Confirmation has come of what we reported last week; that Interplay and Bethesda have settled their dispute over the license for the proposed Fallout MMO.
Whilst the outcome was unclear last week, today the details of the settlement have been made public in a statement by ZeniMax, Bethesda's parent company.
In what will be considered a resounding victory for the publisher, Bethesda has retained exclusive rights to the Fallout franchise, and Interplay's license has been declared "null and void."
Under the agreement, Bethesda paid Interplay $2 million as a consideration of the settlement; a small fraction of the $30 million Interplay secured in financing for the proposed MMO.
The lawsuit came about because Bethesda insisted that any game Interplay made could carry the Fallout name, but couldn't use characters and settings taken from the games. They later decided that the content featured in the Fallout MMO was in contradiction of their license agreement, Interplay thought this unreasonable and carried on making the game and so Bethesda filed to have the license declared void.
This is the second lawsuit that Bethesda has won regarding this ill-fated project. The first involved them filing against developer Masthead Studios, citing copyright infringement. Masthead had been developing the game for Interplay, but after the successful lawsuit against them, they had to acknowledge that they had "no legal right to use any Fallout intellectual property, and agrees it will not use any such intellectual property of Bethesda in the future."
Interplay still has the rights for the games they originally developed (Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics), but even ownership of these titles will pass over to Bethesda in 2014.
Robert Altman, CEO of ZeniMax said: "While we strongly believe in the merits of our suits, we are pleased to avoid the distraction and expense of litigation while completely resolving all claims to the Fallout IP. Fallout is an important property of ZeniMax and we are now able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others' legal claims."
It would seem that this is the end of the road for Interplay's game, which is a pity, because it looked like an interesting project. Hopefully the company can bounce back from what will likely be a heavy blow, especially considering their level of investment in the now never-to-be-seen Fallout MMO.