The ongoing legal battle surrounding the rights to the Fallout MMO has begun to heat up with comments from both Bethesda Softworks and Interplay. Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of PR, explained to VG247 that Bethesda retained full rights to “everything Fallout” in response to comments made by Interplay’s Eric Caen in October of last year.
“We own the rights to the MMO,” Hines said flat out. “We own the rights to everything Fallout.”
“The license is ours. Fallout belongs to us. That’s what I’ll clarify. Beyond that, I’m not commenting on anybody else’s comments. It’s a legal matter. A specific MMO or project or any of that stuff, the lawyers are all going to sort it out.”
Caen later sent VG247 an email response, stating, “I can’t agree on this.”
“When we sold the IP, it was clear that the MMO could be developed by Interplay. Then we received a unilateral termination letter,” he wrote. “Since that, we are only asking either to continue the development, either to get this contract cancelled as the consideration would not have been received in full.”
At the same time, Caen was relating Interplay’s side of the story in an interview with Eurogamer. In that interview, he explained that Interplay could be driving the reins of a sixth Fallout title if Bethesda prevents the release of Fallout Online.
"We sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda in exchange for a certain amount of cash and the right to do the Fallout MMO. If they refuse to let us do the game, then the sale of the IP is terminated, and they will be allowed to do only one more Fallout, 5,” he explained.
"But in that case, the IP will come back to us, and of course, we will complete our work and release Fallout MMO,” Caen continued. "The original licensing deal was for three games and their DLC. So they already did Fallout 3, then Fallout: New Vegas, and they can only do one more Fallout,5, if the sale of the IP is cancelled by the court.”
It will be interesting to see where all the cards end up when this messy legal battle finishes.
