Bethesda gets FOOL rights, Interplay gets $2 million

[Lexx]

Does this apply to future titles?! I thought that Bethsoft couldn't make a Fallout title after Fallout 4, and after that it goes back to Interplay.

This was answered literally five posts above your posts.

That's what I mean. Many I talked to told me that was still the case, here and in other places as well.

Pretty sure it's because of missinformation and stuff. As example, I've read wrong and old / outdated information on many german websites, up to this point. Many gaming sites just copy from each other or write stuff that really is not the case. Wrongly translated texts problably have a big impact on it (and translating from sources who stated stuff wrong as well- lack of good research, etc).

 

[TheWesDude]

im guessing once you try to start translating legal-ese unless you have someone in the business and fluent in both languages, mis-translations are going to happen.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Well in a sense I am glad that this circus of annoyance is finally over though as expected I am disappointed with the outcome.
Not that would have been different if Iplay had won the case as the likelihood of them having the finances to release a properly developed MMO was very small.
(I don't think the problem was some of the people who worked on it, just that there would probably not enough money to make it as they have it in mind)

I have serious doubts that this game would do well on the MMO market once they had removed all the Fallout related material and released it as a 'generic post apocalyptic' online game.
We have seen several of those in the past and I don't know how successful they are as I think WoW stomped most of them in the ground.
Iplay's MMO really depended on the Fallout brand name in order to stand out somewhat.

What I also find curious is that the whole 'license for three games' came into play again as from what I understood I play had sold the complete rights to the regular games already years ago to Bethesda.
Was Herve's intention to get those rights back through the FOOL lawsuit, reversing the deal that he made back then.

As some here have mentioned, Masthead will probably take most of the hurt and I do hope that they get the chance to learn from this and break off with the French conman.

 

[Yazman]

Yeah why do people still think Bethesda only had the rights to 3 games? That arrangement ended literally YEARS ago when Bethesda bought the total rights to the series.

Bethesda have owned Fallout in full for years, there's nothing Interplay could possibly do to ever get them back.

I don't know how you've jumped to the conclusion that they've abandoned the PC, they've had quite a few PC releases since the return.

That's not jumping to a conclusion, it's something they did a little over a decade ago, and it's the mentality that led to stupid bullshit like Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel being released and funded instead of Fallout 3 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 being planned. Brian Fargo quit over the console stuff. Interplay DID pretty much abandon the PC as a platform, the only reason they're peddling PC games these days is because PC games are the only things they released that could possibly keep them afloat.

Interplay deserves to collapse, it's a huge piece of shit company and worse for Fallout than Bethesda could ever be. It's a complete fucking farce of a company and it should end, sooner rather than laterl.

 

[egalor]

If my opinion might matter somebody, I don't care a rat's butt about yet-another-MMO-set-in-a-famous-IP.

Indeed, by having this case settled (finally), I do hope Interplay will start developing some more cool RPGs, rather than an MMO game.

 

[Fallout1FTW]

Wasteland 2 is still on the horizon, right?

 

[Kerr-Plomb]

Wasteland 2 is still on the horizon, right?

It's not even official that there ever will be a Wasteland 2. But inexile, unter beth/zeni got the rights for it and all hints say that it's coming.

The question is if Hunted hindered that now.

 

[Merchant]

After Bethesda claimed the FOOL rights, the chances of V13 seeing the finish line in development has shrunk to a size of a rotten fig

What is the point of making a Fallout MMO when any "Fallout" material is restricted?

It's a shame really, i wanted to see what would come out of V13, but now i personally really doubt that the project will continue. Those screenshots (although they didn't look anything like fallout but more like average colorful graphics of modern MMO's) had my interest.

Even before Interplay lost the rights to make the game, many people on the forums concluded, however, that Interplay stood on unsolid ground right from the start, so i guess that these are not unexpected news.

 

[Himmelstoss]

After Bethesda claimed the FOOL rights, the chances of V13 seeing the finish line in development has shrunk to a size of a rotten fig

What is the point of making a Fallout MMO when any "Fallout" material is restricted?

It's a shame really, i wanted to see what would come out of V13, but now i personally really doubt that the project will continue. Those screenshots (although they didn't look anything like fallout but more like average colorful graphics of modern MMO's) had my interest.

