Some will some won't; Bethesda's PR reputation will probably be balanced out by the end of the lawsuit, and thus no worse off then than it was a year ago. I'm more concerned about what will happen to Fallout 1/2/Tactics than I am about Bethesda's PR reputation.

I'd think that IPLY would lose the rights to the code and Bethesda would obtain it, and maybe even gave it up when they sold the franchise originally. Maybe you have some example of this happening before? It seems extremely unlikely that this scenario could occur. And if it does happen, and IPLY decides to hold out and quietly go to the grave while clenching the code in their fists.. then it's their PR that should suffer... especially if Bethesda is willing and able to provide the games for sale.. or even free ala Arena and Daggerfall. Talk about instant PR boost.. get the rights and give it away for free.

There are lots of examples when one company owns the IP, but the other owns other parts of its older games created with the use of said IP, which thus prevents these games from ever being released. Just look e.g. at Interplay's Star Trek games - they have no right to the Star Trek IP anymore and thus cannot re-release them, but the current licensee of the ST IP (which was Bethesda for a while) cannot release them either, since Interplay still owns the content of the games themselves.

Interplay sold the IP to Bethesda, but not necessarily e.g. full rights to Fallout 1 engine and other technicalities.

If Bethesda wins this Interplay will be in even deeper financial trouble than they currently are, which is already pretty bad. So if the original games end up in some sort of legal limbo Bethesda can probably just purchase any remaining rights from them directly. It's not like Interplay could do anything else with the material.

Arena and Daggerfall are also difficult to run on modern operating systems without third party applications such as DOS Box. Fallout 1/2/Tactics work perfectly fine on modern machines, and so it's far more lucrative to sell them for a profit however small. Whether Bethesda will get the code or not remains to be seen, though. Hopefully Bethesda will at least allow the online distributors like GOG to keep selling the games.

Well if I worked in the PR department at Bethesda I would make it happen. Or include them free with the GOTY edition. Something to promote the origins of the franchise and associate it with the new owner. Would be a huge PR boost. Then I would see about adapting them to PSN/XBOX Live.. or even mobile platforms like PSP.

Hire me Beth! Or just send me a check for those great ideas! :rofl:

That is what it sounded like to me also. I wondered myself how they could sell the rights to Bethesda and then promote that new trilogy package; but assumed it was a part of their deal over the Fallout Online project.


I watched the stocks for Interplay and read every quarterly report they filed right up thru the time they were given to come up with the funds, and they were no where near what they needed. When they sold those 200 stocks back last summer, they used every bit of it up before their year end filing, and were in the hole again. The only thing I could not seem to get any info on was that deal they made with Masthead the last week of March, which did not get recorded in their first quarter report for some odd reason. Does anyone know how much Masthead paid Interplay for that? If Interplay loses the rights to do the online game, Masthead will sue them for that money back.

As much as I love the developers from Interplay, I am not a fan of Interplay's business tactics whatsoever. They seem to slip continuously over the line of what is ethical, moral, and legal in order to keep going, instead of just using good solid business practices and proper budgeting which would keep them from the edge of constant bankruptcy. Bethesda and Masthead are not the first Interplay has stiffed, and they probably won't be the last.

Arena is available for free (legal) download:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/tenth_anniv/tenth_anniv-arena.htm

Maybe this is a little hope against hope, but maybe they could offer Fallout for free.

True, but the average gamer also aren't going to care about this much after the initial flare up. Most people who are still unhappy about then when New Vegas is released will rationalize that they're supporting Obsidian, not Bethesda, by picking it up - and by the time Bethesda releases FO4 most won't care (if they even remember).


I imagine at this point most people who want the original games either have them or won't be terribly upset at them being taken off the shelf. The latter may be irked or momentarily upset, but there isn't going to be any lasting damage.

This isn't to say it wouldn't svck. I mean, I have the games and I'd still like to see them available, I just question how much lasting PR damage is actually being done.

I believe Talonfire's point is that it isn't economical for Bethesda to sell Arena or Daggerfall - it's too difficult to get them to run. However the Fallout games can be run fairly well on modern computers so it's still worth selling them.

If the old Elder Scrolls games ran smoothly on modern computers chances are good there'd be a collected set for sale rather than some of the games being available for free.

GOG sells quite a few old DOS games packaged with DOSBox.

you mean I read through 7 pages of this????

from what I see, it looks like someone wants Iplay to go away...
non-existent and nothing more

Nothing of value would be lost, interplay died when Brian Fargo left and Black Isle disbanded.

Might be a fun auction for whatever properties they still have when they finally go under.

