[Ausir]

Bethesda Softworks has announced that, as was to be expected, the long-lasting litigation between Bethesda and Interplay over the rights to Fallout Online ended with a settlement in which Bethesda acquired full rights to the MMO in exchange for paying Interplay $2 million. Interplay's rights to sell the original Fallou games will also expire on December 31, 2013.

See the full press release below:

FALLOUT® MMO RIGHTS RESTORED TO
BETHESDA SOFTWORKS® IN INTERPLAY LITIGATION

All Fallout® Intellectual Property Rights
Belong Exclusively to Bethesda

January 9, 2012 (Rockville, MD) –ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that a settlement had been reached in the lawsuit filed by its subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks®, against Interplay Entertainment Corporation in 2009, Bethesda Softworks LLC v Interplay Entertainment Corp., seeking cancellation of the license granted to Interplay to develop a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) based on the Fallout brand. Bethesda maintained in its complaint that Interplay had failed to meet the conditions for the license and the license was therefore of no continuing validity.

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. 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 will be permitted to continue to sell the original Fallout ®Tactics, Fallout® and Fallout® 2 PC games through December 2013, after which time all rights to market those games revert to and become the sole property of Bethesda. Under the original agreement pursuant to which Bethesda had acquired the Fallout property, Interplay was granted certain merchandising rights to sell those original Fallout games, but those merchandising rights will now expire on December 31, 2013.

The lawsuit against Interplay arose after Bethesda Softworks acquired all Fallout intellectual property rights from Interplay in April 2007, and conditionally licensed back to Interplay certain trademark rights to make a Fallout MMO, provided Interplay secured $30 million in financing for the MMO and commenced full scale development of the game by April 2009. Bethesda alleged in its complaint that Interplay failed to meet either condition of the license back agreement but refused to relinquish its license and insisted it would develop a Fallout MMO. Bethesda filed suit to declare the license void.

In a separate but related matter, Bethesda commenced a second action against a purported developer of the Fallout MMO, Masthead Studios, Bethesda Softworks LLC v Masthead Studios Ltd. In the course of the original lawsuit against Interplay, Interplay had claimed that it had engaged Masthead Studios to develop the Fallout MMO under its license, and contended that Masthead was engaged in full scale development of that game. Bethesda filed its separate lawsuit against Masthead to assert copyright infringement and other violations of Bethesda's intellectual property rights. Under the MMO license granted to Interplay, Interplay was not permitted to sublicense any rights granted without the prior approval of Bethesda, approval which had never been requested or granted. In responding to Bethesda's lawsuit, Masthead denied that it had been using any of Bethesda’s intellectual property in developing an MMO. Masthead and Bethesda settled that second lawsuit on December 29, 2011. In the settlement, Masthead acknowledges it has no legal right to use any Fallout intellectual property, and agrees it will not use any such intellectual property of Bethesda in the future. No payments were made by either party as part of this settlement. The two settlements resolve all pending litigation over the Fallout intellectual property owned by Bethesda.

Robert Altman, Chairman and CEO of ZeniMax, expressed satisfaction on behalf of the Company with the resolution of the two lawsuits saying, "While we strongly believe in the merits of our suits, we are pleased to avoid the distraction and expense of litigation while completely resolving all claims to the Fallout IP. Fallout is an important property of ZeniMax and we are now able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others' legal claims."

Following the purchase of the property, Bethesda Game Studios, the 2011 ‘Studio of the Year’ and the development team behind the 2011 ‘Game of the Year’, The Elder Scrolls® V: Skyrim™, developed Fallout® 3. ZeniMax Media’s publishing subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks, published Fallout® 3, a highly acclaimed sequel which won ‘Game of the Year’ honors in 2008, for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows. Bethesda also published the popular title, Fallout: New Vegas®, in 2010 for the same platforms. Fallout: New Vegas® Ultimate Edition, which will include the original game and the award-winning downloadable content in one special package, is planned for release by Bethesda in early 2012.

[TheBearPaw]

We have World of WarCraft by Blizzard. I heard there is a World of WarCraft in space by BioWare. When's the post apocalyptic World of WarCraft featuring yellow super mutants and 3 voice actors coming?

