Published in Gaming

Bethesda sues Interplay

by on14 September 2009

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Struggle over Fallout license infringement starts


Bethesda has taken the fight to Interplay, accusing the company of failing to uphold its send of the bargain for the company’s use of the Fallout license. According to our sources, the perhaps somewhat unexpected success of Fallout 3 does seem to be generating some Fallout mania that, of course, Interplay wants to also cash in on.

Bethesda threatened to file suit against Interplay if they did not uphold their end of the 2007 agreement and the company has made good on this by filing a preliminary injunction in Maryland on September 9th. The injunction seeks to stop Interplay from the manufacturing or sales of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, all of which are on the PC platform.

While the agreement that Bethesda has with Interplay allows the company to continue to sell pre-existing Fallout titles, all packaging, promotional materials and advertising had to be submitted to Bethesda for approval prior to bringing these catalog titles to market. Bethesda claims that Interplay never received any approval to move forward with these re-released titles.

The real struggle seems to continue to be over the development of the Fallout MMO title, which Interplay was and is permitted to develop as part of the agreement. According to our sources, the deal that Bethesda has with Interplay gives Bethesda all of the Fallout rights for a payment of approximately $5.75 million dollars. It is said that this, coupled with the deal Interplay has, secure an additional $30 million to continue development of Project V13; this is said to be the Fallout MMO within 24 months, or the rights would revert back to Bethesda.

According to our sources, it is likely that Bethesda could win this suit and all of the rights would return to Bethesda. Some are suggesting that Bethesda wants to start the development of their own Fallout MMO if the Interplay project fails; based on the success of Fallout 3 the company does believe that there is a large market for such a title.

Last modified on 14 September 2009
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