Despite both working on theFalloutuniverse, things between Interplay and Bethesda are rather sour, mostly thanks to Bethesda suing Interplay for not producing aFalloutMMO in time. According to Interplay’s Eric Caen, Bethesda never even wanted the MMO, and is now only suing his company to get it for free.
“Hervé [Caen] started negotiations with Bethesda to sellFalloutto them,” he says. “My brother said: ‘If you want the full IP, the value of it is $50 million.’ They said: ‘No way. Why $50 million?’ We said: ‘Because the MMOG strength of this universe is huge.’ Bethesda said: ‘We don’t want that. Let’s buy everything else but the MMOG. Do the MMOG.’
“They said that Interplay had to start development and by a certain time we had to have a full game in development. They bought everything, but left Interplay with the licence to do the MMOG — under certain conditions, thinking that Interplay would never fulfil these conditions. But Interplay did.”
“Hervé [Caen] started negotiations with Bethesda to sellFalloutto them,” he says. “My brother said: ‘If you want the full IP, the value of it is $50 million.’ They said: ‘No way. Why $50 million?’ We said: ‘Because the MMOG strength of this universe is huge.’ Bethesda said: ‘We don’t want that. Let’s buy everything else but the MMOG. Do the MMOG.’
“They said that Interplay had to start development and by a certain time we had to have a full game in development. They bought everything, but left Interplay with the licence to do the MMOG — under certain conditions, thinking that Interplay would never fulfil these conditions. But Interplay did.”
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Despite Caen’s claims that Interplay did what it was obliged to do, the developer ofFallout 3has pressed ahead with a lawsuit: “Spring 2009 — this is public information — Bethesda sends a termination letter to Interplay, saying: ‘You did not fulfil your obligation.’ So all the litigation is about that. I think Bethesda, off the back ofFallout 3’s success, realized that Hervé was probably right about the value. They said: ‘OK, how can we get that without paying?’”
It’s always sad when developers throw litigation at each other, because it stops them concentrating on games, which is really all a developer should be doing. I’m sad Bethesda felt the need to sue Interplay, and I’m sad the two companies couldn’t have worked together without getting into a slapfight.
I’m saddest most of all, however, because I have a feeling that thisFalloutMMO business isn’t going to end well.
