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Bethesda tussle over Fallout MMO over, guess who won?
By Michael | January 9, 2012 at 7:25 pm
In an announcement that should come as a surprise to few, Bethesda Softworks announced today that a settlement has been reached in the lawsuit filed against Interplay Entertainment back in 2009 over the license granted to interplay to develop an MMO based on the Fallout brand. Bethesda maintained that Interplay had failed to meet conditions imposed in the agreement and therefore the license was void.
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.
Bethesda now retains all Fallout intellectual property right but will permit Interplay to continue selling Fallout Tactics, Fallout, and Fallout 2 PC games through December 2013 at which point the right to market those games will also revert back to Bethesda.
The question remains as to whether Bethesda will now pursue a MMO of their own. Its easy to imagine that this eventuality will come to pass as more and more studios venture into the realm where potential riches abound.
Topics: Bethesda, Fallout MMO