Interplay claims it wanted $50 million for Fallout rights, Bethesda refused

by Griffin McElroy on Oct 23rd 2010 5:30PM

The neverending tiff between Interplay and Bethesda over development of a Fallout-based MMO recently got a bit more backstory on the end of the former. Interplay president Eric Caen recently said in an interview with Edge that Bethesda was offered the rights to the Fallout MMO for $50 million, explaining that "the MMOG strength of this universe is huge." According to Caen, Bethesda passed on the license for a Fallout MMO, which Interplay then began developing with certain "conditions" established by Bethesda -- such as a required development start date of April 4, 2009.

The rest, as they say is history -- Bethesda filed a termination letter for Interplay to stop working on the project last year, claiming that the developer had missed the aforementioned start date. Caen contends that claim, saying Bethesda was merely looking for a way to acquire the rights to a Fallout MMO without fronting the $50 million price tag, which is a large sum of cash. We've contacted Bethesda for a response to Caen's claims.

Source: Edge Online

Tags: Bethesda-Softworks, bethesda-v-interplay, fallout-mmo, interplay, lawsuit, pc, project-v13

Reader Comments (57)

Bethesda sure wants Fallout :P

@The Cole Train I thought they had Fallout, though... And I don't see any real reason to make a Fallout MMO. In fact, it's possibly the worst thing you could do with the Fallout universe.

@Faren22 Even worse than making a Radscorpion pet simulator for Kinect?

@Faren22 Yeah, I don't really see how it could work either. Or work well at least. Just sounds like they want a piece of this tasty money MMO pie that everyones into these days.

What was wrong with Cherry?

@Pure Black World Tendency

Why make a whole new game when you could just make a Radscorpion costume for EyePet?

Im glad they didnt give up on the rights. Fallout is a great series. im happy to be a gaming this gen.

@logicplay
I don't get it. They had nothing to do with this gen's Fallout games... Bethesda made the first fallout and Obsidian (who didn't murder it but again didn't hit it out of the park) did New Vegas.

So, in theory, if they'd have given up the rights you might be getting more of this type of work. But if you are a bigger fan of the originals, then I guess I could understand it, despite them not developing a good game in some time.

@Mmmmz

Bethesda... made the first fallout?

*eye twitch*

Breathe, Mama Luigi... Breathe.

@Mama Luigi

I think he meant the fallout this gen...

@Mmmmz Why is this guy getting downvoted? He's stating honest facts: none of the fallout games released in the past five years or so have been made by Interplay.He's not trolling or anything: he even says that he understands if you prefer the older games.

Anyway let the flood of inexplicable downvotes commence...

@Hank Hill
None of the Fallout games have EVER been made by Interplay, only published by them.
Interplay has had NO involvement in the creation of Fallout games, just the distribution and marketing of them, which they did a piss poor job on.
The Dev studio for Fallout is long long gone, and Obsidian's game is the closest thing you will ever get to the original devs working on it, which is probably why, other than the bugs, Fallout New Vegas is a MUCH better game than 3.
And in many ways is more like the original games than 3 (for starters it's actually pretty funny at times, 3 had no humour at all...)

@Protome

Interplay has hired THE lead designer of Fallout (Chris Taylor) as well as the lead writer for Fallout 1&2 (Mark O'Green). I think that's more than enough to establish this MMO as having a proper Fallout pedigree. Time will tell whether this MMO will bring Fallout back to Fallout, but they certainly have hired the right people.

@Protome
BlackIsle was an interplay owned studio.

Lot of money, but considering the difficulty of breaking in with a completely unknown MMO, I don't think it is an unreasonable place for them to start.

Also "contests that claim - couldn't find another method to submit that.

Sorry Interplay, you sold the Fallout IP and now you want some rights to it. Its Bethesdas property now, love it or hate it, you sold it. not yours anymore.

