This morning as I was trying to find a way to check my brain out of a lecture that I'd rather now sit through, I started browsing IGN looking for recent news on the Fallout Franchise. For those of you who don't know, Bethesda who currently owns most of the rights to Fallout has been in a fight recently with Interplay over a Fallout MMO that Interplay was trying to develop back in 2009. Interplay was the original developer of Fallout 1 and 2 back in the 1990s (along with the ill-fated Fallout Tactics) and for some reason or another, with Fallout 3's recent success causing the rebirth of the franchise, Interplay decided that it wanted a piece of the pie.
Well Bethesda got its panties in a wad about this and sued Interplay for the exclusive rights to Fallout saying that if Interplay did develop and market the game that it would cause irreparable harm to Bethesda's bottom line. I have been hearing snippets about this argument for the last couple of years. Frankly, since I am not a PC gamer (I feel like adding that to my normal gaming routine would really confirm how super nerdy my life really is.) I was not too excited about the proposed Fallout MMO, but I have to say that it does kind of pain me that it may not happen now. This is about as much information as I can get about the settlement between the two companies: http://pc.ign.com/articles/121/1216148p1.html
As per the settlement, Interplay will be allowed to sell the original Fallout games until next year, but after that? Who knows. Will Bethesda start to sell them even though it did not develop them? Also, will Bethesda pick up where Interplay left off with the Fallout MMO and finish developing it? I highly doubt that last one considering that Bethesda makes most of its money off of console game sales. But it would still be a lucrative venture. As long as it was GOOD they could make a killing on it, especially after the success of Fallout 3 and then Obsidian's success with FNV, as buggy as it was.
What do you think? What are your projections and what's your interpretation of the consequences of this settlement? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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