Report: Interplay countersues Bethesda over Fallout rights

by Xav de Matos { Oct 21st 2009 at 6:00PM }

The infighting between Fallout's father and newly adopted guardian continues. According to a forum post by supposed Interplay stockholder frymuchan, Interplay has been given a 10-day extension to answer a preliminary injunction filed by Bethesda, which claims Interplay no longer holds rights to sell the original titles in the series. Following the release of Fallout 3, Interplay began selling the original titles across multiple PC-based digital distribution services.

Previous court filings by Bethesda claimed that Interplay's plans to develop a Fallout MMO -- codenamed Project V-13 -- were no longer valid because Interplay did not commence development prior to an agreed date of April 4, 2009. According to the post by RagingBull forum user "frymuchan" -- who claims to have received the information from official court documents -- Interplay claims it did issue a letter to Bethesda prior to the April date outlining details of a Fallout MMO, but Bethesda told it "for no apparent reason" that Interplay was no longer allowed to develop the game. Interplay believes that Bethesda's interference with licensing agreements to make the original titles in the series available digitally is unreasonable based on the current contracts in place.

Frymuchan also claims that Interplay has filed a countersuit versus Bethesda over statements it made to third party companies to whom it was attempting to license the original titles. According to the post, Bethesda released statements to companies such as GameTap and Good Old Games, claiming Interplay had no rights to license Fallout 1, 2 or Tactics for sale on its services. Interplay's counterclaim maintains this "unreasonable interference" puts Bethesda into breach of contract and makes the license sale "null and void," therefore reverting the agreement back to a sub-licensing deal between Interplay and Bethesda. In short, Interplay claims Bethesda now only holds rights to Fallout 3 with options for a fourth and fifth game in the series.

It's an argument of apocalyptic proportions and we're expecting more details when the extension expires next week.

[Via GamePolitics and Destructoid]

Tags: bethesda, bethesda-softworks, business, fallout, fallout-4, fallout-5, fallout-mmo, interplay, lawsuit, project-v13

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

PR0F3TA (PSN - PROPHETA) @ Oct 21st 2009 6:08PM

*sigh* they all were great games to me (FO2 more specifically), kinda sucks when you see 2 gaming companies go at it... unless its Activision, them and their peripheral gimmicks

RKN @ Oct 21st 2009 6:08PM

EA and Activision should both go at each other's throats, who ever loses, us gamers win.

eldee @ Oct 21st 2009 6:17PM

if one of them loses, one of them also wins.. tough call.

RKN @ Oct 21st 2009 6:08PM

I would like to know how/why Bethesda gave Obsidian permission to develop Fallout: New Vegas.

I'm very excited for that game since some of the developers behind Fallout 1/2 (better than 3 IMO) are working on it. Show them how its done Obsidian!

Courtney @ Oct 21st 2009 6:19PM

From the article:

"Interplay claims Bethesda now only holds rights to Fallout 3 with options for a fourth and fifth game in the series."

If Bethesda has the license or rights to two more games in the series, I don't see any reason why they couldn't outsource one of those games.

Rifle-Man @ Oct 21st 2009 6:12PM

I still like Wasteland better than any Fallout game.

JEV4 @ Oct 21st 2009 6:13PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSLlZh9yelk

eldee @ Oct 21st 2009 6:14PM

correction: interplay is not the father of Fallout, it was the step uncle in charge of publishing the game who ultimately pulled the plug on the franchise. now uncle interplay wants to come back in and make some more money now that Fallout is back on the sales charts. Huge surprise.

Courtney @ Oct 22nd 2009 12:31PM

Correction: Black Isle was a wholly owned developer of Interplay, formed to specifically make RPGs for the publisher. Sticking to the family tree analogy here, Interplay would be more like the grandfather.

Morgemil @ Oct 21st 2009 6:18PM

This is really shady on Interplay's part. They're treating the IP sale like some jank real estate scam.

