Interplay Financials

[Brother None]

Yes, the moment we've all been waiting for, Interplay has filed another yearly report. A few snips:<blockquote>As of December 31, 2007, we had 4 employees, including 1 in software engineering, and 3 in finance, general and administrative.
(...)
As of December 31, 2007, our cash balance was approximately $1.1 million and our working capital deficit totaled approximately $2.3 million. We have some significant creditors that comprise a substantial proportion of outstanding obligations that we might not be able to satisfy. There is a balance owing to Atari Interactive, Inc. ("Atari") of approximately $1 million, and we may be unable to satisfy this debt which became due on March 31, 2008. We are in dispute with Atari and believe we may have various claims that may offset some or all of this balance.
(...)
For the year ended December 31, 2007, our net income was $5.9 million, $5.75 million of our revenue was recognized from the sale of an asset, and $1.425 million was recognized from settlements with creditors, reversal of reserves, and prior year payables. However, since inception, we have incurred significant losses and negative cash flow. As of December 31, 2007 we had an accumulated deficit of $2.3 million.
(...)
We are planning to exploit our license back of "Fallout" MMOG and are reviewing the avenues for securing financing of at least $30 million to fund its production but no assurance can be made that we will be able to do so, and our license back may as a result be terminated.
(...)
The Company's headquarters are located in Beverly Hills, California, where we lease approximately 3,100 square feet of office space. The facility is leased through April 2008. We are currently subleasing approximately 1,100 square feet of our facility to an independent third party. We also have a representation office in France.
(...)
The litigation with Bioware Corp. was finally settled in March 2008, when $200,000 held in escrow subsequent to our bankruptcy proceedings dismissal order was paid to Bioware Corp.
(...)
Product development expenses for the year ended December 31, 2007 were $18,000, a 100% increase as compared to the same period in 2006. This increase was mainly due to the hiring of a software developer in the fourth quarter of 2007.
(...)
We currently have five new products in early stages of development. We have reinitiated our in-house game development studio, and have hired game developers for this purpose.</blockquote>No additional details on the FPD sale.

So, to summarize: they hired Jason D. Anderson (that we knew), they settled with BioWare but still have a debt to Atari. They're still working with a deficit but now have an office to work from. Five new products "in early stages of development" should probably be interpreted in the broadest sense possible.

In other words, nothing much happened before the end of 2007. The debt to Atari is believed to be due March 31, so I guess we'll have to wait 3-6 more months to see what happened there.

Link: 10-Q filing on SEC.

 

[sai | GLYPH]

Can interplay really pull this off? It seems alot is hinged on whether they can get an investor onboard with fallout online. Do they have any other potential source of income or are they just going to sublease everything but a cubicle for JDA?

 

[Brother None]

All I know 's that this filing doesn't really tell us anything new, other than that they moved into an office (huzzah!)

So not much of note. We're going to have to wait for more news to get any idea of where they're at.

Wonder if they settled with Atari.

 

[Stag]

What do they owe Atari for?

 

[Brother None]

Probably something back from the licensing fees of Dungeons & Dragons, or some publishing deal gone awry. To be honest, there's been so much of this I barely remember. Briosafreak prolly will.

 

[McRae]

So not much of note. We're going to have to wait for more news to get any idea of where they're at.

Yeah, let's wait and relax shooting Caen's frackin' face =>

 

[Per]

Did they unpack their Cardboard Boxes of Holding with Fallout goodies?

 

[Vault Boy]

So, it seems to me that the rights of fallout have been in the hands of so many people before. when Black Isle never delivered on Van Buren they sold the rights of fallout to bethesda. Right? but Interplay kept the MMO rights... wouldn't Black Isle have kept the rights.
Anyways, fallout has been let down many times before; fallout BoS, Van Buren, and many of you seem to be complaining about Fallout 3 (for some reason), that we probably may never see a fallout MMO. Especially in Interplays crippled state.

 

[tfp]

when Black Isle never delivered on Van Buren

That's one way of putting it. Another would be to say that Black Isle Studios (or BIS in short) were forced to shelve it by their owners (Interplay).

Just correct me if I have any errors here, I am a visitor here, not a resident.

Anyhow, this is actually getting interesting.

What if they actually DO pull it off?
I hear of a certain pull to a Fallout MMO-game from my MMO crazy friends.

 

[Brother None]

Anyways, fallout has been let down many times before; fallout BoS, Van Buren, and many of you seem to be complaining about Fallout 3 (for some reason), that we probably may never see a fallout MMO. Especially in Interplays crippled state.

What're you, a fatalist?

Yeah, the odds are against Interplay. Not really going to write them off yet, though.

