Inxile talks about Van Buren

Nas92 said:
Are you referring to the entire Fallout MMO thing with Interplay? I thought that was supposed to be a good thing.
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A GOOD thing? How can shaking down a company of its ownership of something JUST by spending so much money on lawsuits that they have to give up their claim or go BACK into bankrupcy fighting you be a GOOD thing? Whether Interplay would have done a good job or not isn't even relevant. They tried their best to not give up all of their ownership of the Fallout name in their sale of the rights to Bethesda, and all Bethesda needed was its foot in the door, then WELL BEFORE the deadlines stated in the agreements, they started suing Interplay JUST to kill them off financially and take the rest of the ownership for themselves.

I forgot to mention what they did to Wayside, which is even more insidious. Here we have an indie team making fan films of the series, no profit, no monetization whatsoever, and they crowdfunded their endeavors so they could make a second season, again not for profit, again not to monetize. And IMMEDIATELY Bethesda files a copyright on any past present or future films containing Fallout content... for what? Again, to just own it all, and fuck all the rest from having a chance at creative expression. It's no coincidence that during the recent Paid Mods "scandal" with Valve that Bethesda was at the helm. Of COURSE they'd want to monetize 60-80% of all fan-made content. Why wouldn't they? Because they're Bethesda...

No, it's never a good thing. If a company legitimately fulfills its obligations, that's a good thing. Abusing every possible opportunity to run everyone else into the dirt, regardless of who "anyone else" may include, is a terrible thing. You're SUPPOSED to push your competition out of existence by offering the best product at the best price such that they cannot compete, which is a cyclical process that never ends. NOT by pushing shady products while using your resources to destroy them by other means. What we get as a result of Bethesda's actions are lesser creations because they have no obligations- even to their own consumers and fans -to make anything worthwhile. They own it all. The world can burn for all they care.

I said it before, but despite what people feel about EA and Bioware, had Bioware acquired the licensing rights to Fallout during the Bidding Wars, things WOULD have been better. The one tiny exception might be that we'd never have gotten FONV, but we would've gotten a FO3 worth remembering, that's for sure. Also, Bioware doesn't look like it's anywhere close to being devoured by EA like the others (if you're not familiar with what I'm referring to, it's a thing EA cyclically does) so we'd see many FO titles for years to come. Yes, I would MUCH prefer that Obsidian won the Bidding Wars, but I'm not talking about ideal situations, I'm talking about how practically EVERYTHING was a better alternative...
 
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Didn't know about the stuff with Wayside, they seriously did that? But they even talked to Chris Avellone and everything, I thought that they made it with their blessings. Now that's some high tier douchyness.
 
They SAID it was with their blessings. Then they turned around and before the 2nd Season was even finished production they slapped that copyright on the market. So yes, high tier douchiness, indeed. =X
 
SnapSlav said:
A GOOD thing? How can shaking down a company of its ownership of something JUST by spending so much money on lawsuits that they have to give up their claim or go BACK into bankrupcy fighting you be a GOOD thing? Whether Interplay would have done a good job or not isn't even relevant. They tried their best to not give up all of their ownership of the Fallout name in their sale of the rights to Bethesda, and all Bethesda needed was its foot in the door, then WELL BEFORE the deadlines stated in the agreements, they started suing Interplay JUST to kill them off financially and take the rest of the ownership for themselves.

I forgot to mention what they did to Wayside, which is even more insidious. Here we have an indie team making fan films of the series, no profit, no monetization whatsoever, and they crowdfunded their endeavors so they could make a second season, again not for profit, again not to monetize. And IMMEDIATELY Bethesda files a copyright on any past present or future films containing Fallout content... for what? Again, to just own it all, and fuck all the rest from having a chance at creative expression. It's no coincidence that during the recent Paid Mods "scandal" with Valve that Bethesda was at the helm. Of COURSE they'd want to monetize 60-80% of all fan-made content. Why wouldn't they? Because they're Bethesda...

No, it's never a good thing. If a company legitimately fulfills its obligations, that's a good thing. Abusing every possible opportunity to run everyone else into the dirt, regardless of who "anyone else" may include, is a terrible thing. You're SUPPOSED to push your competition out of existence by offering the best product at the best price such that they cannot compete, which is a cyclical process that never ends. NOT by pushing shady products while using your resources to destroy them by other means. What we get as a result of Bethesda's actions are lesser creations because they have no obligations- even to their own consumers and fans -to make anything worthwhile. They own it all. The world can burn for all they care.

