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Interplay countersues Bethesda over Fallout

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Oct 21, 2009 5:25 pm PT

After 10-day extension request, postapocalyptic RPG creator claims current rights holder breached acquisition agreement, meddled with business deals.

Bethesda Softworks unleashed its legal hounds on Interplay last month over the two companies' dealings with the Fallout intellectual property. The suit accused Interplay of 10 counts of breach of contract and trademark infringement by not abiding by various agreements that arose following Bethesda Softworks' purchase of the Fallout IP from franchise creator Interplay in 2007.

The Brotherhood of Steel are ready and willing to...arbitrate.

Late last week, Interplay responded to Bethesda's suit, petitioning the court for a 10-day extension as well as countersuing the Fallout IP owner with its own breach of contract charges. Specifically, Interplay claims that Bethesda violated the terms of the trademark licensing agreement (TLA) and asset purchase agreement (APA), which were both entered into in April 2007.

As part of the suit, Interplay states that it had the rights to grant Glutton Creeper Games the license to make a Fallout-based pen-and-paper role-playing game based on the original RPGs. Interplay claims that while Bethesda could have prevented the licensing deal immediately, it waited until August before notifying Glutton Creeper that it must cease and desist work on the pen-and-paper RPG. Glutton Creeper subsequently sued Interplay, the suit states, causing the studio to incur substantial legal fees.

The Fallout creator also claims that Bethesda acted in bad faith in its dealings with Interplay's business partners, specifically those that dealt with merchandising rights. The suit states that Bethesda sent on-demand PC game service GameTap a letter informing it that Interplay did not have the rights to license out the original Fallout RPGs, a charge Interplay denies. Therefore, Interplay claims that Bethesda's actions caused it to incur further financial hardship.

By way of its countersuit, Interplay seeks a declaration that it continues to hold and make use of its licensing rights under the APA and TLA. In the alternative, the publisher seeks that Bethesda's purchasing agreement from 2007 be rescinded, and all Fallout rights return to Interplay. The company has also petitioned the court to award it royalties it would be due under Bethesda's original licensing agreement from 2004, a figure it estimates at $15 million thanks to the highly successful Fallout 3.

362 Comments

  • simplyTeejay

    Posted Dec 16, 2009 6:08 pm PT

    Fallout is fantastic, with a few glitches here and there. The gameplay was very intellectual and easy at the same time. Dumping stats, choosing perks, finding great guns, destroying whatever the wasteland has to offer. All of the games have these basic components, Bethesda just did a great job of portraying those components. All i hope for is 1 of 2 things (or both if we get lucky)

    1. Fallout: New Vegas (or 4 or whatever you want to call it)
    2. Fallout MMORPG. either one with the style from Fallout 3 would be phenomenal.

  • Cloud_in_midgar

    Posted Dec 13, 2009 5:34 am PT

    Bethesda have to keep it, behesda are the best games developers on the planet

  • Underworldy69

    Posted Nov 23, 2009 5:13 pm PT

    wow I do not know what to go for. Bethesda gave me a great Fallout game and I think New Vegas could be maybe better, and I love Fallout and their style of RPGs. But of course Interplay did start a fantastic series and the MMO looks great. idk.... maybe they have ZeniMax just buy Interplay? it would support them considering they went bankrupt.

  • Edricane

    Posted Nov 14, 2009 4:15 am PT

    They should kiss and make up and make Fallout Babies..

  • fatredfu

    Posted Nov 11, 2009 12:53 pm PT

    the only complaint i have of Bethesda is that they make games so big that they freeze often... but otherwise... i can spend hours and hours in their worlds and not ever come up for air... interplay had what... clay fighters? SNES/Genisis

  • bagehi

    Posted Nov 5, 2009 12:22 pm PT

    Interplay has always been good at making video games and bad at business. Some things never change. Sad to watch.

