Bethesda May Lose Rights to the Fallout Franchise

[Panzersharkcat]

Link.

The long standing war between Interplay and Bethesda got an interesting turn in U.S. Court of Appeals, who ruled against Bethesda in the appeal of the 2nd injunction against Interplay. This allows the trial by jury to commence on December 12, 2011. For those not in the know, when Interplay licensed the Fallout franchise to Bethesda, the agreement was valid for Fallout 3, 4 and 5, while Interplay would develop an MMORPG based on the franchise. A second contract was signed in which Interplay sold the Fallout franchise to Bethesda Softworks, carrying additional separation between the single player and multiplayer games.

The problem ensued when Fallout became an overnight success and turned into a multi-hundred million dollar franchise. The appetites grew and naturally, rumors ensued that Bethesda wants to create an MMORPG game of their own. Given that Warcraft turned into a multi-billion dollar franchise thanks to enormous success of World of Warcraft, Bethesda started a legal battle over the custody of the franchise.

We have wrote about the situation on several occasions, and the situation did not look good for Interplay as the company had very limited operational cash flow (according to SEC statements). However, Interplay did raise 35 million of the required $30 million in funding. The key problem here though is the wording of the 2nd contract which states they must have 30 million in SECURE funding. Secure funding was never defined, thus Bethesda argued that the 35 million dollar fund is not secure. Another key argument of Bethesda was that the project had to be in "full scale" development by the imposed cut off date. Once again, Bethesda never defined what "full scaling" actually was. Does that mean a working demo which Interplay had at the proposed time? It is now up for the courts to decide.

However, over the past couple of meetings in the U.S. District Court and Court of Appeals, the situation started changing in Interplay's favor. Judges Agee, Duncan and Niemeyer denied the Appeal of the second injunction by Bethesda Softworks filed against Interplay Entertainment and decided that the case can continue to go to trial by jury.

Explaining the verdict, the district court judges ruled that:

"Bethesda appeals, arguing that the district court abused its discretion and misapplied the law in concluding that Bethesda failed to establish a likelihood of irreparable harm. A district court abuses its discretion when it denies a preliminary injunction motion only if it bases its decision on an erroneous legal standard or clearly erroneous factual findings."

"Here, the injunctive relief that Bethesda seeks would not preserve Interplay’s assets such that Interplay could satisfy a judgment in the event Bethesda prevails on the merits. "

The Court based its decision on multiple cases, including the Microsoft Antitrust Litigation, Elvis Presley Enters vs. Passport Video, eBay vs. MercExchange and many more.

The final quote of the verdict states that "Based on the foregoing, we affirm the order of the district court. We deny Bethesda’s motion to file a supplemental appendix. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process."

Should the outcome of this case null and void the second contract between Interplay and Bethesda (via Interplay's counter suit), the contract will revert back to the original licensing contract for Fallout 3, 4 and the upcoming Fallout 5 plus the expansion packs via the terms of the licensing contract.

To try to put this in perspective; Fallout 3 sold over 300 million in revenue at launch as well as Fallout 4 a.k.a. New Vegas which also sold 300 million at launch. That’s 600 million+ which translates to $72 million in a payment plus interest if Interplay successfully defends the Dec 12 trial and wins the counter suit. The odds might be low but the main question is can Bethesda afford to take the risk given of losing its cash cow and paying out precious cash when they just bought out ID Software and rage is not a confirmed success yet or will they settle before the court date?

We're not talking about at least 72 million dollars. Add the damages which the jury state at their own will - which can be from the tune of couple to couple of dozen million dollars. After talking to our legal counsel, we guestimate that Interplay would stand to receive around 200-250 million dollars in total, which is money that Bethesda definitely would not like to lose. After all, the company got the franchise for a few million dollars while it was dead in the water and scored jackpot, pumping Stimpack into the community which responded with more than 10 million copies sold, plus all the additional DLC packs. Should Bethesda win, nothing will change and Bethesda will get to keep the Fallout franchise.

We expect to see this case settled out of court and that Bethesda will keep the Fallout franchise, but if Interplay remains stubborn and fights the case to the end, we might not see a Fallout title coming for a while.

Well, shit. Unsurprisingly, lots of Bethesda hate in the Vault.

[Stark]

Let's start a poll - who'd make a worse Fallout MMO? A company that barely exists or accompany that creates dogshit?

At least I know never to sign an agreement with Bethesda.

[Vympel]

I find the legal analysis in the linked article infantile. Losing an injunction has fuck all to do with how the actual case will go.

[Xon]

It also mixes up that there are two contracts. The first one gives Bethesda the rights for the IP to make Fallout 3, 4 and 5. The second contract outright sells all the rights for Fallout to Bethesda while reserving the rights for Interplay to go make an MMORPG based on the Fallout IP and actually putting a deadline for when development would start (24 months from early-2007) and that it needs to have "secured funding".

Bethesda wants the rights for the Fallout MMO since Interplay hasn't done a damn thing with them since 2007 when the agreement was struck.

[open_sketchbook]

As my only interest in Skyrim is seeing the eventual Fallout game they make on the engine, fuck Interplay.

[Darksider]

Has Interplay even made a game in the last ten years? At all? I thought they were already basically a dead company

[Panzersharkcat]

I've only heard of a few that they've made or published: a few Baldur's Gate games, Fallout Tactics, and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

[Narkis]

Those were all almost a decade ago. I don't think they've made anything else since.

