Bethesda wins rights to produce FOOL, Interplay gets $2M

[Alex Mars]

The long running lawsuit between Bethesda and Interplay has been settled, with Bethesda gaining the rights to produce Fallout Online (aka FOOL) after paying Interplay $2M. Bethesda has bought all Fallout rights from Interplay except the MMO rights a few years ago and then did everything they could to obstruct Interplays FOOL project once they realized how much money that project might generate. It seems to me that Bethesda decided to settle because there was a small chance that the judge might void the original agreement to sell the Fallout IP to them due to evidence that Bethesda entered into the agreement in bad faith.

The real question is whether anyone cares about a Fallout MMO. With Fallen Earth already covering that niche with a nice post-apocalyptic action based MMO will anyone buy FOOL?

You can read about this in detail over at No Mutants Allowed, a snake pit of in-bred mouth breathers who hate the world because no one wants to make a new turn based isometric view version of Fallout.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/

[Marou]

I think that analysis is pretty far off.

Back when Bethesda bought the rights to Fallout they bought the full rights but Interplay maintained the rights to produce an MMO for 3 years (this was 2006) and sell copies of the original games until 2013. Fast forward to 2009 and Interplay finally anounces a Fallout MMO and it's in the concept stage. Bethesda doesn't want it's franchise tarnished by a shitty release from Interplay so they sue to prevent it from happening. Interplay has no chances of winning so they settle out of court. No shitty fallout MMO, no Fallout MMO at all probably, end of story.

[Alex Mars]

I don't think Bethesda would have agreed to pay them off if Interplay had no chance. You should look back at some of the documents from the trial, Bethesda's tactics were highly questionable. Among other things they claimed that they had only agreed to let Interplay use the name Fallout, but none of the other themes, images, or concepts associated with the IP. The judge reportedly was skeptical of a lot of their claims.

[Valec]

I'm going to say it now. FOOL is a horrible acronym for a game. That is all.

[Alex Mars]

The acronym FOOL was assigned to the game by the haters at NMA years ago and it sort of stuck.