Interplay wants more money, Caen's statements unveiled

[Snackpack]

The contract wouldn't be cut up piecemeal unless they settle out of court. It either stays in effect or is completely nullified as far as I know.

I think everybody is in bed with everybody running a slowhand version of a pump & dump scheme, makin a little profit on the side while loading up on shares in case Interplay ever manages to get this thing out the door.

 

[Ausir]

The contract wouldn't be cut up piecemeal unless they settle out of court. It either stays in effect or is completely nullified as far as I know.

This is what Interplay claims. Bethesda claims otherwise and both cite some precedents. The court will decide who is right here.

 

[orionquest]

The contract wouldn't be cut up piecemeal unless they settle out of court. It either stays in effect or is completely nullified as far as I know.

I think everybody is in bed with everybody running a slowhand version of a pump & dump scheme, makin a little profit on the side while loading up on shares in case Interplay ever manages to get this thing out the door.

You might be right. The worst way for both sides is to go to court with this thing since they will both lose in terms of getting the game out the door and to the fans before half this decade is out.

If Bethesda was smart they would actually form a partnership with Interplay instead of this BS that is going on with the contract.

In a way, both sides have been losing for quiet a while since the contract was signed.

Greed is not good because in the end, it kills the Golden goose.

Even having seen what happened to Interplay and how it fell from the heights where Bethesda currently stands, Bethesda still cannot help behaving like a pride cometh before the fall type where lawyering is more important than making bug free games.

You can only fool the public and buy up the desperate soon to be extinct rags so much before people get to know your shtick and get tired of it and move on.

Look at EA: people eventually got tired of all their rehashed sequels and now that they are so big, it can actually lead to a snowball bankruptcy due to sheer size and inability to turn the ship around before running into the iceberg.

Same thing with Intel and Cisco and the rest.

All you need is a revolutionary product to roll out that obsoletes yours and your hubris in thinking you will remain a monopolistic tycoon forever while illegally harming competition before you are faced with a massive and unexpected slowdown in your business that forces you to downsize too late to prevent all of your cash from disappearing before you can make a change.

Complacency....... complacency never changes.

Trademark that one you hubrified lawyeritos.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Golden Gose? We are talking about HERVE and BETHESDA here. And about MMOs of course. How big is the potential to really throw a good leaving alone a good Fallout MMO out.

Is it just me or does Herve actually have a chance vs Bethesda here...?

Does it really matter in the end though. Herve or Bethesda? Not sure if that really makes that much of a difference ...

 

[Snackpack]

It doesn't matter one whiff to the money involved if the game is any good, only that it ships. The investors are just hoping for a crazy payday after buying way too many shares at 3 - 5 cents, they can smell the release of a Game From the Bestselling RPG of the Year Fallout brand, and can't stop dreaming about what that would do to their penny stock.

Expect more newslet dribbles from these guys as they hump the stock until interplay collapses or pays off for them.

 

[orionquest]

snackpack, I understand your cynicism and you are right about how some investors/traders/speculators are only interested in shipping the game and the payoff but it is a more complex emotional situation than that.

The multitude of games on the shelf behind my back as I type this can attest to what I am saying( most from the golden age of gaming before corporatism ate away the golden goose)

Most of the ardent investors that many on these boards constantly make fun of found about about the company from the games and not the other way around and some wanted to invest in it( which has been a tortuous ride to say the least).

I'm sure when news breaks out you'll get plenty of momo players(stock speak) who'll want in on the action and some have placed their bets and will cash them as soon as anything lifts the stock.

There is still the ideal of shareholder activism though where as a part owner of the company, you can use your position to shape the vision of the company.

There are way too many great RPG brands and worlds of yesteryear that are going to waste because everybody in the industry is busy fighting to make the next FPS rip off immersion experience.

PC Gaming has been dying due to massive piracy and the expensiveness of constant hardware upgrades and general dumbing down of the gaming culture that used to be a nitch subculture.

There's still hope for a rebirth of gaming the way it should be which is great stories and not just great graphics and hollow and pointless stories.

