Fallout 3 developer accuses original publisher of
breach of contract, trademark infringement over stillborn MMORPG and
selling Fallout games on Steam, GOG.com, and GameTap.
Three years after licensing the Fallout intellectual property in 2004, Bethesda Softworks bought it outright for $5.75 million from Interplay, which created the franchise.
Under the terms of the deal, Bethesda licensed the rights to make a
Fallout massively multiplayer online role-playing game back to
Interplay, with the caveat the fallen publisher
had to start full-time development within two years. That deal imploded
in April, when Bethesda, dissatisfied with Interplay's efforts, revoked the Fallout MMORPG rights.
This week, the Bethesda-Interplay disagreement was elevated to a legal
level, when Bethesda filed suit in federal court in Maryland. The suit
accuses Interplay of 10 counts of breach of contract and trademark
infringement by not abiding by a trademark license agreement (TLA) it
had with Bethesda. The first was in relation to the Fallout MMORPG,
which stipulated that Interplay had to have raised at least $30 million
in funding for the project by the end of March 2009. As evidence such
fund-raising did not occur, Bethesda points to a June 30 filing with
the Securities and Exchange Commission which said Interplay had $2.54
million in debt and only $16,000 in cash assets.
Bethesda's complaint also claims that, 11 days after being informed the
Fallout MMORPG license had been revoked and it could not enter into a
deal with any third parties, Interplay formalized a deal with Bulgarian studio Masthead to develop the MMORPG Project V13.
The second part of the suit accuses Interplay of riding the coattails
of Fallout 3 by re-releasing and repackaging older Fallout games
without permission. Specifically, it says that the company was selling
a compilation of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics as boxed
products called "Fallout Trilogy" and "Saga Fallout." The packaging of
any such new boxed product needed to be approved by Bethesda, which
claims it never did so. Bethesda also feels the name "Fallout Trilogy"
was deliberately misleading consumers into thinking the compilation
contained Fallout 3.
Finally, Bethesda accuses Interplay of entering into deals with several
online game distributors without its consent, violating the licensing
agreement yet again. GameTap, Good Old Games (aka GOG.com), and Valve Software's Steam service
are all named as outlets which sold Fallout products without any
permission from Bethesda, in violation of the licensing agreement.
Bethesda is demanding the court formally declare Interplay no longer
has any rights to the Fallout name or trademark. It also wants the
court to place a preliminary and permanent injunction on Interplay to
stop it from selling any Fallout-branded products. It also wants
Interplay to submit in writing a declaration that it no longer has any
rights to the Fallout brand. No punitive damages are being sought.
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