The long, bitter legal battle between Bethesda and Interplay has finally resolved today, with Bethesda emerging the victor. Interplay officially has no claim to the Fallout IP, and its plans to create a Fallout MMO are now through.
"Under the terms of the settlement, the license granted to Interplay to develop the Fallout MMO is null and void, and all rights granted to Interplay to develop a Fallout MMO revert back to Bethesda, effective immediately," announced the winning company. "Interplay has no ongoing right to use the Fallout brand or any Fallout intellectual property for any game development. ZeniMax will pay Interplay $2 million as consideration in the settlement, each party will bear its own costs of the litigation, and Bethesda will continue to own all Fallout intellectual property rights."
Interplay has permission to continue selling Fallout Tactics, Fallout and Fallout 2 until December 31, 2013, after which time Bethesda gets sole control over all games.
The war between the two studios began after Bethesda bought the Fallout rights in 2007. Interplay was allowed to develop an MMO on the condition that it raise $30 million in financing and begin full-scale development by April 2009. It failed to meet the requirements, but insisting on making the MMO anyway, which Bethesda has been fighting for two years.
Now, the fight is over, but is the conclusion righteous or unjust? Why not let us know what you think?
Contest:
5:15 PM on 01.09.2012 | 
Somebody should have put a big stop on that project if there was an ongoing dispute as to the rights, but "time is money," and it might be that they thought they were close enough to hitting their financing goal, even retroactively, that it'd be worth continuing work so that the final date didn't slip to far out. As it turns out, that seems to have been a bad decision.
I would play a Fallout MMO, though. Just sayin'.
I couldn't have imagined a Fallout MMO working anyway, especially one developed on a budget.
*Not FO:Tactics. Whoever was in charge of the naming department should've been fired for making the two so easy to mix up.
Now that I think about it, after the abomination of a fallout that was fallout 3, I have yet to play New Vegas, which I hear Obsidian injected some of what made the originals so great, the ultimate edition can't come soon enough.
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While I'm glad this is over and I expected that Interplay wouldn't have the ability to fully realize a quality Fallout MMO. I'd like to point out that NOBODY wins in this. Bethesda purchased the rights on bad faith, licensed the rights for the MMO to Iplay on bad faith and has literally done everything in their power to stop the Fallout MMO from actually being realized even before they brought Iplay to court they did things like try and prevent the sale of Fallout 1 and 2 and Tactics to try and keep iplay from getting the required funds. Purposefully ignored emails and denied requests without reviewing them.
Nobody wins in this. Iplay is long since dead creatively and would likely have done no better than Bethesda in terms of quality for FOOL (chances are the writing would be better in Iplay's but the graphics and general world size would suck compared to something Bethesda could create.) and Bethesda showed its true colors with intentionally working to circumvent any agreements made.
Its a long tale, I should sooner forget. All in all, guess thats one less beta i have toi keep checking my email about
Thats the thing though. Fallout isn't in capable hands. Its in the hands of Todd Howard, who wouldn't know Fallout if it reached out and goatse'd him.
Didn't realize that, but then again that's why I said "I'm not even sure", just in case I missed a detail or two.
I don't think I ever picked a side in it all, but I did just pick up all of the first 3 PC Fallouts on GOG before their holiday sale went away on the 2nd. So I guess Interplay got my money from that, even if it only manages to be a few bucks.
Honestly, if the conditions said above were the conditions set, then Interplay really didn't have the right to keep trying to make the game. They agreed and they renigged. Feel bad for them, but who knows.. Bethesda may announce a Fallout MMO of their own now. And I think I'd play the hell out of that (however, I don't believe I -or we- should stomach the bugs we usually see from their massive games. Not in a MMO setting. So they'll need to bring just a bit more polish then they even brought to Skyrim for that if they do it)