PC Gaming can return and curbing Piracy can take place by the recent initiative of having gamers access the Internet to authenticate their saved games and such instead of intrusive DRM( It's a pain but it is better than losing the industry due to lack of funding)

Games need to get priced cheaper in order to attract more gaming dollars since the potential audience is increasing with a larger game base.

The days of pricing games 60-70 dollars should be over with( except for bragging rights buy the game and play it 2 weeks before the official release type thing)

Games should be sold dutch auction style to allow the most games to be sold at the right price.

I want creativity to get back into gaming before one of the joys of my youth gets completely obliterated by the pandering to the masses style that is killing gaming by boring people to death.

The industry's sales have declined by about 10-20% which is greater than the depression like economic declines.

This should be a red flag to game companies similar to the 83 ATARI crash due to too many bad games drowning out the good games in an over flooded market.

There's way too many crappy "AAA" titles being released for mass consumption.

As the saying goes: You can fool some people most of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

 

[Sicblades]

Bethesda or Herve?

I'll take Herve. Why? Because Fallout, in Herve's hands, is most likely to die and be what it is until it is forgotten.

In the hands of Bethesda... Well you saw Fallout 3. I'd rather not get any more Fallout than have to pay another $60 to have the most fun while uninstalling Fallout <insert>.

 

[Ausir]

If Herve gets it back, he'll just license it to someone else, like he's doing now with his other IPs.

 

[Khan FurSainty]

If Herve gets it back, he'll just license it to someone else, like he's doing now with his other IPs.

To someone better i hope.

 

[SharkClub]

Obsidian or inXile a possibility?

 

[Dionysus]

If Bethesda was smart they would actually form a partnership with Interplay instead of this BS that is going on with the contract.

I think they are due 12% of the revenue with the current contract, and there's a pretty big difference between 100% and 12%. And although neither team has proven anything, there's a big difference between the money behind Zenimax and the money behind Masthead. It's probably smart to go after the MMO license.

It doesn't matter one whiff to the money involved if the game is any good, only that it ships. The investors are just hoping for a crazy payday after buying way too many shares at 3 - 5 cents, they can smell the release of a Game From the Bestselling RPG of the Year Fallout brand, and can't stop dreaming about what that would do to their penny stock.

Well, it won't make much money if people don't like it. IP doesn't have a ton of cash for advertising, and Masthead doesn't currently have any sort of reputation or fanbase. And we've seen well-hyped MMOs go belly-up rather quickly. I'm not a fan of the genre, but I assume that quality is actually more important for MMOs because of the way that the subscription system works.

 

[Grimhound]

Golden Gose? We are talking about HERVE and BETHESDA here. And about MMOs of course. How big is the potential to really throw a good leaving alone a good Fallout MMO out.

Is it just me or does Herve actually have a chance vs Bethesda here...?

Does it really matter in the end though. Herve or Bethesda? Not sure if that really makes that much of a difference ...

Anything worthwhile that comes from Fallout now will be off of things that take the general concepts and run with them in different directions as far as they possibly can. The official franchise is dead and boring to me.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Bethesda or Herve?

I'll take Herve. Why? Because Fallout, in Herve's hands, is most likely to die and be what it is until it is forgotten.

In the hands of Bethesda... Well you saw Fallout 3. I'd rather not get any more Fallout than have to pay another $60 to have the most fun while uninstalling Fallout <insert>.

chance is high that it might not just simply die but become a Lich ... creating a army of undead swarming over the world.

 

[orionquest]

If Bethesda was smart they would actually form a partnership with Interplay instead of this BS that is going on with the contract.

I think they are due 12% of the revenue with the current contract, and there's a pretty big difference between 100% and 12%. And although neither team has proven anything, there's a big difference between the money behind Zenimax and the money behind Masthead. It's probably smart to go after the MMO license.

You have to understand about the risk that Bethesda is taking and not just think about the possible reward of getting 100% of the revenue of an MMO when they are close to launching theirs.