I said it before, but despite what people feel about EA and Bioware, had Bioware acquired the licensing rights to Fallout during the Bidding Wars, things WOULD have been better. The one tiny exception might be that we'd never have gotten FONV, but we would've gotten a FO3 worth remembering, that's for sure. Also, Bioware doesn't look like it's anywhere close to being devoured by EA like the others (if you're not familiar with what I'm referring to, it's a thing EA cyclically does) so we'd see many FO titles for years to come. Yes, I would MUCH prefer that Obsidian won the Bidding Wars, but I'm not talking about ideal situations, I'm talking about how practically EVERYTHING was a better alternative...
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I remember this sequence of events a bit differently than you do. In order to preserve their rights to make the MMORPG based upon Fallout, Interplay had to meet certain financing thresholds by a deadline. They didn't and so it was Interplay who did not fulfill the terms of the agreement. Bethesda just enforced their rights and held Interplay to their word.

Broadly speaking, it's tough for me to have sympathy for a company who wishes they still owned the rights to a game when they voluntarily sold it. The people in charge of Interplay at the time knew what they were doing, and the fact that they clung to the PROJECT V13 fool's gold for as long as they did is not to their credit.
 
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Geech said:
I remember this sequence of events a bit differently than you do. In order to preserve their rights to make the MMORPG based upon Fallout, Interplay had to meet certain financing thresholds by a deadline. They didn't and so it was Interplay who did not fulfill the terms of the agreement. Bethesda just enforced their rights and held Interplay to their word.

Broadly speaking, it's tough for me to have sympathy for a company who wishes they still owned the rights to a game when they voluntarily sold it. The people in charge of Interplay at the time knew what they were doing, and the fact that they clung to the PROJECT V13 fool's gold for as long as they did is not to their credit.
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I don't remember it differently, you didn't check up on what happened very thoroughly. The stipulations were there in the agreement when Interplay made the sale, yes, but Bethesda didn't sue them AFTER they failed to meet their end of the bargain. They started their lawsuits BEFORE the deadlines to start draining Interplay's funds, thus preventing them from EVER reaching their funding deadline, thus guaranteeing they could steal what was left of the right. It was all perfectly legal, in a certain sense, but that doesn't make it any less morally despicable. If you "remember" the events just as you detailed, then all you really knew was what Bethesda wanted to present. As it was, having the much more commanding fiscal power to do as they pleased, presenting the truth as they wanted it to be was very easy.

I'm not asking for sympathy for Interplay. They were the ones who shoveled out crap title after crap title to the point of going bankrupt in the first place, then closing their only promising studios like Black Isle and shutting down their best properties like Fallout whilst simultaneously gambling on the console market with failures like FOBOS. Their sale of the Fallout licensing rights was a desperate effort to keep them afloat because they started to sink due to their own incompetence. At no point have I ever made a case that we should feel terribly sorry for them. But what Bethesda DID to them was utterly despicable and totally reprehensible. You don't need to pity Interplay to feel revulsion for what shady shit Bethesda did.

To bring it back to the main topic, it's that track record that GUARANTEES there's no such thing as a future title with the name "Fallout" that Bethesda isn't intrinsically attached to. The way things are going, it looks like FONV was a blessed fluke from the heavens. It would be nice if Bethesda left the development of more Fallout titles to other studios (preferably Obsidian, MORE preferably without the bullshit requirements they placed on them) in the future, but I won't be holding my breath anytime soon for that to happen.
 
SnapSlav said:
Nas92 said:
Are you referring to the entire Fallout MMO thing with Interplay? I thought that was supposed to be a good thing.
Click to expand...
A GOOD thing? How can shaking down a company of its ownership of something JUST by spending so much money on lawsuits that they have to give up their claim or go BACK into bankrupcy fighting you be a GOOD thing? Whether Interplay would have done a good job or not isn't even relevant. They tried their best to not give up all of their ownership of the Fallout name in their sale of the rights to Bethesda, and all Bethesda needed was its foot in the door, then WELL BEFORE the deadlines stated in the agreements, they started suing Interplay JUST to kill them off financially and take the rest of the ownership for themselves.