@PR0F3TA
Well actually no. That's the whole point, they didn't sell them the rights to do a Fallout MMO. So in a way the IP is owed by both companies, just different parts of it. Personally I think Bethesda should've taken the deal, but then again $50 mill. is no chump change and at the time they might've not been able to afford, even if they saw the worth. I don't like the fact that Bethesda is now trying to weasel the IP out of Fallout. Just pay up the cash and buy it fair and square, not like you don't have it.

@PR0F3TA
+1 for passion, -1 for reading

@2late2die Bury this MMO turd now. I love Fallout and we all know this would flop if it came out. I would rather see some ports of the first few games to Macs or a console. Hell an ipad Fallout 1 would make me buy one of those things. Or, how about some new ISOMETRIC Fallouts eh? Please?

(oh, Bethesda howz bout u spend less time in court and more time making Elder Scrolls V?)

@The Wicker Man

The way I see it, Bethesda is a rising company, and Interplay is a falling one. If I was Bethesda, and Interplay offered to sell me their share of it now for $50 million, I'd do whatever I could to stall so they had even less leverage.

Then when they're down, you catch them on a technicality. They sue you, and get some money, but nowhere close to the 50 million they originally asked for. So in essence, Bethesda gets what they want for less money, just for being dirty.

Hooray for business!

It's like watching Jerry Springer for video game developers. Delicious!

@Punkrawk Bbob I: I'd rather get more decent games and less corporate drama.

@psycros

Why do you think those two things correlate? PR/Legal have zero impact on the staff, quality, or time spent developing games.

That's like bitching about McDonalds getting sued by hot coffee lady ruined the quality of your Eggamoobymuffin.

What does it matter what bethesda's reasons are? If they have a legitimate legal claim about it, there's no reason interplay should be able to continue

@TheDarkWayne
I think the point is moreso that Interplay is saying Bethesda doesn't have a legitimate legal right, and this is potentially one of the reasons why Bethesda may be attempting so, anyhow

@TheDarkWayne

And they say reading comprehension has taken a dive in recent years. *snickers*

The never ending gaming soaps.

*Turns on the tv and starts eating popcorn*

"Like sands through a nuka-cola glass, so are the days of the wasteland lives"

I love Fallout but I'm not interested in a Fallout MMO.

@The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross

Seconded. And I have some pretty grave concerns about what an MMO will do to the strength of the franchise.

@The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross So you are a ...Fallout Boy?

@The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross I agree, Fallout New Vegas is the sort of game I wish most MMOs were. That is to say, a huge expansie world with hundreds of hours of content but more focused on a single player story experience. Wish WoW was like New Vegas

@TheDarkWayne
Just to point out a flaw in your logic: an MMO inherently is not supposed to focus on the single player experience. So the argument that New Vegas (a single player-based RPG), is a better MMO than WoW (an RPG-based MMO) is kind of like saying Call of Duty (an FPS) is a better shooter than Madden NFL (a sports game). The two genres don't match, so don't compare them.

Fairly understandable. Bethesda had no way to know that Fallout3 would have been the huge hit that it was (and therefore, the potential cashcow that a Fallout3 MMO could be).

Not to mention that if Interplay release it and fall flat on their face (I'd hope not, but lets face it, MMOs aren't exactly the safest area of the industry to break into) it could hurt the Fallout brand, not to mention any further chances of a MMO should Bethesda manage to pick up the rights afterwards.

So in short: if I was a CEO and saw some way to get those rights without paying 50 million bottlecaps (hell, even 10 million)... yeah, I'd sure as hell attempt it.

We don't want to set the world on fire, interplay claims, we just want to start a flame in your heart

Sounds like more of interplays bullshit.

ZeniMaxMedia (Bethesda parent company) won't even pay for full product testing before their games are released (e.g any rpg they've released in the last 10 years always has a million obvious bugs at LAUNCH). They won't even spend money to *finish* patching their post-release games either. (e.g. Oblivon). They sure as heck aren't going to pay $50 million for anything. Their company just doesn't work that way.

...I still wonder what carrot they waived in front of Carmack to get him to agree to the buyout situation.. I bet he has a "backdoor" like Bungie did with Microsoft.

