Could be mom buying her kid the new game, fails to ask the clerk. Or an online purchase at a glance of the title, sent in gift packaging for disappointed little Johnny when he opens it Christmas morning to find it's not quite what he asked for. I get where you're coming from, but you don't see Disney sitting back and letting little black mice named Mikey get sold en masse to the general public, do you? It's too close to the product they spend crate loads promoting, developing, and advertising. S'the same thing with this I think.

This isn't a clone of Mickey, though. Interplay was allowed to sell Fallout and Fallout 2, and so what if they were capitalizing on Fallout 3 - bit rich for Beth to have an issue.

Apparently, according to the licence agreement, Interplay had to have Bethesda approval for all packaging, and distribution aspects of the original Fallout games. Interplay didn't seek this approval for reasons beyond even their reckoning me thinks. :shrug:

How it can happen and who it can happen to is irrelevant. Hell, they don't even have to prove there is a reasonable chance of it happening to win. Interplay had to do something per the contract. They didn't. In fact, they haven't done a single freaking thing they were obligated to in the contract.. in 3 years. They are in breach of contract and they lose. End of story.

This is the latest news bit I read from Gamespot:

"This week, the Bethesda-Interplay disagreement was elevated to a legal level, when Bethesda filed suit in federal court in Maryland. The suit accuses Interplay of 10 counts of breach of contract and trademark infringement by not abiding by a trademark license agreement (TLA) it had with Bethesda. The first was in relation to the Fallout MMORPG, which stipulated that Interplay had to have raised at least $30 million in funding for the project by the end of March 2009. As evidence such fund-raising did not occur, Bethesda points to a June 30 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission which said Interplay had $2.54 million in debt and only $16,000 in cash assets.

Bethesda's complaint also claims that, 11 days after being informed the Fallout MMORPG license had been revoked and it could not enter into a deal with any third parties, Interplay formalized a deal with Bulgarian studio Masthead to develop the MMORPG Project V13.

The second part of the suit accuses Interplay of riding the coattails of Fallout 3 by re-releasing and repackaging older Fallout games without permission. Specifically, it says that the company was selling a compilation of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics as boxed products called "Fallout Trilogy" and "Saga Fallout." The packaging of any such new boxed product needed to be approved by Bethesda, which claims it never did so. Bethesda also feels the name "Fallout Trilogy" was deliberately misleading consumers into thinking the compilation contained Fallout 3.

...diminished the Fallout 3 brand.

Finally, Bethesda accuses Interplay of entering into deals with several online game distributors without its consent, violating the licensing agreement yet again. GameTap, Good Old Games (aka GOG.com), and Valve Software's Steam service are all named as outlets which sold Fallout products without any permission from Bethesda, in violation of the licensing agreement.

Bethesda is demanding the court formally declare Interplay no longer has any rights to the Fallout name or trademark. It also wants the court to place a preliminary and permanent injunction on Interplay to stop it from selling any Fallout-branded products. It also wants Interplay to submit in writing a declaration that it no longer has any rights to the Fallout brand. No monetary damages are being sought."

From everything I have been reading regarding the issue, Interplay is breaching the terms of the contract that they made with Bethesda. I don't care whether you love or hate Fallout 3, nor whether you are a fan of the originals; fact is that Interplay didn't live up to the claims they agreed to in the case of the MMORPG and tried to squeeze money under the table by going against the terms of distribution agreements. Bethesda is within its rights to pursue these lawsuits and they are valid from the information which has been released.

The Fallout Trilogy name thing is just absurd bs. But apparently, when Interplay sold the Fallout title to Beth, this also included the old titles/and or any title brandishing the Fallout name/trademark, with the exception of the proposed MMORPG. It would be against the terms of their contract to sell new packagings of the old games without Beth's permission as it owns the Fallout trademark now; hence by re-releasing the original games without permission it is in breach of contract and liabel for their actions.

Bethesda are not the big bad commercial powerhouse pushing around the little guy mom and pop novelty shop trying to make an honest buck; Interplay got caught trying to get away with making money doing something which they agreed not to do when they sold the rights to Bethesda. No matter your feelings on Bethesda or Fallout 3, legally speaking they are right to file suit.

According to this publication Beth also is not seeking monetary compensation, only to prevent Interplay from selling the names.

Frankly, I hope Bethesda sinks this Interplay once and for all.