It's a shame because there's doubtlss some talented individuals at Interplay, probably feeling as peeved at their bosses as anybody else.

If it comes to it perhaps Interplay have enough in their court to actually negotiate a sale of all things Fallout they have a modicum of control over, and maybe Bethesda will give them a couple of million just to make them go away, and get Interplay back in the black while they're at it. They wouldn't have to pay an obscene amount, but if they did those nay sayers out there couldn't keep saying Bethesda were out to sink Interplay.

*wakes up* Aaah. Nice dream. Some poor talented dude somewhere is fretting for his job and sending out CVs anyway, me thinks. :nope:

Other than Chris, who works there? I haven't seen anyone else post on the forums there really.. have heard nothing from anyone. Anderson left long ago.. and some no name company from Bulgaria was tasked with actually creating the MMO.. so what exactly was Interplay doing and who was doing it?

Yeah, but at least there are a lot of other developers in California.


I think the opportunity to do this was when Bethesda made their original legal claims against Interplay in April. As for getting them in the black, at the moment they are really in the red and I doubt selling all of their remaining rights to the Fallouts will dig them out of their hole.

GOG is a website that focuses exclusively on distributing older games. Bethesda is an active developer; they're not going to dedicate a lot of time to making Arena and Daggerfall run on modern operating systems while they're working on TES V and\or Fallout 4.

Programmers, artists (they're adevertising for a concept artist in the careers section of their website) testers, sound guys, level designers, map makers... guys on physics... Lucy in administration... lol... I dunno dude, there'll be more than a few hapless folk working under the flapping and torn Interplay banner.



Reading the suit against Interplay it seems Bethesda have highlighted every possible infringement they can win, it's all irrefutable it seems. But mayhap if Interplay can drag it all out long enough or even avoid the payment of legal costs or... whatever, I'm clearly no lawyer, it might simply come to a settlement that sees Bethesda coming away with the exclusive rights to the franchise they've brought back to the fore, and Interplay holding on with a grim smirk to... life.

Be interesting to see what happens, I hope this thread sees some updates, I'm a curious cat. B)

Ausir I highly doubt any bad PR Bethesda might get out of this would be remembered even if it is hardly anyone is going to care except for people who don't like Bethesda and aren't going to buy Fallout 4. Most likely all of this is going to be forgotten as soon as the case is settled. Interplay didn't meet the requirements of their deal with Bethesda and then claim they did and most likely they've both been trying to resolve this without going to court since they couldn't resolve it is why there's been lawsuits filed. Anybody who thinks Bethesda is picking on the little guy here doesn't understand basic US law and that Bethesda actually has to do this in order to protect itself. The bad PR here is interplay's not Bethesda's. As far as will the old games still be sold or not goes. Hey there's always EBay if the games become unavailable for a little while or forever, it's also quite possible that the old games will still get sold in a three pack just with a different name and online as well. Yes I know I'm repeating things here but it seems they need to be repeated.

[snip]

Bethesda is in my black list now. Interplay invented "Fallout". Period.

Instead of losing time over lawsuits, why don't you fix your game? Which is Fallout "3".

Bethesda didn't sink Interplay, they saved their skins (when Interplay was going under) by buying the rights to Fallout - AND giving them a chance to do the Online Fallout, that is something they did not have to do, but were trying to help Interplay out. Interplay defaulted on other investors and was being sued by them, and they were going under fast. Bethesda saved them, and Interplay is now stabbing Bethesda in the back - what they are doing is literally stealing from Bethesda. I don't blame Bethesda for suing them.

Remember that the Interplay that exists today is not the Interplay that made those games. The Interplay that exists now is that interplay only in name, and is on life support anyway... Only Chris Taylor is there.

If you want to support the old fallout developers, oddly enough the way to do that is to support Bethesda - With New Vegas.

A bit generous to say "trying to help", no ? I remember feeling that was just giving false hope - as in allowing them to try for something that they would inevitably fail at. Also, with regards to the other suit about the trilogy, who knows if they'd have approved any marketing material at all (essentially keeping it off the shelves).



Well he could also purchase Alpha Protocol.

Let's also not forget that Bethesda made Interplay pay back a very large amount of withheld wages and similar debts to former Interplay employees.


Legally such hypotheticals do not matter, Interplay agreed that Bethesda would need to approve any marketing material. If you make a legal agreement to do something and then blow it off you get sued, which is what's happened.

Also, it was just for new marketing materials and releases. The original Fallout games were already on the shelves and there's no reason they couldn't have kept that going. Instead they decided to re-release them and for some stupid reason didn't seek the approval they had agreed to.