  • redalertgamer

    Posted Nov 2, 2009 11:33 am PT

    ok interplay is acting like a child now. seriously they sold the ip to bethesda and they made fallout 3 a FANTASTIC game and now interplay wants it back because all of a sudden the ip's doin great. seriously grow up interplay.

  • pigilikepoe

    Posted Nov 1, 2009 9:52 am PT

    This isn't going to end well...

  • River_Horse

    Posted Oct 31, 2009 3:44 pm PT

    How do we find out who wins and whats going on other then thay are suing oneanother back and forth? This is SO childish of Interplay the definition of imature. Thats what i think.

  • Shiftfallout

    Posted Oct 31, 2009 7:06 am PT

    DredWulf, I hope interplay wins. Why? Because you have to look at the history of both bethesda and interplay. Interplay got rid of the few bad apples which caused the loss of Black Isle Studios and is being run by better people who, in fact, hired and use chris taylor, one of the original devs. Thats said, Bethesda went out of its way to prevent the original devs from working on FO3. Bethesda did something opposite of interplay. With the help of Todd Howard, Zenimax took over Bethesda and kicked out its original founder. In fact, Bethesda has become a more corrupt company being run by an ex lawyer who was sued for numerous occasions for fraud and shady business. Go figure. Bethesda once acquiring the full rights went on a legal spree trying to prevent others from playing and obtaining previous fallout products. This is disgusting to any fallout fan. Todd Howard also stated that he felt like the IP was always his. Its disgusting.

  • DredWulf

    Posted Oct 31, 2009 1:01 am PT

    I really hope interplay loses, because of their poor business practices they lost some of the best teams in VG history like Black Isle Studios..and made utterly horrible games like Fallout Brother Hood of Steel...Slipknot Soundtrack FTL.

  • DragonMage2k4

    Posted Oct 27, 2009 9:19 am PT

    I love how people seem to believe that Interplay is still an actual game developer. Interplay is essentially Herve (who doesn't know how to make video games), his lawyer, and a few contractors. The "company" has been in a virtual existence since they closed the Irvine studio, and all the real talent has gone on to Obsidian, InXile, Blizzard, and Massive Black.

  • Chickenesta

    Posted Oct 27, 2009 9:15 am PT

    gl interplay!

  • toadman682000

    Posted Oct 27, 2009 3:11 am PT

    I just hope Interplay sticks around long enough to make Descent 4

    Or sell the rights to someone who can

  • Fed__X

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 5:20 pm PT

    I think I would love to see interplay make another fallout. Fallout 3 is amazing but really it didn't bring anything new to the table. The character models looked too much like oblivion. The landscape is awesome and vats is a nice touch. hope no one flames me for this. I love the game don't get me wrong and invested over a hundred hours. I just hate most of copy past approach developers are taking.

  • smyden01

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 5:08 pm PT

    Those are all great games and Bethesda wasn't going to re-release them to the public so good job Interplay this new game is Fallout 5 anyway so Bethesda has falsely named it too

  • partytimekegs

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 3:39 pm PT

    Interplay, you should have thought about all this when you sold your IP to Bethesda. Honestly if I were the judge I would just say, "Well, you should have thought about that."

  • JM_Lerris

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 1:59 pm PT

    Interplay is still around? WTF? Seriously thought they were long gone. Clearly they should be.

  • BtmnHatesRbn

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 10:04 am PT

    How about Bethesda just buys Interplay?

    Who knew all the trouble of a faraway Decent sequel would cause all of this?

  • Alexrmf

    Posted Oct 26, 2009 7:34 am PT

    I see people here feel sorry for Interplay, and I'm not sure why that is,
    they're not the creators of any of the great games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment,
    Interplay was just the publisher and the one that help the IP for Fallout (for Baldur's gate it was WotC-Atari).
    From my point of view, Interplay can whine and cry as much as it wants, they did nothing for these games but to sell them, what I's really sorry is Black Isle... thanks to them we spent so much time in front of the monitor enjoying each game.

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