There's only one lesson here. Don't get into a binding legal agreement if you can't fulfill the terms. You can bash Bethesda all you want but the simple fact is that they can and did produce, while Interplay talked a lot and produced nothing other than new packaging. If a bunch of die hard fans can produce a Fallout Online before Interplay could, that makes Interplay look totally inept. Personally I would rather play a game than look at a bunch of design documents and wish. Now maybe we will actually see an official Fallout Online rather than wonder and wish. Interplay is a joke, and it only has itself to blame for all the bad decisions it made. It's pretty obvious that Interplay was nothing more than an extension of Caen's wallet. The guy was living off of other people's hard work and he had absolutely no vision or integrity. I mean for crap's sake, there is nothing new in their inventory and aside from Fallout they have absolutely nothing that I would ever play again. I think Bethesda is doing Caen a service by reminding him he's been in the wrong business for 30 years.

They weren't, exactly. They were allowed to use Bethesda-approved trade dress in selling Fallout and Fallout 2, and that is what they did not do.

This was no 'gentlemans agreement', Interplay signed a legally binding agreement with Bethesda and areed to the conditions therein.

They have failed to do this, either failing to meet expectations or completely going against the stipulations Bethesda outlined. So Beth are well in the rights to do this as they are not the ones who failed to meet obligations.

Quite frankly, if it hadn't been for the sale of the Fallout IP to Beth (Or anyone else who might have pickd it up), Interplay might well have still been sat around the debt mark of $59 million. They had to sell off one of their biggist IPs just to survive. They'd already lost the Star Trek IP.

And I notice no one has mentioned the great money making games Interplay is/was planning to develop.

Earthworm Jim 4 (Love Earthworm Jim, but how remembers him fondly enough)
Descent 4 (Classics, but Descent 3 didn't sell as well as expected)
MDK 3 (Ditto)
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 3 (Now who's with me in hoping that someone picks this up if Interplay does go down the crapper? And if doesn't go down the crapper then they knuckle down and make this good?))

Interplay also plans to bring the Sega Genesis versions of Boogerman, Earthworm Jim 1+2 and Clayfighter as well as the N64 version of Clayfighter 63 1/3 to the Wii.

So they were pinning their hopes on sequels to old games and releases of old games (Worked for Fallout 1+2+Tactics I suppose), To be honest it does seem a desperate strategy though one that 'could' pay off.


Face it though, Interplay shot themselves in the foot big time when they breached the contractual terms they agreed to. Clearly they were only permitted to distribute the originals as physical media and not as digital media. By signing with GOG, Steam and Gametap (Via Gametap, it also came to the Metaboli Games on Demand service too), Interplay have opened themselves to major legal difficulties.

One interesting note: I have the previous rereleases of Fallout 1+2+Tactics and the name on the box is The Fallout Collection. Makes you wonder?

Tell you what makes me wonder. What on earth convinced interplay that re-releasing a product they were already selling with a name that's certain to start fires? They start with their own product, Fallout Collection, which sold reasonably well, then re-brand it without Bethesda's permission (a breach of contract) with a name that implies its THE Fallout trilogy. Frankly there's only 2 reasons I can see for interplay doing this. One is trying to capitalise on the success of Fallout 3 by releasing a similarly title product, the other is deliberately trying to take a stab at Fallout 3 by producing a 'trilogy' that ignores it. You're quiet right Deven, they really did shoot themselves in the foot.

Wow! This is pretty amazing. I hope Bethesda doesn't kill them too dead. They don't really have any money left.

Oh, well, when you enter a contract, you have to keep up your end.

Anyone who thinks they're doing this for the money knows nothing about lawsuits.

I guess the lesson here is that I better buy the trilogy pack now, even though I already own the games.

Oh, so it's exactly like creating a clone of Mickey Mouse, just slightly altered then. Heh, I guess if Bethesda wins this and probably steals back the rest of the IP, maybe we will get those remakes ?

It's not stealing if you own it. The franchise was sold, the rights were licensed back. That license will be revoked. It's not so hard to comprehend really.

But seeing how Bethesda has been releasing their really old games for free, like Daggerfall.. perhaps if they have the full rights to distribute FO1/2 they will make them free as well.

Ah the perils of language. Anyway, based on the sales for the correctly named Fallout Trilogy and the nature of the company, I doubt that. They'd want to try to milk whatever they could at this late point. Oh well, I guess nothing left at this point to just see how much money they claim they lost due to the Trilogy, as well as the Online suit.

Malcador... I'll assume you are making an attempt to play devils advocate, rather than trying to disrupt the thread with "arguments" that are emotional than logical. Or else your father works for Interplay or something.

