Interplay: Bethesda Fallout suit "absurd"

By Fred Dutton Published 10 January, 2011

Legal wranglings over MMO drag on.

The long-running legal dispute over a planned Fallout MMO has taken a fresh turn this week, with the mooted game's developer Interplay dubbing Bethesda's latest legal claim against it "absurd".

Bethesda's most recent tactic in attempting to prevent the release of Interplay's MMO was to claim that it had only ever licensed out a single asset: the Fallout trademark in association with an MMO.

The publisher insisted no other license was included in the deal, meaning that Interplay was forbidden from featuring any characters or environments from the Fallout universe in its MMO.

According to court filings dug up by Gamasutra, Interplay has offered the following response:

"Bethesda's interpretation requires Interplay to develop and release an MMOG under the Fallout name, but unrelated to the Fallout brand.

"First, this is not only absurd, but is specifically prohibited [emphasis Interplay's] by the agreement because Interplay was only granted a 'license and right to use the Licensed Marks on and in connection with its FALLOUT-branded MMOG ... and for no other purpose.

"It was not the parties' intent that Interplay create, for example, an online baseball game or poker game called 'Fallout.'"

This is the latest in a long line of stalling tactics from Bethesda. In 2008 it claimed a lack of progress with the MMO's development violated its agreement with Interplay.

After that failed, last September Bethesda claimed Interplay was selling older Fallout games without permission and requested an injunction against the sales and work on the MMO. That claim didn't get past the judge either.

Bethesda bought the rights to the Fallout franchise from original publisher Interplay in 2004, licensing the online rights back to the struggling outfit.

Interplay first mentioned its Fallout MMO soon after that deal. Last October, president Eric Caen announced that it planned to have the finished game ready for 2012.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MadSnip #1 1 year ago

    Money, money, money...

  • Shikasama #2 1 year ago

    If this ever gets released I'm going to buy it purely because this sort of legal wrangling pisses me off.

    It'd be embarrasing for Bethesda ifInterplay released a Fallout game that actually worked on day 1.

  • Benno #3 1 year ago

    I'm with you on that one Shik

  • Distributor #4 1 year ago

    Lets not worry people. My hunch, after all this legal jibba jabba, is that the game will eventually suck and fail.

  • arcam #5 1 year ago

    Where was the lawyers' slice in today's dishing out of the £39.99 pie?

  • ubergine #6 1 year ago

    Interplay were selling Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics in a pack as "Fallout Trilogy" after Fallout 3 was a huge success.

    Not surprising Bethesda are shitty with them.

  • Gastrian #7 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • JamieR #8 1 year ago

    Maybe Bethesda was wanting to make a fallout mmo.
    Edited by JamieR at 11/01/11 @ 04:34

  • Genji #9 1 year ago

    Then perhaps they shouldn't have given the online rights to Interplay!

  • lostlain #10 1 year ago

    both parties should leave poor fallout alone, doesn't anyone think about the children!? ):

  • JamieR #11 1 year ago

    both Interplay & Bethesda are having a really big fall out.

  • RodHull #12 1 year ago

    I wonder if Bethesda are surprised with how successful their Fallout installments have been? If they'd predicted the success at the time of buying the partial-rights from Interplay they would have purchased the MMO deal as well.

  • levitate #13 1 year ago

    A Fallout MMO would be absolutely fantastic! Bury your arms and get to it, both of you. Now! Or I will ground you for two months with no pancakes on Sundays.

  • SAMagic #14 1 year ago

    @RodHull : FO3 was a huge success, so I imagine they were surprised. However, I can't help but see Interplay as jumping on to the bandwagon after seemingly ignoring the FO brand for years (Then there's the fact that Van Buren was cancelled - that's not strong faith in the brand).

    The question is: Would they have started a FO MMO if FO3 hadn't sold as well as it did?

    If these really are stalling tactics then Bethesda's legal strategy might just be to "outlast" Interplay's legal funds, which is certainly dubious, but it all comes down to the contract that was signed.

  • Spekingur #15 1 year ago

    Interplay had the online rights before the release of Fallout 3. So...

  • Moribundman #16 1 year ago

    @JamieR Excellent. Fallout fallout.

    Interplay are acting like someone whose girlfriend left them and "still wants to be friends" And they just want Fallout to break up with Bethesda and start fucking them again.

    Sadly all of Fallout's friends (the Black Isle devs) have made friends with Bethesda and shun Interplay.

    I agree its absurd that Bethesda would license the Fallout brand and none of the universe or content, but their lawyers presumably worded the agreement like that with this in mind all along and its equally absurd that Interplay didn't call them out on it before signing.

  • Moribundman #17 1 year ago

    Nice that ONE publisher is allowing the designers and a number of the plot points and characters of Van Buren to be fleshed out and put into a game. [edit: more to come if the future DLC rumours are to be believed] Interplay should just sell the MMORPG rights to Bethesda for a reasonable about and wash their hands. This is the gaming worlds version of the Hobbit movies.
    Edited by Moribundman at 11/01/11 @ 11:10

  • arcam #18 1 year ago

    their lawyers presumably worded the agreement like that with this in mind all along and its equally absurd that Interplay didn't call them out on it before signing.

    That's a big presumption. More likely this is another weak argument that will get thrown out of court, but still serve its purpose of landing Interplay with thousands of dollars of legal fees and hours of lost time.

  • Gastrian #19 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 17:56:43 13-04-2012

  • Moribundman #20 1 year ago

    @arcam I don't think its so implausible that they'd write such an absurd clause into a contract deliberately... This is the suits' corporate lawyers we're talking about and not the creatives or the fans. They don't necessarily care whether Interplay get to make a decent game or not, nor do they care if it gets totally hobbled by having to bastardise the license. What we could end up with is the "Never Say Never Again" of the gaming universe (loving my analogies today, but not so keen on a Fallout with Rowan Atkinson for comic relief).