As for, where are licenses and assets: Linky

 

[Ravager69]

I think it is worthwile to watch Interplay's moves, FOOL may prove to be an interesting game yet and perhaps more true to Fallout frenchise than Fallout 3.

 

[Brother None]

If it's made, there's no doubt it'll be truer to Fallout as a setting than Fallout 3.

We've always resisted the concept of FOOL, as NMA, and I still think it kind of defeats Fallout's feel as a single-player game, the feeling of loneliness, harshness and isolation...

I think that still stands, and if Rosh were here he'd beat us all up for taking this game seriously.

But still. It's Jason D. Anderson, and Fallout 3 is more or less lost. If this project solidifies, don't be surprised if we turn out more interested in it than in Fallout 3.

 

[Kukident]

If it's made, there's no doubt it'll be truer to Fallout as a setting than Fallout 3.

We've always resisted the concept of FOOL, as NMA, and I still think it kind of defeats Fallout's feel as a single-player game, the feeling of loneliness, harshness and isolation...

I wouldn't say it being an MMO has to contradict with retaining the original Fo feeling and atmosphere.

If you only wander around in small groups of 2,3 or 4 people (as you could in Fo1 and 2 with the NPCs of course) and hardly ever meet anyone and wander long ways in the post-apocalyptic desert, it still would have the whole feeling of harshness and loneliness.

It's just how they put it. If they just copy the standard MMOs, namely having masses of people and creeps in a relatively small world, it just won't work in this case. If they make long ways between the meeting and living places of people, towns and so on, it could become just how it should be.

What i expect or want the Fallout MMO to be, is a huge game (in terms of content) with a giant open post-apoc world, offering a lot of freedom and meeting places where you can find and group with other players and wander around with.
A very great and innovative feature for this game would for example be a (partly) dynamic world, that changes depending on actions and decisions of players (like when leaders of towns get changed, certain NPCs people get killed, towns get invaded by other towns or groups (with the help or instigated by players of course), destroying the sources of mutants and their kind and such stuff.

I wonder how they want to do the Fallout MMO anyways, for example the choice and consequence element will be hard to put into a game with loads of players. Well, they could solve this with using instances, however although that would definitely destroy the "authenticity" of the game, as you could see someone you formerly killed afterwards, if you walk with someone who hasnt killed him, into the respective instance. Tha's just an example. Of course this could be solved somehow too. But from my point of view there would be a lot of problems coming up.

If they really want to convert Fallout as close as possible to its originals into an MMO, together with all the important features and ideas it had, the outcome will be very innovative and original. Therefore it could become a really great success. But for such a project you would need very good people with a lot of knowledge, no fear of doing new and complicated things, extremly good skills in problems-solving and great creativity to work around all the issues that will come up. However, I don't think they got or will get such people, I mean, they don't even have money to pay someone (or at least not much) so who would work for them, with the present risk of not getting paid some times.

In my opinion everything is up in the air at the moment. They got a solid fundament. They build something really great on it or finally and totally screw the franchise and canon .

Well, we will see.



edit: rewrote a lot

 

[Sander]

I wouldn't say it being an MMO has to contradict with the original Fo feeling and atmosphere.

If you only wander around in small groups of 2,3 or 4 people (as you could in Fo1 and 2 with the NPCs of course) and hardly ever meet anyone, it still has the whole feeling of harshness and loneliness.

That would defeat the entire point of making it an MMO in the first place, and it's not how MMO's work. You can make isolated towns and long distances between places all you want, people always flock to cities.

It's just the way they put it. If they just copy the standard MMO shematics, namely masses of people and creeps in a relatively small world, it won't work. If they put long ways between the meeting nad living places of people, namely towns and so on, it's just how it should be.

Actually, no. That'd make for a very boring game what with the huge amounts of boring walking between towns.

 

[Kukident]

That would defeat the entire point of making it an MMO in the first place, and it's not how MMO's work. You can make isolated towns and long distances between places all you want, people always flock to cities.

Why would it defeat the point of making it an MMO?

You have to be more specific, I don't really know which part of my statement you mean, that would defeat the point of making it an MMO.

Of course in towns you would meet a lot of people. If the towns will be big enough it's totally okay if they are crowded. (of course there is still a limit until which it's unbearable)

Actually, no. That'd make for a very boring game what with the huge amounts of boring walking between towns.

I should have been more specific about that. I didn't mean you would have to walk long ways without anything happening, I would just make it like they did it in Fallout 1 &2 with the world map and from time to time you would encounter random enemies, NPCs and such stuff. In this case just like in the original, you would load this encounter and be put into the "real" game in 3d or 2d view where you could then decide what you want to do.