But, if you were serious... Then let's say, in a few years, you find a lovley house you want to buy in a carefully controlled housing development run by a homeowners association. When you sign the purchase agreement, you agree not to paint your house anything beyond the approved, gray, white, beige,pale blue range of colors. You agree not to put any fencing around the front yard, you agree to not put in personal pool in your yard, and other restrictions or requirements - and you agree to pay an additional $400 a month maintenance to the homeowner's association, for community maintenance, etc. You carefully read through these requirements, maybe negotiate some changes, and then you sign and thus agree to the requirements in order to get the house that you like. You move in, start paying your mortgage and maintenance. But after a while, living there for a year, you personally decide "I am going to paint my house a bright garish green, because it's my favorite color. And my neighbors kids and dogs keep messing up part of my yard, so this lovely wooden fence is going up too." And then because you never use the community pool or tennis courts, decide that $400 a month is ridiculous, and send in $50 a month.

Is this behavior okay in your world? You agreed to abide by certain restrictions and a maintenance arrangement that were required in order for you to have this particular house. Just because a year later you decided it's too restrictive or unfair, does that negate the agreement and terms you agreed to? That you signed a legally binding document on? Is the Homeowners Association an evil overlord organization because they expect you to abide by the terms you reviewed and approved? Are they "stealing" anything from you by demanding that you take down the fence and repaint your house according to the agreement? Are they money-grubbing bastards for going after you legally to pay all the maintenance you owe? If you continued to ignore them and the agreement you signed, are they in the wrong for enforcing the terms of the agreement?

Of course not. Stop trying to make out like Interplay is the poor little match girl out in the cold, struggling to stay alive. Things don't usually get to a lawsuit in most business situations unless a lot of other options have been explored beforehand.

Except they aren't seeking monetary damages from those sales.

And I don't think it is 'correctly' named at all. It's a repack of something prior to FO3's release that was called 'Fallout Collection'. Why would you rebrand an old product after the release of FO3 like that? I say it's shady, but it could be incompetence as well. Nevermind the fact that Bethesda was granted approval rights, something that Interplay failed to adhere to.

I am 99.99% positive that the few thousand dollars that the originals have generated is not a concern to Bethesda. The future of the IP and proper recognition of the brand's future is what is at stake. Something they have every right to protect.

No surprises there.

Some of the talk about damages seems a bit silly. Maybe it's 'necissary' lawyer-talk or what not, but they seem to have a solid case without it. Interplay's inability to live up to the agreed terms of the MMO license seems quite clear - their own financial reports doesn't mention the money they're required to have. Their new releases of the original Fallout games also seems pretty clear cut - if they needed approval from Bethesda then they needed approval.

As I mentioned in my original post I'm astonished Interplay let this get to this point, I just don't see how they can argue their case.

It is actually - "a set of three literary or dramatic works related in subject or theme ", only incorrect to people that have to be clueless - given what's on the box. It's pretty clear why they'd release it as well, people are loving Fallout 3, so they put out 1 & 2 to capitalize on that. Heh, Bethesda concerned with the future of the IP.



Ahhh, so I'm an Interplay shill. Hah.

Why the need to be so arrogant?

"Clueless" in this case could apply to anyone who is unfamiliar with the history of the franchise, and given that it was 10 years ago that could encompass a lot of people.

But it's clear you only intend to belittle and berate Bethesda and anyone that enjoys their games, so with that I am done discussing it with ya.

Yet, they already had them out as the same pack under the name 'Fallout Collection' , so why the name change in the first place?

Only a comment on a throw-away joke rather than the actual meat of my post? :deal:

anologies about these situations always tend to be off. And that comment was hardly throw away, clever jab, I must say . It's not arrogant to call someone buying a box and somehow being fooled about the contents clueless, gotta be an informed customer after all.

Except that they are seeking monetary damages according to Gamasutra, which I consider more trustworthy in these matters than Gamespot, which probably copied it from Gamasutra without checking it well anyway.

Even though I'm not a big fan of Bethesda I do have to agree with the folks that say that Bethesda has every right to sue Interplay. If Interplay violated the contract then they have to suffer the consequences; I don't like the idea of Bethesda getting complete and absolute control over the pre-Fallout 3 Fallout titles, but thanks once more to Herve Caen it looks like that is going to be the case.

Thanks a lot Herve, you're a hero.

Unlike the FOOL one, the FO1/2/T one will get them bad publicity. On Polish sites, pretty much all comments are now against Bethesda. To an outsider, it looks simply like Bethesda is trying to take away the original games from their makers.