The end of a dream?

Briosafreak

Briosafreak

Lived Through the Heat Death
A "bomb" has just been released over our heads, read this news bit taken from Forbes.com:
<blockquote> LOS ANGELES, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Vivendi Universal's (nyse: V - news - people) video game arm has sued one-time partner Interplay Entertainment Corp. <IPLY.OB>, alleging Interplay breached a distribution deal between the two.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accused Interplay, which is controlled by French publisher Titus Interactive <TITP.LN>, of trying to get out of a product distribution deal by making claims of unpaid payments under the pact.
An Interplay spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
According to the suit, on Aug. 6 and 7, Interplay sent letters to VU Games claiming VUG was in breach of a distribution agreement between the two from August 2002. Those letters, VUG said, claimed it had withheld payments from Interplay and improperly deducted from a reserve fund.
VUG said it sent letters denying those claims, but on Sept. 16, it said, Interplay sent a letter terminating the agreement.
The suit asks for a determination of each side's obligations under the distribution deal, damages, interest and an injunction preventing Interplay from gaining another distribution deal with a different company.
</blockquote>
This suit may be the last coffin to the shaky Interplay finances, and may stop Interplay games of beeing distributed, like Fallout3.
They may win the case though, and find another distributing partner, so we`ll have to wait and see.
 
lol no, make JE and gang go over to Troika with Fo3, then Tim Cain will show JE how to MAKE Fo3.

:lol:
 
All In The Family

One big happy corporate family.

Can someone explain the relationship of Interplay to Titus and Titus to Vivendi Universal. How much is defacto ownership and how much is contractual, or "partnership".

Reserve fund? Some party exploiting it's budgetary controls and looting one ledger to boost another? An Enron sort of shell game where flow of funds was obscuring the lack of funds, OR the misappropriation of funds?

ViVendi just closed a deal on some chunk of it's structure, and how does their stock profile look if seen to be negligent on contractual
agreements with Titus/Interplay?


4too
 
Titus holds a majority of Interplay's shares. While Titus doesn't have complete ownership of the company, they hold sufficient voting power to control it...

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=IPLY.OB

I believe that Vivendi Universal at one point held a relatively small percentage of Interplay's stock (≤5%), although I'm not sure whether that's still the case. Regardless, the relationship between Vivendi and Interplay is primarily that of a distributer to a publisher/developer. Vivendi has been distributing games that Interplay has published and/or developed over the last couple of years.

Reserve accounting practices in the game industry have raised eyebrows at the SEC recently. I posted a brief description of the practice on the Interplay boards...

http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.php?t=26659

I'm not absolutely sure that the article was refering to the same practice, though. The article is so brief that it's difficult to tell.

Vivendi Universal is a big, big company. This is a big deal to Interplay, but it's small potatoes to Vivendi as a whole.
 
I would hesistate before thinking this might be a nail in the coffin if Interplay. It could be that Interplay is just being pushed to fulfill its end of the contract. Often companies initiate law suits to force compliance with contracts. It's not exactly war as the two would sustain a decent relationship despite the lawsuit.

Without more details, I think we need not panic. Yet.
 
AAAaaahhh (Kharn slaps Odin)..there...better..

Sure, they could win the lawsuit and thus gaining more money. Which would be a good thing, yet again. I don't like lawsuits..
 
Capelworth's links to scrutiny of reserve funds implies fudging the books to at least "look" like the overhead of a product is lower, or "more" profitable.

Implied dirty laundry to force a settlement?

Do the dollars involved justify going to court, or brinksmanship?

Vivendi is big and also reputed to be over extended. When they sell off another chuck, legal liabilities will not sweeten the pot.

Find it hard that two parties can sign a contract and repute to see such differences in interpretation down the road.
Well, corporate capitalism has always "reserved" the realm of situational ethics. A "divine right".

4too
 
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