@Starbuck2907 Bungie didn't have a backdoor, that's why MS now unfortunately owns the Halo franchise.

@Starbuck2907 if by "backdoor" you mean, wait until they amassed a fortune large enough to purchase their independence then no, Carmack probably does not have that

Interplay only wants $50,000,000 because they're more broke than the Berlin wall

Fallout 1 and 2 were outstanding, but I don't have high hopes for Interplay these days. Plus I agree, an MMO would take away a lot of what made the original Fallout games great.

fallout has one of the richest rosters in terms of factions for a MMO, but Bethesda needs in on making it.

@FakeJamaican Which factions did Bethesda make?

@FakeJamaican
Why? I'd say all the people from Black Isle need in on the making.

... Fallout MMO = Fallen earth?

@kooda I was gonna say the same thing, I understand that releasing an mmo based on an existing property would be a lot easier, but for the most part, it would be Fallout in name only anyway, right? So why not just buy the rights to that decades old Wasteland property fallout was based on or just another generic apocalypse setting?

@TheDarkWayne
Wasteland 3 is in production, actually. They still own the rights to Wasteland.

@The Aquacharger nXile has had the Wasteland IP for quite a few years now and nothings really come of it

Elder Scrolls V ! Srsly.

A bunch of childish bullshit. Interplay needed to start development 1 year 6 months ago. They didn't do it. I don't see what the problem is. Besides, I'd rather not see Interplay as the developer. They no longer have the people necessary to make a decent game, let alone the cash. The Fallout MMO is either being farmed out as the rumored re-branding of the already in development Earthrise or it'll be a low budget waste of time.

@LaughingTarget

This is some ignorant bullshit right here. So the only people who should be making video games are large staffed, rich corporations? That's absolutely insane in my opinion. Braid? Cave Story? Tower of Goo? N+? Fate? Samurai Dishwasher? Trine? MineCraft? Flow? Darwinia? Limbo? Castle Crashers? Trials HD?

Seventh gen must be your first gaming generation, because that's insane logic that completely ignores Commodore through PS2.

@Punkrawk Bbob

There's a "Tower of goo" now???? I need to check that out... .. not that I enjoyed the first one particularly...

I kid... I kid...

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Interplay claims it wanted $50 million for Fallout rights, Bethesda refused

Reader Comments (57)

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:37PM The Cole Train said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:46PM Faren22 said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:40PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:52PM Sir Biccy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:08AM IronSnowman said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:38PM logicplay said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:52PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:16PM Mama Luigi said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:26PM doreo said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:29PM Hank Hill said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 9:23AM Protome said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 11:27AM Magetf said

Posted: Oct 25th 2010 1:09AM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:40PM Salain said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:49PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:15PM 2late2die said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:08PM Crayola Q Pants ESQ said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:35PM The Wicker Man said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:56PM An Unnamed Mob said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 5:50PM Punkrawk Bbob said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:07PM psycros said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 8:33AM Punkrawk Bbob said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:03PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:00PM Crayola Q Pants ESQ said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 8:34AM Punkrawk Bbob said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 6:11PM Stevetrop Man of Mystery said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:05PM The Joy of Painting w Bob Ross said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:30PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:35PM The Wicker Man said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 10:59PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 12:38AM Catalyst691 said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:07PM Crayola Q Pants ESQ said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:08PM FalafelCopter said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:14PM TMlord95 said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:16PM Starbuck2907 said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 9:16PM The angry pro consumer gaming ga said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 11:00PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:22PM wcarnation said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:24PM oxfordfishsalon said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 7:49PM FakeJamaican said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:17PM wcarnation said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 10:25PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 8:27PM kooda said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 11:03PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 2:48AM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 1:57PM wcarnation said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 9:53PM brer said

Posted: Oct 23rd 2010 11:16PM LaughingTarget said

Posted: Oct 24th 2010 8:54AM Punkrawk Bbob said

Posted: Oct 25th 2010 12:34AM ngSliver said

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