OK, but does development really have to stop? I mean, the court case was about who owned the license, right? Now that we've established that Bethesda's got 'em, wouldn't it be possible to continue MMO development under license from Bethesda?

That is if a deal could be made, of course.

 

[Merchant]

If you ask me, i think that instead of fighting for the fallout license, Interplay should just get their stuff together and develop an original, unique post-apocalyptic world with a storyline which would support an MMO setting.

The problem lies elsewhere, funding is required, cash cash cash - and lot's of it. If Interplay would actually find the money to make something decent, i don't think that major triumph (or failure) would be based on whether we are playing "Fallout" or not. This is purely my opinion, i might be wrong.

For me Fallout is Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, so be it Bethesda's Fallout's or Interplays project V13's, i really don't care, but keeping in mind that Interplay made Fallout, i would try to play (for the sake of respect) their post apocalyptic MMO (i think that many Fallout fans would agree with me on this) and if the game would turn out to be good, it would find it's stable place in the market. The "Fallout" brand can't bring major success and profit if that is what Interplay hoped for, they simply need to make a good, unique MMO.
Otherwise they will just go bankrupt again. I wonder how many money they make by selling the old Fallout games, because you can easily download them on the web

 

[darby70]

I really hate Zenimax Media and Bethesda right now.

I don't. Interplay have fucked up the Black Isle studio right the same way. Bad karma, boys, huh?

I don't think it was karma this time, Herv probably should've improved faction relation with Bethesda to 'liked'

 

[Corith]

i think that instead of fighting for the fallout license, Interplay should just get their stuff together and develop an original

As a former IPLY employee, who's delt with Herve, I can tell you, they can't, and they never will.

The core issue is, and has always been, Herve. He just isn't a gamer and has an arrogant streak a mile wide precluding any company he leads from developing anything meaningful. Herve always has his fingers too deep into development for anything to bloom.

The problem lies elsewhere, funding is required, cash cash cash - and lot's of it. If Interplay would actually find the money

They never will.
Herve has bankrupted every company he's run. Time and time again he's shown he has utterly no business acumen and instead relies on scams and cooking the books to keep afloat. Nobody wants to extend him funding.

Beth did only so they could play his dishonesty and arrogance against him. Read that original contract carefully. He was subjective to random audits, couldn't cheat his employees or clients, and had to raise 35 million in 24 months.

 

[Merchant]

i think that instead of fighting for the fallout license, Interplay should just get their stuff together and develop an original

As a former IPLY employee, who's delt with Herve, I can tell you, they can't, and they never will.

The core issue is, and has always been, Herve. He just isn't a gamer and has an arrogant streak a mile wide precluding any company he leads from developing anything meaningful. Herve always has his fingers too deep into development for anything to bloom.

The problem lies elsewhere, funding is required, cash cash cash - and lot's of it. If Interplay would actually find the money

They never will.
Herve has bankrupted every company he's run. Time and time again he's shown he has utterly no business acumen and instead relies on scams and cooking the books to keep afloat. Nobody wants to extend him funding.

Beth did only so they could play his dishonesty and arrogance against him. Read that original contract carefully. He was subjective to random audits, couldn't cheat his employees or clients, and had to raise 35 million in 24 months.

Judging from your well justified words, can you predict what awaits Project V13? Before i used to be optimistic about it, mainly because the screenshots and the concept-art gave me a feeling of inspiration towards the work which the developers have done, but now i see that their position is pretty much unenviable. An optimistic person can of course say that Project V13 might get frozen till better times or something in that manner, perhaps even find funding in time, but as you said, with Herve being in the drivers seat, nothing good awaits the game.

 

[Richwizard]

The bad news is: Interplay lost Fallout.
The good new is: Interplay lost Fallout.

Some old school hard liners really wanted Interplay to regain the Fallout franchise, hoping that they could bring Fallout back to it's roots. There would have been no point in that without Black Isle Studios. Interplay really clusterf^(ked themselves when they cancelled Van Buren and cut Black Isle loose. Having Interplay try to go on with Fallout, without Black Isle, would be like The Beatles trying to go on without John Lennon. It might invoke a little nostalgia but how much good material, up to the standards of the original games, would be generated?

