wtf

Bethesda Robbing Interplay Blind?

Article written by Zangetsu Zaraki on 5/19/09
Last edited on 5/20/09

Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the title Van Buren. Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed Black Isle Studios before completion; the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold to Bethesda in 2004 for a $1,175,000 ADVANCE on royalties. Bethesda's only real credibility at the time was The Elder Scrolls series. Their version of Fallout 3 was developed using the Gamebryo engine same as Oblivion, without any of Black Isle Studio's original material. Interplay was given an advance on royalties but got a ridiculously conditional chance to produce a Fallout MMO... Originally Bethesda was licensing the Fallout moniker from Interplay but it looks as if the tides have turned. On April 4 2007, the exclusive rights to Fallout were sold by Interplay to Bethesda for $5.75 million. On April 15 2009, a claim filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission states Bethesda claims Interplay has yet to secure funding for the MMO and intends to terminate the agreement for failure to begin development by April 4, 2009. Interplay disagrees with these statements.

Interplay recently received notice that Bethesda Softworks, LLC ("Bethesda") intends to terminate the trademark license agreement between Bethesda and Interplay which was entered into April 4, 2007 for the development of Fallout MMOG," reads the filing.

Despite the fact that no formal action is currently pending, Bethesda claims that Interplay is in breach of the trademark license agreement for failure to commence full scale development of same by April 4, 2009 and to secure certain funding for the MMOG. Interplay adamantly disputes these claims... If Bethesda ultimately prevails and cancels the trademark license agreement, Interplay would lose its license back of the Fallout MMOG.

Bethesda's parent company Zenimax, has reared its ugly head and turned Bethesda into an evil pawn in this sleazy form of license acquisition.  These are the conditions set by Bethesda to allow Interplay to complete their MMO, you tell me if this seems fair:

  • No single player or offline mode in any way.
  • Must be for PC or Mac only, no ports to console whatesoever.
  • Minimum of 10,000 monthly subscribers.
  • Furthermore, Interplay must enter "full-scale" development of the MMO with a minimum of $30 million in funding by two years from the signing of the agreement, or it immediately forfeits its rights to the license.
  • Interplay may not sublicense any part of MMO development without Bethesda's approval.
  • The MMO "must meet or exceed such quality standards as may be set by Bethesda from time to time" in order for Interplay to remain in good standing, and Bethesda has the right to inspect Interplay's offices and development progress at any time during normal business hours provided two days' notice is given.
  • The company must launch the game in North America and Europe within four years of that development commencement date, with the potential for a one-year extension if development is progressing adequately, giving the game a final release date limit of April 9, 2014
  • In return for granting Interplay the MMO rights, Bethesda will receive royalties of 12% of sales, subscription fees, or other revenue generated by the game.

Why would Zenimax and Bethesda buy the exclusive Fallout rights?  Quite simply, ownership leverage.  Acquiring the licensing rights allows Zenimax to set ludacris conditions for Interplay and purposely led them to believe they would still be working on the MMO.  They knowingly created these conditions so Interplay would forfeit the MMO rights, at no additional cost to Zenimax other than what had already been incurred upon buying the exclusive rights.  Then their new MMO studio, Zenimax Online Studios produces the game and makes a potential profit of at least 88% more than the 12% of royalties it would have gotten from Interplay.  Read ahead and see for yourself why these sleazy bastards are robbing Interplay blind.

The Evidence

In August 2007 Bethesda's parent company launched its own MMO studio, Zenimax Online Studios.  In exchange for an unknown amount of stock, Providence Equity Partners gave Zenimax $300 million in funding to "allow ZeniMax and Bethesda to think several steps ahead and grow..." and "...increase game development and publishing, facilitate acquisitions, and finance massively multiplayer online games."  It seems maybe the sneaky fucks were laughing about it all along!

As of now it appears that ZeniMax's board of directors will consist of Providence's managing director Michael Dominguez, CBS President Leslie Moonves, MGM Chairman Harry Sloan, Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

In a recent interview Bethesda's Pete Hines said, "A decision was made by management to purchase the remaining property rights to Fallout that we didn't already control when that opportunity was presented to us... That's more part of, we spent a lot of time developing Fallout into something that is very hot. It has a lot of people's interest..."

Upon further prodding Hines went on to say, "...and we just want to make sure that we're protecting what we created. And I can tell you, we've gotten a ton of interest about those kinds of things, not just with Fallout, but over the years. And it was just a, "Let's make sure that we're protecting what is ours and not letting somebody else do anything with it." So it's more of that, and it is not in response to any specific project or initiative or anything in particular. " 

It definitely seems like Pete Hines is trying to deny it repeatedly.  He also said that they're trying to protect what they created but in reality Interplay made the Fallout series a cult classic, not Bethesda... The original game, Fallout, was released in 1997 by Interplay for the PC as an unofficial sequel to the 1987 game Wasteland which was set after a series of nuclear explosions that had devastated the world.  The sequel, Fallout 2, followed in 1998, along with various spin-offs, including Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel in 2004.

If they do decide to create a Fallout MMO can the greedy assholes at Bethesda/Zenimax handle the launch and upkeep of an MMO?  If they can't even release downloadable content without major glitches, how are they going to take on the large-scale issues unique to Massive Multiplayer Gaming?

The Pitt was released on March 24, 2009 and removed the same day.  They "fixed" it then reposted March 25, 2009 and again removed it later that day.  The fucktards "fixed" it again on April 2, 2009 and screwed over most of the gamers that downloaded it before then.  They were forced to start a new game and character.  Bethesda better start doing shit right the first time instead of half-assing their products just to release overpriced content quickly!

The PC version of The Pitt had the same problem, leading modders to create a patch called "The Pitt Crash Fix" which fixes the problems present in the wasteland but not interiors of The Pitt.  It's pretty sad when modders can fix your fucking mistakes before you can Bethesda.

The most recent Fallout content for PC, Broken Steel, had alot of installation issues which required updates on Bethesda's behalf.  It was quickly removed due to bugs which made the PC version of the expansion unplayable and re-released 2 days later.Now the reputation of an amazingly talented company, Interplay, may be tarnished if investors see the Fallout MMO debacle as a bad sign.