News

Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
Posted: 09.01.2012 22:31 by JonahFalcon Comments: 34
The original Fallout.
The long, vindictive legal dispute between Bethesda Softworks and Interplay over the Fallout-licensed MMO has finally been resolved, as Interplay accepted a $2M settlement from Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax, with each party agreeing to cover its own legal costs.

The settlement comes as financial relief for Interplay, whose budget had been drained by the legal battle, despite the company winning court decisions such as the refuting of Bethesda's claim that the Fallout MMO could not include anything based on the Fallout IP.



Part of the settlement stipulates that Interplay will be permitted to sell the original Fallout, which it created in 1997, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics until December 2013. In a related but separate legal case, developer Masthead, which was reportedly working on the MMO, has agreed to relinquish all claims on the IP as well.

"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." said ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman in a statement to the press.

This could mean that Bethesda has their own, unannounced Fallout MMO in the works. If this is so, it seems logical that it could be unveiled during PAX East 2012 or E3 2012. Stay tuned.

Comments

By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 09, 2012
SirRoderick
Well, it's about time someone gave up. Although I think the wrong one did.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 10, 2012
herodotus
Ughhh. So tired of Bethesda's take on the "Fallout" series. True that homage was paid to the original in "Flopout 3" (more a slight nod, than true genuflection), but an MMO using the Creation Engine - ughhhh, again!
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
JonahFalcon
Interplay may have used Bethesda to get $2M, you know. Could be they're sick of Fallout and want to make a new IP. Keep in mind, Bethesda is running the Fallout IP into the ground at this point.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 10, 2012
herodotus
...running it into that grey, mucky, plastic-looking ground that goes for endless miles, with the odd plastic grey boulder to break up the monotony.
By ViGotH (SI Core) on Jan 10, 2012
ViGotH
Never really did like the Fallout series... maybe because I started at Fallout 3... what a terrible game it was.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
SirRoderick
Considering the fact that 1) Fallout 3 got quite good reviews and B) I quite enjoyed it, I have no idea what you two are going on about. It sure as hell wasn't terrible. Not a Fallout game, that's true, but not a bad game.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
JonahFalcon
SirRod: Fallout 3 got good reviews, but Bethesda has been saturating the game a bit too much.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 10, 2012
herodotus
Yes well, good reviews. Hmmm, doesn't always reflect how a gamer takes to the game. I played it for 12 hours or more and after becoming tired with the monotony of the landscape, the people and the many bugged quests I had a break. This is one game, however that I just could not bring myself to ever go back to.
Horses for courses....
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 10, 2012
Chosen_One
Well.. I played all Fallout games except ps2 Brotherhood of Steel. And it is better to have some Fallout game than not to have any at all, we all know that Interplay is a dead studio, I'm quite happy that Bethesda holds the rights now, Obsidians Fallout: New Vegas becomes the best of two latest F-games. (TBH I really hoped that Fallout series would be under their development while Bethesda would be their publisher. Cuz in Obsidian very many people who worked with original games and even with Van Buren Protect like J.E. Sawyer )

Hero U saying bout monotony landscape?? It is post apocalypse there, it should be like that. Even first two game had that monotony landscape, far more worser than it was in F3, at least New Fallout have truly open world, with mountains, rivers and such.

Yes, new Fallouts are different, but I manage to capture the spirit and feeling of Fallout universe. The only two things that upset me was:
- I cant kill children, well, if I want to be very bad I want to do very horrible things )
- Bad animations.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
SirRoderick
Well the fact that the world was nuked doesn't mean people suddenly forget how to sweep the floor or paint a wall. I always thought that was ridiculous.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 10, 2012
Chosen_One
no, they think about surviving, not cleaning or painting. It is social degradation what comes after nuclear war. The harbingers of civilization had their homes clean and good. (BoS, Enclave.)
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
SirRoderick
Don't be silly. Fallout has entire bloody towns and not a broom among them.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 10, 2012
herodotus
It is not just the lack of any colour (and sand would not be grey, no matter how nuked) it was the plastic look to it. As if the world had originally be made of plastic and rubber and simply melted. Heck, even the creatures, people, and clothing are all the same colour or shades of it.
All in the eye of the beholder. It just wasn't for me.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 10, 2012
Chosen_One
U think SirRod that African people (barbarian ones) have colorful homes and clean houses?

@Herodotus Well..game engine is horrible I agree, but Fallout never wasn't for me as a game with competitive visuals.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 10, 2012
SirRoderick
I'm not expecting sparkly clean houses, no. But I strongly doubt they'd leave rusted cans, empty bottles, random parts, scrap metal, etc etc all just laying around randomly.