The band broke up years ago. It's not getting back together. Time to move on.

 

[Sub-Human]

The bad news is: Interplay lost Fallout.
The good new is: Interplay lost Fallout.

Some old school hard liners really wanted Interplay to regain the Fallout franchise, hoping that they could bring Fallout back to it's roots. There would have been no point in that without Black Isle Studios. Interplay really clusterf^(ked themselves when they cancelled Van Buren and cut Black Isle loose. Having Interplay try to go on with Fallout, without Black Isle, would be like The Beatles trying to go on without John Lennon. It might invoke a little nostalgia but how much good material, up to the standards of the original games, would be generated?

The band broke up years ago. It's not getting back together. Time to move on.

I'd have to disagree with you there, pal. Personally I wanted to let Interplay win, but not because a company sharing the same name made Fallout and Fallout 2 (a fairly obvious reason as to why I play Fallout).

Mainly, I wanted a change. Bethesda bored me to death with their endless exploration and little to none roleplaying, or, better yet, cool roleplaying (being badass, ridiculous dialogue). Whenever I play Fallout 3 or even New Vegas (not so much), I just think 'video game'. It's fairly clear to me that this is over-thought, fake crap, worse than some of those foreign soap operas.

Hell, I'd even go as far saying that those games didn't have the 'cool' moments for me. It felt cool when I played Doom (nonstop action, always feel under pressure) or Deus Ex (sneaking was intense), but not these first person shooters.

I hoped Interplay would produce something by far more different than Bethesda or Obsidian under ZeniMax could. I'm just bored with the franchise and I'm afraid this will percieve even with Fallout 4 and so on. Bethesda, in my opinion, is just ruining the franchise here, because it does the game in a style different to what I'd want from it (i.e. PnP-style post-apocalyptic roleplaying).

 

[Brother None]

Yeah, Bethesda does stick to their prototype a bit too much. All their games are basically the same at heart, which is a good approach, they do what they do very well, but if it doesn't click with you it's a little tiring.

My dream would be they allow Obsidian to do a genuine, not-main-game related spinoff, on Obsidian's own engine. But that would not be a very un-Bethesda thing to do.

 

[Corith]

Judging from your well justified words, can you predict what awaits Project V13?

Predicting Herve's actions is easy.

If you believed all that you thought, said, and did were perfect and beyond approach, what would you do?

I have no doubt that Herve thinks is V13 project is the end-all-be-all of MMOs. Losing the Fallout IP is just more of the conspiracy against his greatness (see, told you predicting arrogant people is easy). He will continue to create his shell companies, weasel money, stiff employees, swindle clients, the same thing he's been doing for 7 years to keep Interplay open and push is "baby" out the door.

He'll strip all Fallout references and make it just a post apocalyptic game.

I get the impression you're interested in V13. Don't be. Like I posted before, Herve is no gamer, he doesn't understand games, nor cares much about them other than as a revenue stream. What ever he makes, what ever he sticks his sticky fog fingers into will never be any good nor competitive.

 

[Brother None]

Yeah, V13 is going to continue as generic, or maybe Fallen Earth 2 since they're already working with Masthead (assuming that cooperation can continue).

Still, I have no idea where Herve is going to find funding for that. Unless 2 million is enough.

 

[Sub-Human]

Speaking of Interplay, I never really thought of what would happen to Fallout if Herve would assume direct control of it.

I see that he managed to run the company down, make more debt and less games, if any. I also see he managed to keep Interplay afloat without really releasing anything of interest.

So really, I don't know what to think of him. This is kind of a major factor as to why I wanted Interplay to win.

Hmm, and I'd rather like for Obsidian to do a main game rather than a spin-off, but I guess you dream more real, BN.

 

[darby70]

Yeah, Bethesda does stick to their prototype a bit too much. All their games are basically the same at heart, which is a good approach, they do what they do very well, but if it doesn't click with you it's a little tiring.

My dream would be they allow Obsidian to do a genuine, not-main-game related spinoff, on Obsidian's own engine. But that would not be a very un-Bethesda thing to do.

That's the most respectful opinion I've ever heard anyone on NMA say about Bethesda.