Bethesda Softworks has sued Interplay for trademark infringement, filing two lawsuits.

The first one claims that Interplay is in breach of the Fallout MMO agreement for failure to commence full scale development by April 4, 2009 and to secure certain funding for the game. Interplay disputes these claims and still maintains that it has the right to develop Project V13, together with Bulgaria-based Masthead Studios.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Ausir/Bethesda_sues_Interplay,_new_V13_concept_art

The second one, however, is over Interplay's re-releases of original Fallout games, like the Fallout Trilogy pack or various digital distribution sites.

Turns out that, while Interplay was permitted to sell Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics the contract required all advertising, packaging and other promotional material to be sent to Bethesda for approval first, which, according to the lawsuit, was never done regarding neither the Fallout Trilogy pack, nor any of the releases through Good Old Games, Steam and other digital distribution platforms. Bethesda also claims that the name Trilogy constitutes unfair competition, since it suggests that the pack includes Fallout 3.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Ausir/Bethesda_vs._Interplay_-_more_detail

Continued from http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1038411.

Let's all remember to keep this discussion civil and constructive. The last one got a bit hot at times and we need to make sure that isn't repeated.

Also, here are some news links:

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25226
http://kotaku.com/5357724/bethesda-sues-interplay-over-fallout-trademark-infringement

*wades through the backlog of 200 posts on the first thread*

Whiew! Glad that's done!

At any rate, some of the flak taken by Bethesda as a "money grabbing large corporation" is because... Bethesda is a Large Corporation. As US citizens, we've been trained to identify with small businesses and mom & pop stores, and view large corporations as unambigulously evil, who are only in it for the money. After all, how many movies center around the floundering mom & pop store that's about to be involved with a hostile takeover by MegaCorp Inc., which wants to tear down that store and put in a row of offices?

Of course, it's telling that most of the posts from NMA are one the side of Bethesda, which means that everyone who is seriously looking into the whole Interplay vs. Bethesda are actually using their heads rather than gut feelings/training to dictate their views of the parties invovled. Interplay agreed to certain terms and conditions (smartly or not,) failed to follow these, and exasperated the problem by doing things, purposefully or otherwise, that make it look like they're a bunch of slimeballs who are trying to stab Bethesda in the back.

Win or lose, the average American has a short-term memory of about 15-30 seconds (perfect for a commecial spot!) so only diehard fans will actually remember the results of the court case. The rest of us will go along our merry way and, maybe at some point later in time, wonder why they pulled the Fallout Package from store shelves. We'll then just give a nonchalant shrug and grab the lastest copy of Fallout.

More against Herve Caen's Interplay than for Bethesda, I'd say.

I don't think Bethesda is a large corporation because it has only like 100 devs and does not have shareholders. Its not really mom & pop but its not like EA either but somehwere in between.

Don't forget that aside from Bethesda, ZeniMax also owns id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios and a mobile phone games studio.

Zenimax certainly isn't as large as say, EA or Activision Blizzard or Take-Two, but as Ausir points out they do own two large development studios and several smaller ones.

And at the very least they now dwarf Interplay.

What I don't understand is why didn't Interplay follow the contract with Bethesda? All they had to do was submit the marketing materials they were going to use prior to publishing 1, 2, and Tactics. I hope this situation is resolved in a way where everyone is happy. I absolutely do not wish to see the GoG.com versions of Interplay's trilogy disappear as they have been reworked to work with Vista and such. This would be very disappointing if these classics were lost from a legal channel.

I'm sure they just got lost in the post, or some communication error - or at least Interplay will claim that. The entire arrangement is just incompetence on their part, from start (granted, they were over a cliff at that point) to this latest screw up.

Might be because it was uncomfortable opening a channel to Bethesda, "So, what do you guys think of the new designs? Approved, or should we go back to the drawing board?"

"Oh hey, ah yeah they're not bad... we have some changes we'd like to suggest. By the by how's the fund raising going over there? You guys raising anything, got any decent investment deals? We should get together and talk about some options, see if we can't help you out..." *click* "Hello, hello?"

Or if you're batting for the team in which Bethesda is the big bad corp, it goes, "By the by how're you guys doing with the fund raising over there? *background chuckling* Any closer to that thirty mil? *evil sneers all round* You know we're gonna [censored] you guys if you can't get it together ri..." *click* "Hello? Hello?" *massive guffaws*

Seriously, I think if Interplay could coment they would struggle to come up with a good reason for why they didn't do most of the things the agreement stipulated they must. S'a mystery. :wacko:

I heard Superman 64 is one of the worst games ever.

:blink:

Bear in mind that the information we have is all prefixed with allegedly, and Bethesda claims. So my post should have read:


Mind you if they were commenting, then they'd probably be refuting that they didn't abide by the agreement, and therefore they'd have allegedly abided by the agreement, whilst Bethesda allege that they didn't, then it all gets messy and legal costs soar as dirt and various household objects are thrown around courtrooms... by dirt and household objects I really mean... protracted words and gratuitous civility... of course. :huh:

Actually this is a lose-lose for Interplay because even if they win the lawsuit (or otherwise manage to keep the Fallout MMO license) they still don't have any money to make the game.

I know this is a stupid question, but... how can Interplay have less money than my entire immediate family? We're lower middle class, we're worth more than 16,000 dollars.

You don't have there expenses?

It would seem they are not worth $16,000 ~but rather -2.5 million.

Ok, you know how if you mistime payments out of an account using a card, it's possible to end up doing overdrawn? Imagine that, but done intentionally and on the scale of a small third-world nation, and you've just imagined the trading practices of most moderate to large companies. The difference is, Interplay don't have enough cash to shuffle around to HIDE the fact they're horribly overdrawn.

Some posts have gone away. I have no idea what has been said or agreed between the parties and neither should anyone else here: anyone claiming that an "insider" on either side has been feeding them information about an ongoing legal case is almost certainly breaking the law and that cannot and will not be permitted on this forum. Any illegal activity described on this forum can and will result in the termination of the forum account of that user. That is part of the Terms of Service for this forum.

These are the circumstances under which this thread will be allowed to continue.

1. It will not contain any personal attacks - on anyone.
2. It will not contain any swipes, snide remarks or other trolling or flamebait.
3. It will not contain any unproven allegations.
4. It will not contain any quotes on the case from any of the parties involved, unless quoting a public domain record or press release.
5. It will not contain anything that breaks the rules of this forum in any way, shape or form.

First off, my view on this subject: Go Bethesda! And I'm sad what's become of Interplay.
Second, kinda sad V13 won't happen in any near future.
Third, I'm with whoever can keep the fallout series going without [censored] up the lore.
Forth, Caen was the worst thing to happen to Interplay.
[snip]

I read they were worth 16,000 dollars, so, I either misread or they were wrong, either way, not the first time I've been mistaken. It won't be the last.

They have $16,000 cash on hand, but their total worth would also factor in assets and their IPs.

That seems like very little money considering they sold the franchise for millions (correct me if I'm wrong?) and I'd assume they're still making money off profit they're obtaining from the first games.

Interplay had a huge amount of debt when they sold Bethesda Fallout so I don't know how far in to the black they actually got. This was also several years ago (Bethesda initially got the rights to Fallout 3, 4, and 5 in 2004) and maintaining a business is expensive.

Ah I see. I just find it odd that a company responsible for such a good series of games could come to that.