Interplay involuntary bankruptcy filing

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Brother None

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The involuntary bankruptcy of Interplay we reported on earlier has finally been filed with SEC:<blockquote>On November 1, 2006, certain creditors of Interplay Entertainment Corp. ("Interplay") filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Interplay. The petition was filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California, in Santa Ana, California. Interplay has retained the law firm of Winthrop Couchot Professional Corporation to represent it in opposing the involuntary petition. Interplay anticipates that a motion to dismiss the involuntary petition will be filed timely for a hearing to take place on February 22, 2007.</blockquote>In other words, if Interplay's law firm files in time (which it apparently hasn't yet) there'll be a hearing on February 22 to either dismiss the involuntary bankruptcy or continue on in court, which could lead to Interplay being forced in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, no news about FOOL or possible investors.

Link: Interplay 8-K filing on SEC.
 
Hey, post-apocalyptic copyright lawyers, if Interplay goes belly-up, what are the chances of some of their IP becoming public domain?
 
I believe someone on the board already compared Interplay with the undead, it just refuses to die while it feasts on the living.
 
What never ceases to amaze me, is the steadfast belief of some in Herve's ability to rise Interplay out of the mire he put it in. Intermixing facts with wishful thinking and hopeful desires is not going to change the reality of the situation.

His arrogance aside (there is a lot of arrogance in the game industry), he just isn't a savvy enough businessman. The fact that he (and his brother) have bankrupt every company they ran should be proof enough for anybody. Herve just doesn't have it within him the inspiration for good business deals (quite the opposite in fact), nor does he possess any knowledge about the venue of the game industry. All he really has is a name (Fallout) and a buzzword linked to a possible high value revenue stream (MMO), but he doesn't know or understand how to put the two together.

Like I have said so many times before, I can not see Interplay ever creating anything of value, much less a Fallout MMO, with Herve at the Helm.
 
Dibujante said:
Hey, post-apocalyptic copyright lawyers, if Interplay goes belly-up, what are the chances of some of their IP becoming public domain?
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IANL, but I think there's at least a chance that the IP (like Fallout copyrights) would end up being liquidated into the hands of their creditors. It would not be made public domain unless Interplay voluntarily did so, which they don't have any reason to do. The more assets they have for liquidation, the better their bankruptcy deal will be.
 
entro said:
IANL
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What? I hate made-up abbreviations.

entro said:
but I think there's at least a chance that the IP (like Fallout copyrights) would end up being liquidated into the hands of their creditors.
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Nope, that's not how it works, the IP would be auctioned to pay of the creditors, rather.
 
Jabberwocky said:
. . . the IP would be auctioned to pay of the creditors . . .
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Lets hope that when the auction takes place, Herve doesn't pull a similar stunt to what his brother pulled with Titus.

When the French authorities ordered Titus liquidated, Eric selected Herve handle the auction. Very little of the proceeds ended up going to Titus' creditors. Most ended being funneled into the coffers of IPLY where it was squandered with Ballerium instead of paying debts.
 
Corith said:
When the French authorities ordered Titus liquidated, Eric selected Herve handle the auction. Very little of the proceeds ended up going to Titus' creditors. Most ended being funneled into the coffers of IPLY where it was squandered with Ballerium instead of paying debts.
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It can't really be legal to give away liquidated funds to your brother instead of to the creditors, can it? Are French authorities made up of drooling, snail-eating morons? Just wondering how you get away with something like that.

entropomorphic said:
IANL
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My amazing brain decodes that as "I am no lawyer".
 
Per said:
Corith said:
When the French authorities ordered Titus liquidated, Eric selected Herve handle the auction. Very little of the proceeds ended up going to Titus' creditors. Most ended being funneled into the coffers of IPLY where it was squandered with Ballerium instead of paying debts.
Click to expand...

It can't really be legal to give away liquidated funds to your brother instead of to the creditors, can it? Are French authorities made up of drooling, snail-eating morons? Just wondering how you get away with something like that.
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I'm sure Eric didn't quite "Give" Herve the money. Herve was person or entity setup as "liquidateur amiable" and was in charge of the liquidation process, no doubt due to an unaware French bureaucrat. The funds from the liquidation didn't go where they were "supposed to". Since there was corporate relationship between the two companies (owning each others stock) it seems POSSIBLE that, on paper, Interplay appeared, at the time, to be a major creditor of Titus. My point was not to point out the breaking of French law, but to point out the bad business choice Herve made with the money.

Instead of paying down debt to improve the investment desirability, Herve, foolishly beloved that Ballerium would be the answer to his money owes. Anybody, any gamer, could have told him that Ballerium would not be a success. No offence to the hard working people of Ballerium, but the game was not competitive with the current market, looked very dated, and was a retread of a failed game model (RTS Persistent Fantasy, e.g., Massive Multiplayer, Age of Empires/Warcraft/Starcraft).

Needless to say, the French investors are/were pretty steamed.
http://www.boursorama.com/forum/file_messages.phtml?symbole=1rPIUS
 
Per said:
Corith said:
When the French authorities ordered Titus liquidated, Eric selected Herve handle the auction. Very little of the proceeds ended up going to Titus' creditors. Most ended being funneled into the coffers of IPLY where it was squandered with Ballerium instead of paying debts.
Click to expand...

It can't really be legal to give away liquidated funds to your brother instead of to the creditors, can it? Are French authorities made up of drooling, snail-eating morons? Just wondering how you get away with something like that.
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You should have seen the Titus investors Forum at the time it seemed like a gathering of Rosh's when the judge fell for it and ordered Herve to be the liquidator (nice title).
 
The more assets they have for liquidation, the better their bankruptcy deal will be.
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Those chairs will go a loooooong way!..wait didnt that get sold with the ping pong table?...maybe they could sell the wallpaper as a new game by cutting it out into disk shapes. something desperate and stupid like that.
 
Dibujante said:
Hey, post-apocalyptic copyright lawyers, if Interplay goes belly-up, what are the chances of some of their IP becoming public domain?
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Very, very doubtful. My guess is when Interplay is finally forced into bankruptcy, the massive loans Herve made to himself will need to be repaid for some odd legal reason (I'm no SEC expert). Threatened with being dragged down, Herve will sell off the rights to a Fallout MMO to another company, possibly with some deal to remain in some type of authority of the project.

There are some truly foolish investors out there, armed with incorrect facts, who really believe Herve can pull this off. However, the facts, the real facts, just don't support this. Granted, that is inductive logic at work rather than deductive, but I think Herve's past history and the facts indicate VERY strongly that FO:OL is never, ever, going to happen, at least not under Herve's Interplay.
 
DarkLegacy said:
Herve's screwed. Plain and simple.
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Not necessarily.

I find it highly doubtful that even the most delusional and moronic investor would fall for Herve's FO:OL plan (then again, there are pretty ignorant ones out there), and, Herve's arrogance precludes even the most sensible plans of getting out from the mess he has made.

That being said, he does have some avenues that could palatable to him. The most likely path would be for him to pay off (out of his own pocket, if need be) one or more of the bankruptcy claimants, this would force a change in the filing dynamics and buy him time.

Regarding FO:OL, his best bet, considering his utter lack of tangible and intangible development assets, would be to contact an existing MMO development house (Sony, Sigil, NCSoft, Funcom, Mythic, etc) and cut a deal for them to make Fallout Online via incorporating Interplay (with him as Interplay's CEO) into their brand. Granted, Herve would no longer be "Le Grande Fromage", and he may find that too distasteful to accept.
 
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