RKN @ Oct 21st 2009 6:19PM

Well, Bethesda had the idea to make 3 far more mainstream, for the consoles and thus the reason for its massive sales success vs. 1/2/Tactics which are PC only and relatively niche.

Too bad you didn't have that idea Interplay. Wait, there was a Fallout game for the PS2/Xbox but it was utter garbage.

Abdul @ Oct 21st 2009 6:29PM

It seems what happened was that Interplay thought that there was no financial value in the Fallout license after they bungled the last few attempts at creating a Fallout 3 (Brotherhood of Steel and the unreleased Interplay version of Fallout 3) and probably thought Bethesda's Fallout 3 was going to do mediocre numbers and my guess is they had no intention of developing the Fallout MMO. Once they saw the Fallout 3 sales numbers their jaws dropped and started to hack something together. I think at that point Bethesda was just trying to protect the Fallout license by revoking it from Interplay. If Interplay wasn't willing to put in the resources and time necessary to create a Fallout MMO (several years) then it likely would have been a bomb and hurt the brand. I also don't doubt that Bethesda has their own big plans for a Fallout MMO.

Aurailious @ Oct 21st 2009 6:40PM

That is how I took it. Bethesda has far better capabilities to develop and publish games than Interplay at this point and really have made what Fallout is today.

Mr.ESC @ Oct 21st 2009 6:30PM

Bethesda:Hey mister can I have your fallout license I would like to make a new game.
Interplay:A new game about fallout? gee kid I don't think no one is interested anymore but here knock yourself out.
Bethesda:Thanks mister.

Months later...

Critics:Wow this game is really good
Players:Fallout is aweosme
Me:Yay!
Pc dude:I knew fallout before any of you brats.

Interplay:Wow people do care about my franchise, maybe I shouldn’t have sold it.
Interplay: Hey kid can I have my franchise back

Bethesda:I don't know mister I'm making quite a lot of money here and I promise my friend Obsidian I'll let him use the license sir.
Interplay:You ungrateful little punk!

LaughingTarget @ Oct 21st 2009 6:38PM

Obsidian: Hey, we're the ones who actually made the game, but you Interplay jerks made us go to the courthouse to change our name from Black Isle.

Aurailious @ Oct 21st 2009 6:44PM

I expect Obsidian to do excellent work on Fallout: New Vegas. Perhaps if they well enough Bethesda will let them make all future Fallout titles as well.

I certainly hope so. And I know Bethesda will treat them better than Interplay.

Mr.ESC @ Oct 21st 2009 9:25PM

It always make me happy to see one of my posts get 3 hearts even though they have horrible grammatical errors.

Can you spare an edit button mister Xav?

Cyrius @ Oct 22nd 2009 10:33PM

You are all wrong, Interplay went bankrupt then just recently found financing in selling rights to their most successful franchise to another company.

Also, simply put, if Bethesda is overstepping their contract guidelines, then more power to Interplay. Bethesda's vision of Fallout was not true to the story, it's hard for me to even consider it canon.

Where is the child killing and forcing everyone you meet to hate you? When you became a slaver in Fallout 2 you got a tattoo on your forehead that let everyone know. Sulik would try to kill you for it. There are simply no far-reaching consequences for your actions in Fallout 3 (Choosing the starting city doesn't count, it has to be lasting social consequences, not eliminating a group that would hate you altogether.) If you attacked a city in Fallout 2 you had to fight them every time you went back until EVERY SINGLE ONE was dead. If you attacked someone in Fallout 3, you just had to go somewhere and rest for 3 days before you could go back.

Also, cptkrush, outlining plans of a game is the first step of making a game. That means that Interplay fulfilled their end of that deal. You can't start the coding unless you have ideas to code around.

Also, as with the console argument, the technology simply wasn't around then. There was no way a Fallout 3 like we saw could possibly be released on the ps2 or xbox.

Lastly, I would rather see an updated isometric Fallout than the first person garbage that Bethesda released. Quicken the turn-based combat from the original instead of some jank ass first person AP recharge bullshit like VATS is what I want to see.