They are risking losing the full ownership rights to the Fallout IP and putting in Jeopardy the rights to the sequels beyond 3 total Fallout games( DLC content would have to be adjudicated) based on their tortuous interference with the contract partner Interplay.

Interplay sold the Fallout rights to them on the preconditions that Interplay would always have the right to sell all the back catalog fallout games in perpetuity and they would have the exclusive Trademark License to develop an MMO and have funding set in place with full production beginning by April 4th 2009 which it has.

The emails showed Bethesda never intended to honor Interplay's request to exploit the Fallout MMO license into a game.

Bethesda never dreamed up that Interplay could line up someone to work for them developing the Fallout MMO.

Their hubris in miscalculating that Interplay is a near bankrupt publisher with little financing and industry backing is now backfiring in their faces.

Bethesda wanted the MMO testimony redacted not to let out the secret about TES MMO but to not have anyone know that they think it takes 4 years to develop an MMO because they want to release Fallout MMO before 2014.

They were hoping to quickly recoup the License to Fallout MMO and have it out bang bang right after TES MMO which would probably be out early next year based on their 4 year projections.

If on the off chance they took the insane gamble to start development of Fallout MMO in concurrence with TES MMO hoping to quickly port the game with Fallout art and watered down SPECIAL rules, those hopes and dreams are now dashed based on the testimony that came from the horse's mouth COO.

He put the whole company's foot in their mouth and they wanted his wording redacted because they cannot release a Fallout MMO until most likely 2015 if the best case scenario comes out and they win the court case they bullied Interplay into.

They cannot go to a trial over a Trademark infringement because Contract law supersedes Trademark Law.

They have to go to another court to adjudicate Contract law which means more delay in which everybody loses the more there is delay. They have no choice but to appeal the injunction ruling rebuke which adds even more delay to the delay that is expected.

Interplay entered into evidence the emails back and forth to show That there is a contract in place that has been violated several times by Bethesda before Interplay even had a chance to get to April 4th 2009.

This is textbook tortuous interference. So is the preliminary injunction request to prevent Interplay from selling back catalog Fallout games.

Bethesda is trying to use the court to remove Interplay's ability from taking advantage of two critical rights within the contract.

Interplay has told the court several times that there would be no contract had Interplay known that Bethesda would try to take away Interplay's right to publish the games that Interplay owns and created and Interplay's right to try to make a Fallout MMO.

Bethesda is trying to take away game sales of games they have no right whatsoever to take and have done their best to tortuously interfere with Interplay's ability to develop and fund Fallout MMO.

Bath faith contracting is malicious interference with your contract partner based on threats of lawsuits if your contract partner attempts to drum up any buzz to make a Fallout MMO.

You have to remember that there were bidders other than Bethesda for the Fallout IP.

Bethesda's documented interference in 2008 caused major problems for Interplay before April 4th 2009 Fallout MMO rights deadline.

There are grounds for damages there at the least and a tearing up of the contract ultimately.

Based on the deposition statements of their COO, Bethesdas has gotten themselves stuck in a tight spot as far as Fallout MMO.

Unless he is a pretended puppet in power, the Chief Operating Officer of Bethesda cannot have possibly gotten to his position nor held it this long without finding out about the contentious back and forth attempts by Interplay and Bethesda's legal team and CEO to get approval to go live with news about Fallout MMO.

COO Leder testified in court that he knew nothing of Interplay's attempt to make the Fallout MMO and as far as he knew they were not working on anything since he was "surprised" to hear anything about it when Bethesda received the notice that Interplay has complied with the Full production start date prior to April 4th 2009. His deposition even ridiculed Masthead Software, the Bulgarian group that created a working Demo of Fallout MMO under Interplay's directions.

He basically stated Interplay never asked Bethesda anything about Fallout MMO and in his opinion that was a rescinding of rights and that is clearly not the case.

The guy cannot just claim ignorance to stuff happening under his nose. It's like his claim that an MMO cannot be created without a hundred people and the person he hired to make his MMO created two MMO's with less than 25 people.