[Misterfish]

Honestly, I'm glad. Interplay wouldn't have been able to handle it. And I hope in the future when Bethesda starts getting stale, they'll be willing to hand off the series to a new company. Whelp, glad that drama is over with, now can you get on to Fallout 4, Bethesda?

[the14th]

And you doubted me when I called it misterfish... Interplay had no chance in hell.

[THIJAKA]

Bethesda Rule

[yourdud3ness]

to be honest, i dont really think that fallout needs an mmo. it seems that it would be kind of stupid to have hundreds of people who are all in whats supposed to be a barren wasteland. in every fallout the player is supposed to be a one of a kind person who changes the land alone. it doesnt seem like that would be possible in an mmo

[falloutgeek]

yeah bethesda won and now fallout canon shall remaine un hurt by crapy MMOSRPGS I admit we are runing out of time in the fallout universe as the ghouls only live on for a time so proabably they will make a remake of the original fallout with some untold storries

[mrivera889]

I saw this result coming a long time ago.Ironically just the same way that Interplay had to remove the GURPS system from the original Fallout game because the licensesing deal when sour, they now will once again have to do this with their Project V13 game and romove all content related to the Fallout franchise if they still have the intentions of releasing this MMO they been working on for the past 2 years.

[the14th]

falloutgeek, on 10 January 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

yeah bethesda won and now fallout canon shall remaine un hurt by crapy MMOSRPGS I admit we are runing out of time in the fallout universe as the ghouls only live on for a time so proabably they will make a remake of the original fallout with some untold storries

There are intelligent ghouls dating back to the Great War, I'm not too worried.

[patriotfan09]

yourdud3ness, on 10 January 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

to be honest, i dont really think that fallout needs an mmo. it seems that it would be kind of stupid to have hundreds of people who are all in whats supposed to be a barren wasteland. in every fallout the player is supposed to be a one of a kind person who changes the land alone. it doesnt seem like that would be possible in an mmo

I feel the point of the MMO would be closer to how the towns operate, or possibly starting some type of group (like Reilly's Rangers). But who knows.

[Misterfish]

@the14th yeah, yeah. I knew they wouldn't be able to make anything good, but I never thought they'd give it all up. I guess they realized that they wouldn't be able to make anything so when Bethesda sued them last October, they took it as a chance to get something out of nothing, so they put on a strong face and faked that they were moving forward to make Bethesda desperate and willing to settle for more than it was worth. But yeah, looking around, it seems that I'm the only one who didn't see this coming.

[Tuffronicus]

I'm just glad the graphics will be better, and and hope that there will be very good story lines as well, I put more than 260 hours of my life into Fallout 3, doing every quest I could, and absorbing information. I don't want an MMO,(Although if they pull it off, and pull it off well then I might play) I want good old character vs wasteland antics.

[Drohung]

Its about time, I feel bad for Interplay but, at the same time I'm glad Fallout will stick with Bethesda.

[An anonymous user]

I had an arguement with Ausir about a year or so ago over this
I was claiming Bethesda would win and that Interplay would lose
If I was wrong Fallout would fall into disrepair
I gave my side, he gave his side

I am happy I was right

[Deadeas]

A fairly unsurprising turn, really.

Although I'll be sad to never experience what Interplay intended to implement in their idea of a Fallout MMO, having Bethesda develop it will hopefully mean that the game has a better chance of actually reaching store shelves than it did before.

[Jeftah]

Deadeas, on 15 January 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

A fairly unsurprising turn, really.

Although I'll be sad to never experience what Interplay intended to implement in their idea of a Fallout MMO, having Bethesda develop it will hopefully mean that the game has a better chance of actually reaching store shelves than it did before.

What's a store shelf?

[Misterfish]

@Deadeas actually, Bethesda's dropping it.

[the14th]

They're not dropping the MMO, but since they're starting from scratch it's gonna be a while before we see anything.

[Guevonaso]

i really hope the MMO stay the way it is now, fallout its one of the few games lefts that show other developers you don't need multiplayer to spend a lot of time in-game, second fallout it's always been a lonely game not only play style but atmosphere, normal MMO are full of life NPC or players that way its doesnt feel like a fallout at all