[Bakustra]

Those were all almost a decade ago. I don't think they've made anything else since.

They've made a few DSiWare and WiiWare games in the last couple years, but that's it. Even the Fallout MMO has been shifted to Masthead Studios in Bulgaria, though they worked on it in-house from 2007-2009.

[Narkis]

That's... not very encouraging. Some Bulgarian nobody handling development can't be good for the game's prospects. They should hand it over to Obsidian and get it over with. Their games are buggy messes, but at least they're good.

[Bakustra]

That's... not very encouraging. Some Bulgarian nobody handling development can't be good for the game's prospects. They should hand it over to Obsidian and get it over with. Their games are buggy messes, but at least they're good.

It gets better. They have developed precisely one MMO before Fallout, Earthrise, which has been pretty much panned for being uninspired and grindy. This looks better and better the more I look into it!

[Stark]

Interplay has been in dire straits or dead for ages. They're trying to hold onto their rights becuase it's valuable to them, not becuase they can make a good game.

I mean, Bethesda can't either, but at least an MMO won't be so full of mechanics based on fan service.

[Thanas]

I've only heard of a few that they've made or published: a few Baldur's Gate games, Fallout Tactics, and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

Baldur's Gate 1 was developed by Black Isle and Bioware, BG 2 was developed by Bioware. They only published those games.

[Narkis]

They also published some hack n slash BG games for consoles when they started going downhill. Dunno who developed them, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't Black Isle or Bioware.

[Thanas]

Also, Fallout tactics was neither developed nor published by them. So that leaves them with....Brotherhood of Steel, which was a BG: Dark Alliance (aforementioned hacknslash) clone.

[Panzersharkcat]

Also, Fallout tactics was neither developed nor published by them. So that leaves them with....Brotherhood of Steel, which was a BG: Dark Alliance (aforementioned hacknslash) clone.

I stand corrected. It does not leave me with much confidence in Interplay's abilities, for reasons other people have mentioned.

[Enigma]

From what I understand from the wiki article about Interplay was that from the very later 90's to the first couple of years in the 00's, Interplay had hit a financial slump. In 2001, Titus Interactive bought them out and dropped Interplay's publishing division and signed a long term contract with Vivendi Universal, to publish Interplay's games. Few years afterwards, Titus got into a series financial and legal messes which ended up with them in 2005 shutting down, leaving everyone in the lurch including Interplay.

In 2004, Interplay was evicted from their headquarters due to lack of funds and were fined by the California government for not paying their employees. By 2005, they stopped developing games in-house and instead licensed them to outside developers. But they restarted in-house development roughly around 2007.

Since then they are trying to make a comeback. It'll be a while before they can be a major presence again, if at all.

[Dread Not]

Ughhhhlllllggg, I can barely fathom what a bore a Fallout MMO by Bethesda would be. Fallout 3 felt like a padded out Skinner Box to begin with. Give that the WoW treatment and you have a recipe for a vampiric life-sucker that will be all but impossible to tear yourself away from. Though as others have stated, there's no reason to think Interplay has much to offer either.

[Panzersharkcat]

Beside the fact that I don't play MMOs, I wouldn't get it because they'd probably have to take away VATS unless they want to explain how thousands of people have Pip-Boys.

[Vendetta]

They also published some hack n slash BG games for consoles when they started going downhill. Dunno who developed them, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't Black Isle or Bioware.

Dark Alliance 1 was developed by Snowblind Studios, DA2 was developed by Black Isle. Dark Alliance 2 was the last Interplay game before they shut down all internal development and sacked everyone except Hervé Caen, leaving the company as essentially nothing but an entity holding on to the Fallout rights.

Hervé Caen isn't quite Tim Langdell, but I suspect the claims of a Fallout MMO ever being developed or financed by Interplay are as likely as anything Langdell comes up with.

[Panzersharkcat]

They also published some hack n slash BG games for consoles when they started going downhill. Dunno who developed them, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't Black Isle or Bioware.

Dark Alliance 1 was developed by Snowblind Studios, DA2 was developed by Black Isle. Dark Alliance 2 was the last Interplay game before they shut down all internal development and sacked everyone except Hervé Caen, leaving the company as essentially nothing but an entity holding on to the Fallout rights.

Hervé Caen isn't quite Tim Langdell, but I suspect the claims of a Fallout MMO ever being developed or financed by Interplay are as likely as anything Langdell comes up with.

From what I've been able to find from the Vault, they have some proof of concept screen shots. Chris Taylor and Mark O'Green, two of the original creators of Fallout, are part of the development team, if that means anything.

[Shroom Man 777]

I like New Vegas.

[Stark]

I like New Vegas.

It only took them five years to make Oblivion work. :V

[Panzersharkcat]

I like New Vegas.

It only took them five years to make Oblivion work. :V

New Vegas was Obsidian. It was only published by Bethesda. (Not that Fallout 3 wasn't ridiculously buggy to begin with. My friend tells me it's to be expected with Bethesda games. But hey, it didn't take them that long to make it functional.)

[Tanasinn]

Ultimately, who cares who gets the rights to the Fallout MMO? It's going to be yet another shitty WoW-wannabe that will be forgotten in six months. The best we can hope for is that this soon-to-be-latest of repeated failures to reproduce WoW's success as a money-printing idiot treadmill will finally convince publishers and developers to stop bothering.

That's assuming it gets made at all.