As reported last week, the legal battle between Bethesda and Interplay over the final fate of a massively multiplayer online Fallout game has ended in a settlement, one that leaves full control of Fallout intellectual properties in the hands of Bethesda.
For those of you just joining the ongoing legal battle, when The Elder Scrolls developers Bethesda Softworks originally acquired the licence to the post-apocalyptic Fallout series in 2007, original owner Interplay was granted the rights to create a massively multiplayer online game based on the property with a pair of conditions: Interplay had to secure $US30 million in financing for the project, and development had to be in full swing by April of 2009.
Interplay met neither goal, so Bethesda parent company Zenimax took steps to take the permission back, and now they finally have it.
Under the terms of the settlement, Interplay no longer has a licence to develop the Fallout MMO. They are still able to sell copies of Fallout Tactics, Fallout and Fallout 2, but its permission to do so ends on December 31, 2013. Both sides are responsible for paying their own legal fees.
A separate but related lawsuit between Bethesda and developer Masthead Studios was settled in late December. Masthead has been tapped by Interplay to develop portions of the Fallout MMO, despite that the original Bethesda agreement forbade the company to subcontract. Masthead agreed that it had no rights to develop games using the Fallout licence.
In an official statement issued today, ZeniMax CEO and chairman Robert Altman expressed satisfaction with the settlements. “While we strongly believe in the merits of our suits, we are pleased to avoid the distraction and expense of litigation while completely resolving all claims to the Fallout IP. Fallout is an important property of ZeniMax and we are now able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others’ legal claims.”
I guess this leaves it up to Bethesda to make their own Fallout MMO. Good thing they’ve got a studio established for such things.
Akra
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:06 AMI doubt they were actually working on the Fallout MMO.
advice dog
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 3:12 PMthey definately were working on it. the picture in this article is from the website bethesda had for “fallout online” which was unfortunately taken down because of legal issues.
Steengo
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:13 AMGood. Interplay would only fuck it up.
Wolfhammer
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:32 AMI hope Bethesda will pick this up or start something similar I was looking forward to it…
Reign
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:51 AMGreat, we’ll have an MMO – which are normally bug infested, made by the developer with the worst QA in history.
Splendiferous
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:05 AMI dunno, I reckon that Obsidian would give them a run for their money in the “What’s QA?” stakes.
Thom
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:10 AMI would have said interplay had a bad track record too…
Joshy206
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:55 PMJust like the wasteland, it would be filled with mutant bugs!
Mawt
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 10:55 AMSo Bethesda will publish, Obsidian will develop, right? Right?
Cameron
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:05 AMAll this talk about Fallout, but still no announcement of Fallout 4. WTF Bethesda! It’s been like almost 2 months since Skyrim came out! I need my fix dammit!
chugs
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:41 AMstill a little bit of juice left in skyrim buddy. i would be happy for fallout 4 to come out say 2013-14. i wouldn’t mind if they diverged from the continental USA
Akra
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:17 PMI think it would be kind of cool to see Fallout Universe from the Chinese perspective.
jbm
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 1:00 PMI would love to see a story arc about how the Chinese have rebuilt after the Great War and they are planning to invade America for a 2nd time. It would be an excellent way to introduce a new array of weapons and the rich history should help the writers produce some creative and captivating questlines.
Cameron
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:28 PMIf they announce Fallout 4 now it would be at least 2013 until it’s released. At least that’s the timeframe I’ve got in my head. Don’t worry I’ve worked it all out.
James Mason
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:46 AMHope they do more than just reskin Skyrim.
weresmurf
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 12:39 PMAwww how nice a result where EVERYBODY loses.
Femto
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 1:35 PMI think Fallout is better as a single player game. Some games don’t need to be MMO’s
Tasrill
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 1:46 PMWhat I would have though that Bethesda would have let Interplay keep Fallout:Brotherhood of Steel to, but I guess they just wanted it so badly that they had to have the sales rights immediately.
Sharps
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 2:23 PMI don’t know why they’re so scared of the Fallout MMO. Unless it was free to play, it would have tanked. Also Bethesda gave Obsidian a chance to make Fallout: New Vegas and that was a nightmare at launch and for several months down the line. There’s also no way they will ever release a Fallout MMO now. Only reason BioWare was able to do it was because it was Star Wars license. Oh well, no Halo/Fallout MMO.
Toasty Fresh
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 6:02 PMOh well lol. I don’t care, MMOs butcher the believability of the universe, KoTOR was well written and subtle, now you have fat jedi running around looking like clowns and acting like tools, not to mention there’s a zillion of them. I’m quite glad that there’s no Fallout MMO as this would have been doubly bad for Fallout considering its universe.
Vallen Chaos Valiant
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 6:59 PMYeah, It would be a little weird if the so-called “wasteland” ended up being flooded with so many adventurers that people had to line up in order to wait for quest monster respawns. Over-population would have completed destroyed any sense of being post-apocalyptic. Still, good luck to them if they want to try. I won’t be playing it anyway as I only play Single-player stuff.
Shaoken
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:28 PMThey were afraid because A) It was technically their IP and B) Interplay was counter-suing them to try and regain control of the liscence.
PLOPPY
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 8:00 PMYeah Bethesda don’t make MMOs – they try to make good games.
Laporious Goodfellow
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 1:26 AMPoor old Interplay
AerintheADEQUATE
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 2:51 AMI think the IDEA of a Fallout MMO is about one billion times better than any *actual* Fallout MMO would be.
MMOs pretty much lose their magical ‘awesome idea’ status once you include grinding and over a million assholes all jumping around and spewing alphanumeric bile into their chat boxes :-P… in my opinion, of course.