My point just was that they have to keep the towns not too big and crowded and make the distances between them big (on the map, of course you shouldnt walk all the way ingame, that would be the death) so you would encounter more things and so that it's more authentic and post apocalyptic.

A solution to keep the game world not too crowded would be multiple servers each having a limitations in numbers of people who can join them (World of Warcraft) or if the towns get too crowded, automatically making another instance of it (parallel universe so to say) where anyone additional who wants to join the city gets warped into. (imo, this however kills a part of the authenticity, which is very important to me in any game especially in this) Or just making the whole game so big it just won't happen (production costs of the game then however would be high, although this could be overcome by making some sort of map maker in which some people could efficiently produce the game world without lack of quality)


Making the game world HUGE would be the best solution to me, but its developement would then however cost a lot. Of course with tools and addons (with time) this could be easily overcome, if you have the people to build such tools. And my biggest fear is that the bigger the game world is, the worse the quality of its components will be (more quantity less quality). So they will probably go for a 'cheaper' solution.

 

[Sander]

Why would it defeat the point of making it an MMO?

Because the entire basis of MMO's is playing together, not playing alone, which is more the basis of Fallout.

I should have been more specific about that. I didn't mean you would have to walk long ways without anything happening, I would just make it like they did it in Fallout 1 &2 with the world map and from time to time you would encounter random enemies, NPCs and such stuff. In this case just like in the original, you would load this encounter and be put into the "real" game in 3d or 2d view where you could then decide what you want to do.

And this doesn't work either, unless you eliminate all meaning of time.
See, having a seperate travelling map with 'random encounters' essentially means that the time you spend travelling is meaningless. Otherwise you get significant time conflicts between players.

For instance, say there's an travelling 'cost' of 5 hours between two places. While using the map it will cost 5 minutes on average.
Player A starts the journey at midnight. At the same time, Player B is waiting in the destination town. Now, since the travelling 'cost' would be 5 hours for Player A, when he arrives it will be 5 hours later than it was when he left. However, for player B only 5 hours have past. So it should be 0:05 for Player B, while it should be 5:00 for Player A.

 

[Kukident]

Why would it defeat the point of making it an MMO?

Because the entire basis of MMO's is playing together, not playing alone, which is more the basis of Fallout.

Did you ever play any MMORPG?

Did you ever play World of Warcraft? Because, in the first dozens of hours you play the game, you will basically be playing it alone. You do the quests alone, run around alone, kill creeps ALONE. Some few players join parties, but it's not efficient doing quests and stuff then anymore, so the most people, especially the experienced ones don't. Of course if you reached the max. level and if you are in a guild you will do a lot of things together and do raids in big groups, but still, a lot of things are just done alone. Of course you see other people on the way and may talk a little from time to time, as you would in my concept, too. In the Fallout MMO there could for example be fights between players if they encounter each other on the world map (or they could just pass, too, leaving this option to the players unless one decides to fight), or you could make some parts of the world so dangerous you can only walk there in groups to survive. And the cities would just be as in any MMORPG.

Did you ever play Guild Wars?

In Guild wars the world is divided into instances, and basically you can play and level to the maximum totally alone. In fact can play the whole game alone. In this case you would only meet other players in the town instances. Of course most players play this game for the PvP part which is played when you reached the maximum level, but still.. the PvE part is like that.

and also as i said people would group and wander around together. (a good way to make this very common would be to give groups wandering around bonus experience in fights (party bonus, it's just logic because you learn from each other in the fights) and extra encounters and more security, etc.)

And this doesn't work either, unless you eliminate all meaning of time.
See, having a seperate travelling map with 'random encounters' essentially means that the time you spend travelling is meaningless. Otherwise you get significant time conflicts between players.

For instance, say there's an travelling 'cost' of 5 hours between two places. While using the map it will cost 5 minutes on average.
Player A starts the journey at midnight. At the same time, Player B is waiting in the destination town. Now, since the travelling 'cost' would be 5 hours for Player A, when he arrives it will be 5 hours later than it was when he left. However, for player B only 5 hours have past. So it should be 0:05 for Player B, while it should be 5:00 for Player A.

You shouldn't say "Doesn't work" in the first place. If you always think like that instead of solving problems and figuring out possible workarounds, you should better not try to develop a game or program something at anytime. Also I take it as a slight insult, because it's a very destructive attitude towards what i came up with.

One way to solve this is to really delete time in the game.

A lot of MMORPGs don't have ingame time. For example WoW, Guild Wars, Hellgate:London, I guess Linage II hasn't got it, too.

Can't think of a single one which has it.

Of course this definitely doesnt mean this game shouldn' have time, I just wanna say that it's not very common in this genre and so it wouldn't be missed.

