Well everybody knows that Interplay is the publisher who created FallOut. Interplay did struggle to survive having once been one of the biggest software publishers in North America to now living hand to mouth day to day. Interplay was in desperate need of capital to restart development of internal products.

So Interplay sold the Intellectual property of FallOut one of their most successful franchises to Bethesda. The agreement below.

"In April 2007, Bethesda Softworks, the developer of Fallout 3, purchased full rights to the Fallout IP for US$5.75 million. While Bethesda now owned the rights to the Fallout MMO IP as well, clauses in the purchase agreement state allowed Interplay to license the rights to the development of the MMO. Specific requirements were stated in the agreement that if not met, Interplay would immediately lose and surrender its license rights for Fallout. Development must have begun within 24 months of the date of the agreement (April 4, 2007), and Interplay must have secured $30 million within that time frame or forfeit its rights to license. Interplay would furthermore need to launch the MMOG within 4 years of the beginning of development, and pay Bethesda 12 percent of sales and subscription fees for the use of the IP." - Wikipedia

It would appear that Interplay was actually able to meet the initial demands supposedly getting the 30-million in funding. Bethesda tried multiple times to stop the FallOut MMO claiming initially that they had just liscensed the name and not the intellectual property itself. The courts threw their case out siding with Interplay. Then Bethesda tried again a few more times. But they lost again in court and so they appealed the last court ruling bringing Interplay back to court to attempt once again to stop the FallOut MMO. But yesterday it was announced that the court once again has sided with Interplay.

"Bethesda was denied a preliminary injunction against Interplay in June, and attempted to appeal the decision. That appeal has now also been denied" - IGN

Now according to the agreement Interplay has the license for the FallOut MMO at a cost of 12% of there subscription fees. The next step apparently is that Bethesda will try and prevent the game from being published if Interplay does manage to launch the game in 2013. The question is with Bethesda doing everything in their power to stop the FallOut MMO is Interplay still capable of producing it?

Do you think Bethesda has a chance of actually stopping the FallOut MMO? Will Interplay actually deliver the FallOut MMO within the four year time slot? Are you interested in the Fall Out MMO?

Source

The clear move for Interplay is to release Fallout MMORPG in 2013 as a free to play online download MMORPG with an in game shop as a "fuck you" to Bethesda.

As for why they're doing it....

because THEY want to do it, and get all the money, or at least reserve the ability to.

Hell it's the same reason Nintendo didn't want you downloaded 20 year old NES games in the Gamecucbe era, even the really really obscure ones.

Is anybody looking forward to Fall Out MMO? Or do you hope Interplay fails to deliver the game and that it never sees the light of day?

So for now good guys are winning ? Really rare case in american law system.

That's what I was thinking haha, Bethesda are acting like jackasses lately with this and with the "Scrolls."

That's messed up but funny. It sounds like Bethesda is being a bully, yet it's hard to feel sorry for Interplay. I guess I feel they could've done more in the past and they wouldn't be in the position they're in now.

Well to be honest I am pretty sad that Interplay had to sell Fall Out but they needed capital and couldn't have survived without the sale. I am very hopeful that Interplay can turn things around they are starting several projects and they have made plenty of re-releases as well and downloadable titles for WiiWare/PSN/Live.

My hope is that within the next 5 years the publisher is independent again. Not relying on other publishers to publish their internal products. Personally I know they have a new EarthWormJim in development my hope is that it is a real EWJ game I wouldn't mind seeing a proper 3D entry into the series the N64 game was a disaster.

I also want ClayFighter to come back in a big way. Personally I loved ClayFighter on SNES, but the N64 game was sort of dissapointing it wasn't that great. But when ClayFighter got released on 64 3D technology was still fairly new and developers had yet to master it. Now being almost two decades later I am confident that Interplay could produce a proper 3D version of ClayFighter!

Of course Interplay's other IP's aren't as promising. I could see a HD new Descent game or maybe even a new Boogerman on 3DS or Vita. I know a downloadable MDK 2 HD port is coming but creating a new entry in the series would likely be a smart move.

All the properties Interplay currently owns are Battlechess, Clayfighter, Dark Alliance, Descent, Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Giants, Messiah, MDK, Run Like Hell, Sacrifice, Conquer Series, Tank Platoon,Subwar. of course most of those properties are not going to be big releases. But it shows that if Interplay can manage to start developing higher end titles they have a library of games that could be exploited!

A Fall Out mmo sounds badass on paper that's for sure. I would like to see it happen, it'd be sad if it were to fail though.

I don't think I like the way Interplay is handling this but with this and the Scrolls case, my respect for Bethesda has gone down lately.