Because his sympathy really implied all of that. Ah you people, heh.

I wasn't replying directly at noahplumb, although since my comment was under his/hers I suppose it might have been interpreted that way. It was intended as a general comment in response at the replies that do imply this.

Ah you people...seriously? :rolleyes:

Yep quite seriously. Hard to believe otherwise without treading into fantasy. Ah well, can't wait for this to be over.

Well no matter what any of us think things will unfold the way the will, so as far as everyone here is concerned this is a moot point. Either an arrangement will be reached or the companies will loose more than they gain no matter what the outcome is.

Whatever your opinion of Bethesda and/or Fallout 3 may be, Interplay were the ones who were in the wrong by breaching the contract they agreed to in the first place; they are and should be held accountable.

By the way if you have anything more specific you want to directly say about me or my opinions Malcador, I wlecome whatever comments you may have via the PMs so as not to derail the thread off topic.

Don't forget the allegedly. lol We keep forgetting the allegedly. Interplay allegedly breached the contract. They could defend their position. The repackaged Fallouts, could be defended by some miracle of miscommunication whilst seeking Bethesda approval, or something else we don't know about. The MMO... well we know it passed the concept phase, so even if they didn't have thirty million to make it, you have to remember, you don't need thirty million to start. You could start with half a mil, and get more as when needed. No project starts with it's absolute production costs in a neat little account to dip into when needed. Even if you were backed by publisher and you set out to make a blockbuster of a game that would ultimately cost ten million, me thinks the publisher wouldn't give you ten million outright and wave you on your way.

Allegedly, folks, allegedly. Heh ha. :goodjob:

I was always a fond of Interplay games, and Fallout series were the most perfect ones ever created. I liked recent bethesda games too, but those..mostly becouse they were fully moddable/editable and with 4-5 gigs of plus content made by users it always came to be a game you were expecting when you were buying. I'm sad to see things came to this, but i cant really blame either companies. Everything is all about money and even more nowadays, ofc they dont make games for our beautiful eyes. I would be happy if this thing would just end friendly but it wont becouse money is involved. 4 is my favourite number and the perfect fallout would be created by bethesda and interplay hand in hand ^^. Dreams...
Hope things will be solved without 'bloodshed' and without the second death of Interplay.

As stated before, the Interplay that created Fallout was cut out of the company and turned into several different companies. The current Interplay is a basemant operation that is still run by the guy who decided to produce the stain (in many fans eyes) that is Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel over Van Buren.

The point I'm getting at is that Interplay seemingly died when the original creators of FO left/got fired, and what we're seeing is some kind of half-dead creature wearing the skin of Interplay and passing itself off as Interplay.

While it would be nice if this whole thing could end without bloodshed, that's not going to happen, and Bethesda will most likely put the final nail in Interplay's coffin unless Interplay pulls off some kind of amazing feat... which is equally unlikely as the current owner of Interplay has a reputation for making bad decisions.

While mostly true, one of the original creators of Fallout, Chris Taylor, is currently at Interplay.

Maybe ChrisT is being held agains his will.
We should break in and rescue him!

But really, why the bloody hell is he still in there?

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. Interplay entered into a contract with Bethesda, and didn't deliver within the amount of time agreed upon. They are now being sued. Hate to see it happen, as I would love to see a Fallout MMO, but Interplay needs to not make promises they can't keep. I hope Bethesda and Interplay can come to an agreement and avoid the lawsuit...

Zenimax should just buy Interplay and put the name out of its misery. It'd probably be a lot cheaper and easier.

Wouldn't make sense financially to do that. The only reason a company buys out another company is 1: said company has a product/brand they want and refuse to sell it, or 2: said company is really hurting the first company's profits and it needs to be... um... well, removed as a competitor (usually, this also falls under 1 as well.)

Interplay doesn't fall under either of these; it's already sold off a bunch of it's assets, and it's little more than a mosquito in the gameing industry with several million dollars in the hole.

Taking Interplay to court will have a cost, which is what I think he was referring too... However, I agree with you in the mostpart - Interplay can't afford much in the way of Lawyers, unless their financial position has changed enormously since their last report to the stock exchange.

An Interplay stockholder details the countersuit filed by Interplay against Bethesda in reaction to Bethesda's lawsuit over the rights to Fallout Online and the original Fallout games. Interplay argues Bethesda is in breach of contract and the contract to sell the rights to the series to Bethesda is null and void and Interplay owns the franchise again.

Countersuits are almost always filed in a contract dispute, whether it's warranted or not. That article is completely and totally biased though so it's hard to get anything that could be related to a fact out of it.



No good reason, eh? So Interplay has secured 30 million and has made headway on a working product as of April, 2009?

Well, the facts are what Interplay is counter-suing over and what it's demanding. Both Interplay's and Bethesda's filings are obviously biased and either the court or a settlement will decide who's right.

I was just talking about the tone of the article. Using phrases, in all caps, like GREEDY etc. makes it painful to read. Maybe when Kotaku or Gamasutra picks it up people will care.

Well, that's what the shareholder in question wrote on the forum, it wasn't written by any of The Vault editors.

Well that's not good. I wouldn't be surprised if Interplay asked for it to be pulled. Wouldn't want a libel case thrown in the mix either.

I don't see how the contract is NULL if interplay supposedly sold the entire rights to bethesda after the 3,4,5 deal. Either someone has to explain this to me or it's just Herve up to his old tricks again.

Well, they're saying that they sold them under the condition that they would be able to continue selling the original games and develop Fallout Online, and that Bethesda broke that part of the deal, thus making the whole contract null.

The Raging Bull post is just a summery, right?

That explains why it seems to be a half shouted opinion with an occasional 'fact' from the injunction buried in there.


It also says that Bethesda has 'damaged' Interplay's reputation. I'm pretty sure Interplay did most of that themselves before Bethesda even moved to block the MMO.

I would say that counter-suing is incredibly typical of parties, in business situations, that are in the wrong - they often do it to buy time, to try to generate publicity of one sort or another and otherwise be a pain in the ass to the plaintiff, in the hopes of working out a more favorable settlement - standard corporate operating procedure and often with minimal merit to the actual "case" they are presenting.

Is that 'article" basically a forum post? Heh.

Maybe they'll end up settling it somehow?



Yes, but one of IPLY's shareholders.

With shareholders like that, who needs lawsuits!

Seriously, I wonder if it's one of those people on their forums who just bought a few shares because they liked Interplay 10 years ago. No self-respecting actual investor would EVER post anything like that anywhere.