However, time was somehow important in the original games, it was always tracked and made the game a little more "real". So it would be a nice feature to have.

But if you don't make world map travelling possible, it just won't be Fallout anymore as a result. Just think about how little the world would actually have to be. OR you would have to wander around long distances, which as you already said would suck.
So the consequence would be a small crowded world like WoW, and dozens of respawning Rad. Scorps everywhere you look.

That would suck.

 

[Sander]

Did you ever play any MMORPG?

Did you ever play World of Warcraft? Because, in the first dozens of hours you play the game, you will basically be playing it alone. You do the quests alone, run around alone, kill creeps ALONE. Some few players join parties, but it's not efficient doing quests and stuff then anymore, so the most people, especially the experienced ones don't. Of course if you reached the max. level and if you are in a guild you will do a lot of things together and do raids in big groups, but still, a lot of things are just done alone. Of course you see other people on the way and may talk a little from time to time, as you would in my concept, too. In the Fallout MMO there could for example be fights between players if they encounter each other on the world map (or they could just pass, too, leaving this option to the players unless one decides to fight), or you could make some parts of the world so dangerous you can only walk there in groups to survive. And the cities would just be as in any MMORPG.

Did you ever play Guild Wars?

In Guild wars the world is divided into instances, and basically you can play and level to the maximum totally alone. In fact can play the whole game alone. In this case you would only meet other players in the town instances. Of course most players play this game for the PvP part which is played when you reached the maximum level, but still.. the PvE part is like that.

and also as i said people would group and wander around together. (a good way to make this very common would be to give groups wandering around bonus experience in fights (party bonus, it's just logic because you learn from each other in the fights) and extra encounters and more security, etc.)

You are missing the point.
Ask yourself this: what's the point to playing an MMO if you're going to be playing it as if you're playing a singleplayer game?
The meat and bones of any MMO lie in playing together with other people. Yes, there are solo instances, yes the first few levels (which take you a whole of what, 3 hours?) are generally done solo. But the stuff that gets people to play MMOs is the interaction with other players.

Otherwise they might as well go back to playing Diablo.

You shouldn't say "Doesn't work" in the first place. If you always think like that instead of solving problems and figuring out possible workarounds, you should better not try to develop a game or program something at anytime. Also I take it as a slight insult, because it's a very destructive attitude towards what i came up with.

So your reply is 'I don't like it when people are negative'?
Please grow up.

One way to solve this is to really delete time in the game.

That's not solving anything, that's removing something that is very essential to any game. Moreover, time is very essential to Fallout as it is a means to convey isolation.

A lot of MMORPGs don't have ingame time. For example WoW, Guild Wars, Hellgate:London, I guess Linage II hasn't got it, too.

WoW most definitely has in-game time and day/night cycles. Don't know about the other ones. Also, your use of 'time' is confusing.

However, you are again missing the point. These games don't have a prominent system of time because their worlds are relatively small, but moreover they are magical and can use neat little tricks like instant teleportation and flying griffins. Fallout can't do that. The point of desolation would be entirely lost when you could almost instantly (or very quickly) travel from one place to the next with also no in-game consequences, which is exactly what happens in all those other games.

But if you don't make world map travelling possible, it just won't be Fallout anymore as a result. Just think about how little the world would actually have to be. OR you would have to wander around long distances, which as you already said would suck.
So the consequence would be a small crowded world like WoW, and dozens of respawning Rad. Scorps everywhere you look.

That would suck.

Yes, of course the game would suck. Which was my point: a Fallout MMO with a real Fallout feel isn't doable as a good game.

 

[Kukident]

You shouldn't say "Doesn't work" in the first place. If you always think like that instead of solving problems and figuring out possible workarounds, you should better not try to develop a game or program something at anytime. Also I take it as a slight insult, because it's a very destructive attitude towards what i came up with.

So your reply is 'I don't like it when people are negative'?
Please grow up.

[/quote]
No i didn't. What I said was that I don't like especially destructive and stupid replies to something in a discussion. If someone argues for the sake of being argumentative and obviously not to build up a good, interesting and constructive discussion I see no reason to talk to that guy at all. It's better not say something in the first place then.

And your 'Please grow up' line was just ridiculous. I don't know and also don't care how old you are, but this kind of a statement could as well be done by a 14 year old. The level would at least fit to this age.

And having said this, I leave this disussion, having no interest in discussing in NMA forums anymore.

I don't even wonder why NMA is hated by many anymore. It's not because you are hardcore Fallout fans, it's your way of arguing, and just being argumentative all the time.

 

[Brother None]

You're leaving because someone said your idea doesn't work?

Oh...uh...okay.

I wish I could help you, but that's not really a legitimate complaints about either Sander or NMA.