I forgot to mention what they did to Wayside, which is even more insidious. Here we have an indie team making fan films of the series, no profit, no monetization whatsoever, and they crowdfunded their endeavors so they could make a second season, again not for profit, again not to monetize. And IMMEDIATELY Bethesda files a copyright on any past present or future films containing Fallout content... for what? Again, to just own it all, and fuck all the rest from having a chance at creative expression. It's no coincidence that during the recent Paid Mods "scandal" with Valve that Bethesda was at the helm. Of COURSE they'd want to monetize 60-80% of all fan-made content. Why wouldn't they? Because they're Bethesda...

No, it's never a good thing. If a company legitimately fulfills its obligations, that's a good thing. Abusing every possible opportunity to run everyone else into the dirt, regardless of who "anyone else" may include, is a terrible thing. You're SUPPOSED to push your competition out of existence by offering the best product at the best price such that they cannot compete, which is a cyclical process that never ends. NOT by pushing shady products while using your resources to destroy them by other means. What we get as a result of Bethesda's actions are lesser creations because they have no obligations- even to their own consumers and fans -to make anything worthwhile. They own it all. The world can burn for all they care.

I said it before, but despite what people feel about EA and Bioware, had Bioware acquired the licensing rights to Fallout during the Bidding Wars, things WOULD have been better. The one tiny exception might be that we'd never have gotten FONV, but we would've gotten a FO3 worth remembering, that's for sure. Also, Bioware doesn't look like it's anywhere close to being devoured by EA like the others (if you're not familiar with what I'm referring to, it's a thing EA cyclically does) so we'd see many FO titles for years to come. Yes, I would MUCH prefer that Obsidian won the Bidding Wars, but I'm not talking about ideal situations, I'm talking about how practically EVERYTHING was a better alternative...
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they gave interplay a chance to make a game, interplay dicked around and didn't make any progress since that company went into the shits years earlier so they pulled the plug, if you can't understand whats wrong with that you live in a fantasy works and don't understand basic business lol


interplay was a good company a long time ago, then they became a shit company and had to start selling assets to stay above water, and for how much people bitch about bethesda or whoever else in mainstream gaming, at least they never released this

MEz2jT3.jpg



interplay deserved everything that happened to them, horrible company made horrible decisions and suffered because of it. even if i don't like the majority of their games bioware and bethesda both started out as fairly small companies, both were smaller then interplay in the 90's but both are still kicking since they weren't pumping out shit hoping 1 will finally sell more then 20k copies
 
SnapSlav said:
I forgot to mention what they did to Wayside, which is even more insidious. Here we have an indie team making fan films of the series, no profit, no monetization whatsoever, and they crowdfunded their endeavors so they could make a second season, again not for profit, again not to monetize. And IMMEDIATELY Bethesda files a copyright on any past present or future films containing Fallout content... for what? Again, to just own it all, and fuck all the rest from having a chance at creative expression. It's no coincidence that during the recent Paid Mods "scandal" with Valve that Bethesda was at the helm. Of COURSE they'd want to monetize 60-80% of all fan-made content. Why wouldn't they? Because they're Bethesda...
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I care little for Interplay, since as others said, they voluntarily sold the franchise to the highest bidder. Interplay was about money as much as Bethsoft in that situation.

However, this thing about Wayside interests me. Does this mean that Wayside - or anyone else for that matter - can't make Fallout fan films now? From what I remember they made fan films after that thing happened, they even advertised them on the Bethesda forums and nobody stopped them. Yes, I do remember the time Bethesda filed that copyright, that's when people started speculating that maybe Zenimax will have a Fallout movie made.
I would like to know more about this, especially since I remember that Bethesda actually advertised Nuka Break on their blog. Now, obviously, Bethblog is run by the developers, not the publishing arm, so this shows us nothing. Yet it is interesting, if what you theorise is true - that they filed that copyright just so they could basically make it harder for fan films to be created - then there is a huge difference of philosophy between the publishing arm and the actual devs.

had Bioware acquired the licensing rights to Fallout during the Bidding Wars, things WOULD have been better.
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No, that's just plain wrong. Bioware would be the exact same - make a game that is completely different from the originals and slap terrible writing on it. Instead of "Steel be with you" we would have gotten "Life is a catch, I suggest you catch it while you can" in a terrible fake British accent.
 
Bethesda might be bad, but I prefere them havign Fallout than EA.... Just imagine it..... Oh god.... No....
 
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