Interplay's CEO put in court documents stating that he personally requested to meet with Bethesda's CEO but he was stonewalled by the CEO who used the excuse of compliance with the request by stating that Bethesda lawyers have to clear things before anything is even discussed.

Prior to signing the binding letter of intent with Masthead which will provide part of the funding, Interplay needed to advertise something on their website to make it official that they are working on a Fallout MMO in order to get investors early after their website went back up after being basically dead for years.

They had a deal in the works with I2G to provide 15 million dollars and assuming they were allowed to advertise their brand new Fallout MMO concept art and demo they would have raised even more money than what is being promised by Masthead.

Sorry to have gone off on a rant here but Bethesda has a lot more money to lose here than even Interplay.

Bethesda is the behemoth who has a 150 million dollar game selling franchise in Jeopardy of having its IP rights reverted back to its prior owner based on clear evidence of tortuous interference by Bethesda's lawyers and CEO/COO.

 

[Dionysus]

They are risking losing the full ownership rights to the Fallout IP and putting in Jeopardy the rights to the sequels beyond 3 total Fallout games( DLC content would have to be adjudicated) based on their tortuous interference with the contract partner Interplay.

We'll see. Based on the contract, it doesn't seem that there's much of a chance of that happening. I suspect that Beth will sue IP into giving up the MMO for a settlement of some sort. I think IP is gearing up for that too. Then they get to launch a new MMO with some cash in their pockets.

 

[orionquest]

They are risking losing the full ownership rights to the Fallout IP and putting in Jeopardy the rights to the sequels beyond 3 total Fallout games( DLC content would have to be adjudicated) based on their tortuous interference with the contract partner Interplay.

We'll see. Based on the contract, it doesn't seem that there's much of a chance of that happening. I suspect that Beth will sue IP into giving up the MMO for a settlement of some sort. I think IP is gearing up for that too. Then they get to launch a new MMO with some cash in their pockets.

Interplay can prove tortuous interference on Bethesda's part while Bethesda cannot. Also Interplay's beef takes place 1 year earlier in time than the point of contention of Bethesda( April 4 2009).

Based on the court transcripts, Interplay's lawyer pointed to other clear infractions by Bethesda such as notifying Interplay that they unilaterally rescinded Interplay's rights to Fallout MMO instead of giving them a 30 day notice of a possible violation of their end.

They just point blank notified Interplay that they rescinded the license without having taken the required 30 days and the required meeting between the two companies.

When you violate the major tenants of the contract before the other company has a chance of violating it, there is precedence to tearing up that contract.

This is a contract law case and not a Trademark case.

Bethesda has barked up the wrong tree and they got stomped on not just by Interplay's lawyer but by the Judge who saw through their trickery.

Intent to defraud is at issue here.

Tortuous interference is at issue here.

Taking advantage of the small size of your contract partner to squeeze them out is at issue here.

This is not like a playground fight where the bully just gets to be able to pummel the weakling while the law turns a blind eye.

Bethesda started this fight and took Interplay to court on the wrong grounds. The burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defense.

Bethesda has prevented Interplay from publishing their own artwork due to draconian overbearing approach to defending their cherished Intellectual property on one end while they tarnish its legacy with an extremely buggy Oblivion clone on the other end.

Bethesda, rather than being Interplay's partner in the contract, has treated Interplay like an enemy to be punched around from the beginning using overbearing gestapo style lawyer maneuvers.

Bethesda has not only made Interplay their enemy but they are in fact their own worst enemy. They have brought most of this on themselves due to their unquenchable greed.

The Fallout 3 fan boys that are running around defending Bethesda have not seen what real good games are like from Bethesda since chances are they were in diapers back when Bethesda made ground breaking games( way too buggy still)

A soul less corporation is now in custody of Bethesda Softworks.

There is no need of reading them their last rights. Zenimax will do that on their own and the people behind Zenimax will move on to ruin the next thing on their hit list.

If only they can collapse their organization into a banking cartel and collect risk free money by borrowing and lending back to the Federal Reserve and leave gaming to people who care about making something original and fun instead of continuing to clone tired games to death with their archaic technology.