Bethesda Sues Interplay Over Fallout

Bethesda Softworks, the company that currently holds the rights to the Fallout franchise, has filed a law suit against former owner Interplay saying that it has failed to hold up its end of an agreement signed in April 2007 and likely saved Interplay from bankruptcy.

The reason for the legal action is a product called Fallout Trilogy, which Interplay sells and brings together with the original Fallout, the sequel and Fallout Tactics.

The suit, which was initiated on September 9 in a court in Maryland, says that Interplay should have submitted packaging, advertising and promotional material for all its releases to Bethesda, which has not happened. Bethesda is stating that the name of the Interplay product and the way it was presented to the public generated confusion amongst gamers and might have led to decreased sales of its own Fallout 3 and subsequent content for that game.

Bethesda is also claiming that the decision to sell digital distribution rights for Interplay-developed Fallout titles to services like Steam, GameTap and Good Old Games caused “immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm” to the studio and its latest product.

The company is also asking the court to nullify a section of the 2007 agreement, which allowed Interplay to create a MMO based on Fallout. That project, called Vault 13, was supposed to already be in development and should by now have financing of around 30 million dollars. If Bethesda prevails, then it could gain the rights to create that MMO, which could be a big draw for gamers and might bring in quite significant revenue.

In the law suit, Bethesda is asking for damages, for legal fees to be paid by Interplay, an injunction against the manufacture, the selling and the distribution of all back catalog Fallout titles until the end of the dispute and an end to the MMO-related part of the 2007 agreement.