president of Iplay (he signed the contract, not a lawyer) agreed to a bunch of, for lack of a better term, bullshit clauses involving Interplay's rights in the deal.

What clauses? Well, Interplay has to amass a good amount of money (30 million) by April of 2009 for the MMO - something pretty tough for a company in position to file for bankruptcy to do. Alright, not that bad, as for rereleasing the old Fallout games, Interplay was supposed to send all marketing and packaging to Bethesda for approval before releasing the games. According to "insders" Bethesda never really intended to ever approve of any of the packaging.


Fast Forward to a few months ago.


Interplay releases the Fallout Trilogy pack in stores, as well as on direct download with services like Good old Games and Steam. Interplay also claims that they have found another company to fund an MMO called "V13" (vault 13) in April.


Fast Forward to now.

Bethesda files 2 lawsuits against Interplay, one for starting the MMO without the funding, and one for releasing the original fallout games without their approval.

The latest is that Interplay is trying to call foul play on Bethesda's part over the contract, and are also claiming that V13 isn't a Fallout MMO (even though there are nuka cola bottles in all the concept art)




What's it mean?

Well, Interplay did sign the shitty contract, so Bethesda isn't really in the wrong. It's kind of petty of Beth to sue over this stuff, considering the insane amount of money they made off of Fallout 3. So, there are a couple possible outcomes:


- Bethesda wins, and as a settlement gets money. Interplay has no money, Interplay goes bankrupt. If this were to happen, then either Interplay would sell the remaining parts of the IP to Bethesda for Bethesda to potentially rerelease, or the old games would never be sold legally, ever again.

- Bethesda will most likely be able to make their own Fallout MMO. This will probably be handled by Zenimax's new MMO studio (the studio that was opened near the same time as Fallout 3's release... quite the coincidence, eh)

- Interplay wins, somehow, and they get money out of Bethesda for damages, and they get to go full force with the MMO - highly unlikely.


So, my real concern here (I know that a fallout mmo will be dumb no matter what. Fallout isn't about being near other people, it's about the exact opposite), is that if Bethesda wins, and neither company is now legally able to rerelease the old games, the only way for them to ever be played would be via piracy or ebay. And frankly, those are classic games (well, minus tactics) that every "real" gamer should experience at some point in time.  

[Niaxus]

...i think i would kinda like a fallout mmo...but if it was like 90% of the mmos on the planet and combat played itself...right click and watch avatars do things for you...BUT if its like fallout 3 i would love it...BOOM HEAD SHOT hey exp look at that fun fun...and making people go angry German kid on their comps...plus once your done with all the stuff in fallout 3 (how ever impossible it is to do ALL of it) what would be better then blowing the heads off people? REAL people...that can get mad at you...and cuss you out...and think you care...and get head shoted again XD  

[nitnit]

Why don't you just go play an FPS? Also you are aware that VATs would never work in a multiplayer setting unless the game used Fallout 1/2's turn based combat system.

Now, forget about your childish headshots (seriously just go play call of duty or whatever), and think about it. Fallout is about being alone in a post apocolyptic wasteland, fighting off weird monsters, and occasionally finding a settlement to do trade in. Populating the wasteland with a ******** of people would completely eradicate that feeling. The only thing I could see potentially working is if it was based on building societies for the most part.  

[Niaxus]

dude before you play me off as a guy who thinks FPS games are the best thing since sliced bread im not like that i love rpg's but it would just be fun if it was like that XD and vats shouldn't be in it at all XD that would be way to cheap...anyway im just mad at little kids who think they are the s**t because they play halo 3 and have ninja armor >>...so ya making them go angry German kid would be a win for me... im imagining all the locations in fallout 3 2 and 1 all piled into a awesome mmorpg with fallout 3 gameplay from the wastelanders point of view...not HEY LOOKS AT ME I HAS A MAGIC SUPER WRIST WATCH THAT LETS ME AUTO TARGET UR BRAINS LOLOL....it would just be an awesome game XD lol all the equipment (plus all the new stuff they would have) still...probably getting my hopes up for nothing eh?..oh power armor and plasma rifle..how you tease me...first person mmo..THE WAY OF TEH FUTUREZZZ how ever post apocolypty the future may be  

[nitnit]

It wouldn't make sense to have all the locations from 1, 2 and 3 since 1 and 2 are set on the west coast and 3 is set in washington DC. I was simply calling you an FPS player because you seem to think that fallout is about shooting people's heads off... and it's really not. also the angry german kid is an actor, proven fact, lol  

[Niaxus]

well can you not role play and blow heads off at the same time? lol and when i say make people go angry German kid i mean make them go nuts and bust their comps and consoles...aaanyway i love rpg's and i can stand some fps games...but no im not one of those people who screams BOOM HEAD SHOT when they kill someone on halo...but i do scream BOOM HEAD SHOT when im poppin heads on fallout >>...  

[Tron714]

Hhmmm why haven't I, the besthesda fanboy resident (ORLY?!), reported this?

Well... news of Guild Wars 2 in the past few weeks took up my time. Refreshing twitter and checking for vid updates. Also school and studying for my 620 exam is taking time.

And it seems pretty obvious that Interplay violated the poorly done contract and Bethesda is just gonna absorb whats rest of Interplay and continue making Fallout games, and the mass audience will praise Bethesda for being the "creator" of the Fallout series. 3nodding

On a side note, a Fallout MMO is just incredibly stupid. Anyone in their right mind who thinks thats a cool game is just... doesn't grasp the whole concept of the plot... I mean can you see a whole bunch of people standing out in front of Megaton? None the less 100 people running outside escaping a vault at once?  

[nitnit]

Niaxus - that's borderline hypocritical

Tron - I don't really think that Interplay will "be absorbed", court cases don't really work like that. I'm fairly certain that the court will charge Interplay to pay some amount of money to Bethesda for "damages" and Herve (president of Interplay) will either pull some money out of nowhere, declare bankruptcy, or sell a few IPs to companies (Earthworm Jim, Clay Fighter, original Fallout games). The court will probably terminate the contract, which would mean that Bethesda would retain the right to make new Fallout games, but probably not rerelease the originals.  

[Tron714]

Seeing that Zenimax bought id Software I really don't see why Besthesda wouldn't want to expand the company as well. I mean if they just buy Interplay they can have a completely different team making Fallout games while they can work on other IPs.  

[nitnit]

Herve would have to be willing to sell it to them. He's a man driven by arrogance, so while it's possible he might to save himself financially, it's equally possible he wouldn't out of spite.  

[Niaxus]

if they did do a fallout mmo would they add the fatman from f3 o.o...TEH CHAOS!!!!  

[nitnit]

The fatman itself was a dumb idea for a fallout 3. For a game that's supposed to be about survival, why would you add a mini nuclear launcher? Regardless you can just use some of the unique small guns and energy weapons even more efficiently..  

[Tron714]

One of the things i liked from Fallout 1 and 2 was the diversity of weapons. I mean instead of just a 10mm handgun I could go out and purchase a Desert Eagle. I dont know... but I like things like that.

And a thought on the fatman. I never really used it. To me it was kinda worthless and I used it only a couple of times.  

[Niaxus]

i only used the fatman in my many attempts to kill freedom prime...all of which i was vaparatatized o.o  

[nitnit]

Yup, the only way to kill liberty prime is to hack the game on the PC version... or mod it, I'm not 100% sure.