Development on Fallout MMOG Continues For Now
Bethesda filed an appeal against a preliminary injunction relating to Interplay and Fallout Online, saying the district court abused its discretion and misapplied the law. But the appeal was denied.
Here's a bit of good news for Fallout fans looking forward to Interplay's MMOG: development still has the green light.
As reported earlier, Fallout property owner Bethesda was recently denied a preliminary injunction against Interplay which would have blocked the latter company from using the Fallout storyline, characters and other identifiable elements. The argument was that Bethesda never agreed to the use of actual Fallout assets, just the Fallout title itself.
But Interplay retaliated by basically saying "no, I don't think so," and told the courts that Bethesda knew about Interplay's use of the property rights since the beginning. Even more, Bethesda coincidentally tried to block development of Fallout Online just as the game was about to go into testing.
However long story short (because it's a long one), Bethesda submitted an appeal against that decision, but was denied once again by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Court documents obtained by Joystiq reveal that Bethesda tried to show that "the district court abused its discretion and misapplied the law in concluding that Bethesda failed to establish a likelihood of irreparable harm." Bethesda also claimed that Interplay's suspect financial stability was a potential source of said irreparable harm, but the court didn't buy it.
As Joystiq points out, the legal battle isn't over even though Interplay can continue development for the short term. The drawback in continuing on is that the game still requires "express permission" from Bethesda before it can be launched on the market. That said, the game may never appear unless the court is forced to change Bethesda's mind, or both parties reach some kind of middle ground... which at this point seems highly unlikely.
To read the court documents, head here.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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dillonpeterliam To let it go this far is a bit ridiculous, I think Bethesda should try to support Interplay now so the Fallout name is not damaged.Reply -
stereopsis New idea - how about working together for a change, instead of resorting to litigation all the time.Reply -
cats_Paw I dont get this. Didnt Interplay Launched the First fallouts?Reply
Why then would they be denied anything? Bethesda should be the one in trouble if they wanted to make a new fallout game withouth premision, not the other way around. It doesent matter that the fallout 3 reached more people than lests say, fallout 1 and 2.
And in fact, if you see the fallout 1 and 2 storyline and elements, they are sort of better than the ones in fallout 3. -
rantoc Interplay sold the rights of Fallout to Bethesda with the exception of the MMO, my guess is that they needed the funds to make it happen. I don't have all details of the contract but by the sound of things it seems to be rather vague specified whats included and not. Or Bethesda could just want to "cock-block" interplay by trying to delay their release date to the point where they cant afford the legal battles anymore - If thats the case it will be the last Bethesda title i purchase... much like Apple products for the same reason but thats another story!Reply
I want to see what interplay's mmo contains, they used to work more toward good content. Not like some publishers with cool gfx and edited videos labeled "Actual gameplay" to make the game look awesome and when you finally get the title its content is 5 mins worth of gameplay. -
Actually its very clear that Bethesda let Interplay use the license if the MMO either started dev or was released within 2 years. That never happened and now Bethesda wants to revoke that license. Seems fair in terms of the original contract.Reply
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I won't mind as long as they keep making the the single player version. It's all fine if you like those sort of games, but I'm still pissed off about the KOTOR online displacing any development of a single player one.Reply
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Murissokah cats_pawI dont get this. Didnt Interplay Launched the First fallouts?Why then would they be denied anything? Bethesda should be the one in trouble if they wanted to make a new fallout game withouth premision, not the other way around. It doesent matter that the fallout 3 reached more people than lests say, fallout 1 and 2. And in fact, if you see the fallout 1 and 2 storyline and elements, they are sort of better than the ones in fallout 3.Reply
Unless Interplay sold the right to Bethesda, which it did. Can't have the cake and eat it too. -
wildkitten GoFalloutActually its very clear that Bethesda let Interplay use the license if the MMO either started dev or was released within 2 years. That never happened and now Bethesda wants to revoke that license. Seems fair in terms of the original contract.Actually they did start development within the contracted time frame. bethesday simply has tried violating the contract in any way they can and are trying to force Interplay out of development by soaking their money away in legal fees. Not sure if I want to ever buy a Bethesda title again.Reply -
wildkitten MurissokahUnless Interplay sold the right to Bethesda, which it did. Can't have the cake and eat it too.They sold the rights to single player Fallout but retained the rights to make an MMO, unless they didn't start development by a certain time. Bethesda has tried everything to keep that development from happening.Reply