Also, they naver seem to make anything new, it's all suppossed to be hundred year old leftovers? Come on now.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
On which location of Fallout 3 and New Vegas those just lay around randomly? They almost all have their logical positions, except really abandoned locations. If to be correct about leftovers...there isn't much left eh, pretty empty out there. If U are speaking bout ammunition and such, well, it is under production, BoS, Enclave, NCR, I'm not mentioning some gun houses. Guns and such is the primary need for living, like the spears in Arroyo )
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 11, 2012
herodotus
C'mon. All these Post-Apocalyptic scenarios have guys and gals with stitched together trash as clothing with weird and bizarre metal add-ons as decoration? Did their fashion sense go with the last bomb?
One or two games/films fine, but all of them? It's as if no Survivalists or scientists lived. Mila Jovovich, as weirdly dressed as she was in "RE:Extinction" would be right at home here. *shiver*!
A little bit of imagination goes a long way, and I'm afarid it was left deserately wanting in the art of "Flopout 3".
Visuals in a RPG are very important, so I have to disagree there Chosen. I respect what you're saying but for immersion to work, it's got to look the part....and then some.
A "Fallout" MMORPG without this factor (unless a pure grindfest like "Runescape" where visuals mean very, very little) would fast lose it's appeal. A couple of hours questing in a drab and dreary landscape fiilled with drab and dreary characters and I'd be looking for the happy pills:)
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
So Hero, U love first two Fallout's not only for its storyline but also for great visual effects and animation? As I recall correctly, even in 1998-2001 those graphics was outdated.
But junk, it is A Post-Apocalyptic style with alternative time-line (Not all P-A games/films mean the alternative, but most of em) and we'll never know how could society degrade after nuclear war for obvious reasons. Maybe humanity shall want to wear Gucci, Armani and such, maybe just a scratch of leather, as their wear and bunch of steel plates as their decoration of house would be enough to survive, the main reason of second choice is simple to get those. We'll never know (till Nuclear War) what would become to our tastes after surviving such a disaster in planetary scale.

Interplay/Bethesda have their own vision of that. And I do not blame em for their incompetence , or lack of design, colorful houses and clean streets. More than that, I think that society will be very close to the barbaric state after the war.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 11, 2012
SirRoderick
All I4m saying is that several hundred years seems sufficient an amount of time to rediscover medieval levels of sanitation, aesthetics and craftsmanship. Most of the survivors would have retained a lot of knowledge after all, in particular the vault dwellers.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
Sanitation doesn't help against mutants. As well as aesthetics. But they do some craftsmanship, weapon production and build at least some city to defend themselves. I repeat myself, U just need to understand that society was gone, no governments, no rules, everyone for themselves and very hazardous environment full of plants killers, and deadly animals. Exclusion was NCR (First government type society), BoS (Harbingers of Techs) and Enclave (Old Remnants of civilization, elite group of old society) mostly they become an exclusion because they had some resources to start the new life, as well as knowledge. Those three social groups had clean city, sanitation, medicine knowledge, and other stuff. Cuz they had chain-in-command structure and authority's.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
And dwellers do not share their knowledge with others. In very rare cases they do that.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 11, 2012
SirRoderick
IT TOOK US LESS TIME TO RECOVER FROM THE DARK AGES
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
DURING DARK AGES NO ONE DESTROYED INFRASTRUCTURE TO THE GROUND AND WE HAD AUTHORITY, LAWS, CULTURE ETC.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 11, 2012
SirRoderick
Large parts of the planet were not directly hit (or a desert, I'll grant you that), authority repairs itself overnight as soon as someone has weapons (NCR? Ceasar's Legion?) Laws flow from authority and culture is not physical and essentially indestructible.

Next please.
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
What culture could be in Anarchy? I'm not saying bout Intelligent, Elite anarchists, who could live without being barbarian, I'm saying bout bunch of half dead, mutated people, what culture would they have? What knowledge from the past could help em?

Some bunches of course build tiny governments, and some bunches was already in societies, but the rest majority just preferred to be without em. (They know that governments almost destroyed humanity)

This is pointless argue. Cus we cant be sure about how would world goes after the nuclear war. If U do not like the way how Interplay and Bethesda showing their vision of possible post-apocalyptic humanity, just do not play it.
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Jan 11, 2012
JonahFalcon
Tell you what - I'll give you a mop, a pail, and some cleaning fluid and you go and clean up the wasteland. :D
By Kres (SI Elite) on Jan 11, 2012
Kres
Let's hope we do not get any experience with that!
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 11, 2012
Chosen_One
Nice one Jonah ^^
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 12, 2012
herodotus
As a final comment I shall quote Oscar Wilde:

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

Good quote for Bethesda and others to bear in mind.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Jan 12, 2012
FoolWolf
First of all, too bad Interplay lost the idea but hopefully MMO Fallout will die out.
secondly - clean homes you do find in barbaric cultures still, it is not a matter of fashion sense - it is one of practicality - clean homes, you don't tumble and fall on some damn crap when you have to get your rifle/machete in the middle of the nights when the mutants attack. Plus, cleanliness and brushed living quarters keeps away diseases - there are still doctors and still a lot of knowledge.
After the fall designs are all Mad Max's fault with busszaw looks and stuff like that. In the dark ages people made fabulous solutions for armours and protection and clothing still. Man is if nothing else a creature of practicality. So running around in an armour that means you would bleed out from cutting yourself should you stumbled when you take a dump - not very likely....
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jan 12, 2012
SirRoderick
Ar least one sensible apple in the bushel :)
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 12, 2012
herodotus
Yes well it appears everyone enjoyed "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" and having been influenced by it's look have never moved on. Be interesting to see what George Miller has cooked up for "Mad Max 4: Fury Road".
By Chosen_One (SI Core) on Jan 12, 2012
Chosen_One
Is Mel Gibson starring there? )
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jan 13, 2012
herodotus
I hope he's just doing a cameo I really do. Unless he's sobered up and got his act together, the guy is best left to his own idiosyncratic ways (or did I mean 'idoiotic' - mever can tell).