Interplay financials: Fallout Online in doubt
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
The Dutch Ghost said:
That's not Herve.
The only thing "dark" I found about Fallout 3 was the damn subway system! It didn't really push the "dark" aspects of the post apocalyptic much IMO. If the "humor" they're referencing is similar to the type of humor found in the original Fallout games I'd be alright with that. If it's "Rockstar humor"...Brother None said:
True but there's a better chance of the MMO not being complete as a result of the lawsuit than anything else since they seem pretty confident that funding is secure be it all at once, milestones, etc.
sydney_roo
Still Mildly Glowing
10 bucks the game never gets made.
I wouldn't bet on that.
Fallout Online means money (to an extent, but I wouldn't go into details right now) and as soon as Herve drops the ball, the sharks gonna jump outta pool for it, Beth being the great white one.
Fallout Online means money (to an extent, but I wouldn't go into details right now) and as soon as Herve drops the ball, the sharks gonna jump outta pool for it, Beth being the great white one.
Elven6 said:
I'm not sure what you're basing this "better chance" on. We're talking about a company deep in debt, including tax debt, and leaking money year in year out. I wouldn't bet on them finishing FOOL regardless of lawsuits.
Unless we get a cheap Earthrise clone. But who wants that?
100LBSofDogmeat
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Lexx said:
Lexx I will agree on grim, but only in the sense that the Fallout I loved was grimly raped in a dark studio somewhere.
Brother None said:
I'm basing it on the fact that,
A. They've been short on cash for years now with debt but still managing to get by.
B. According to the MMO contract the minimum cash required to develop the MMO needed to be locked in by April 2009 which Interplay claims to have done (be it straight up $30 mill or milestone payments).
C. The deadline is 2012 which is only a year away, they could have enough cash on hand to survive till then.
The only factor that can't be accounted for is the legal aspect of course (aka the lawsuit), it's all down to interpretation in the end so who knows how that can turn out.
This isn't factoring in any obligations on debt, loans, etc though of course (ie, it has to be paid back by X date).
Haven't played Earthrise so I can't really comment on that, I'm sure there could be similarities as there are with all MMO's when it comes down to it but aesthetically I doubt there will be much.
Elven6 said:
A is vague as you do not define "get by". They haven't going bankrupt, way to go. How many employees do they have? Where is the cashflow? They company has been a shell for nearly a decade now.
B and C aren't facts, they're idle speculation. Interplay has not proven that it has got 30 million USD straight up or in milestone payments. It hasn't provided details about FOOL's funding at all. Nor has it in any way indicated it expects to be able to meet the 2012 deadline.
Is that all you got? C'mon now. If this were a stockholder meeting you'd be laughed out of the room.
Brother None said:
As per the SEC filing the cash flow is coming mostly from digital PC sales (back catalog, Interplay Discovery, etc), console sales (not sure what of), royalties, as well as mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, DSi, etc). Interplay is bringing in revenue, and even net revenue increased in comparison to 2009. I think they have 11 employees but it's not like they need very many since their focus for the past few years has been to outsource IP's and split revenue.
By "getting by" I meant in a form that allowed them to continue operating with their employees intact to develop and publish titles.
My point with B and C were that they would have no impact on the company's current financial position since the money required to legally work on the MMO is (in theory) accounted for. In other words, it won't be like buying a $5 burger and realizing you only have $1 in your wallet when that $5 was already paid for. If the courts find that they didn't have the money ready then the contract is void, I don't think they'll be given a second chance to see if they have the cash laying around.
The console titles are WiiWare ports and the like, done by Beamdog, amusingly enough. They've been working together quite a bit. So yeah, you agree with me Interplay is just a shell operating by porting its existing IPs. Unimpressive. Though they did recently release that whole Raven and Death thing or whatever it was called.
You are still not proving anything. I said I can clearly see evidence we have a shell company here while we have no evidence that they actually have the capacity to produce an MMO other than vague, unproven claims. Yes, if they lose the court case then the game's up anyway, but I see no reason to believe there's much of a game to play in the first place.
All the evidence you're offering is believing Interplay's "confidence" in having obtained the necessary financing, even when they offer no evidence of it? You'll have to excuse the rest of us for not preferring that kind of naivety.
You are still not proving anything. I said I can clearly see evidence we have a shell company here while we have no evidence that they actually have the capacity to produce an MMO other than vague, unproven claims. Yes, if they lose the court case then the game's up anyway, but I see no reason to believe there's much of a game to play in the first place.
All the evidence you're offering is believing Interplay's "confidence" in having obtained the necessary financing, even when they offer no evidence of it? You'll have to excuse the rest of us for not preferring that kind of naivety.
Brother None said:
Beamdog only did MDK2 which released a few weeks back, the current emulation ports were done by other studios IIRC but thanks for mentioning the WiiWare stuff since I forgot about it.
I thought we were talking about the factors that could lead to the demise of the Fallout MMO if any. I said if the game were to stop development it would likely be via the lawsuit than anything else, you disagreed. As I've previously stated, in theory the requirements for the Fallout MMO have been completed which include a minimum of $30 million for the development budget. That's for the courts to decide hence a legal factor regarding the MMO. It doesn't matter how much money Interplay has now since in theory the money required for the MMO has been secured and locked in.
As far as actually developing the game goes, from what I've read Masthead (about 50-60 from Masthead I think it was?) are assisting the Interplay dev team with their resources so there is certainly enough to complete a game. I don't see how the current size of Interplay matters in comparison to previous years since the discussion is mostly about the financial aspect (and as far as the MMO goes, they claim to be sound. I doubt they would spend so much money on the lawsuit or have the backing of a law firm if in some capacity the $30 million wasn't accounted for).
So again, all the assurance you're offering is that Interplay claims it has the requisite funding even though we've seen no evidence of such (no noted investment deals, no revenue flow of that size, etc.)
Yes, Masthead could pump out a cheap Earthrise clone at a small budget, that'd be a laugh and a half, but that seems to be the only realistic scenario for Fallout Online reaching completion. You're overly focusing on the court side of things and consequently ignoring the fact that Interplay does not have the capacity to launch a serious MMO. There is nothing to "demise" because we've not seen evidence that there's anything alive. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead, but don't expect anyone to believe you if you can offer no evidence.
Yes, Masthead could pump out a cheap Earthrise clone at a small budget, that'd be a laugh and a half, but that seems to be the only realistic scenario for Fallout Online reaching completion. You're overly focusing on the court side of things and consequently ignoring the fact that Interplay does not have the capacity to launch a serious MMO. There is nothing to "demise" because we've not seen evidence that there's anything alive. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead, but don't expect anyone to believe you if you can offer no evidence.
Brother None said:
Again, what I said was if the MMO was canceled and the choices were Interplay's financial condition (aka they crumble as a result which is something you allude to) or the Fallout lawsuit then it's more likely the cause would be the Fallout lawsuit.
I gave plenty of evidence above straight from their SEC filing regarding where their current cash is coming from and how they are keeping afloat. I've referenced the Fallout MMO contract details which Interplay has said time and time again that they've fulfilled (all me and you have access to is their word but the lawsuit will ideally clear all of these questions up).
As for the investment deals, you've posted about quite a few yourself.
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54207
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=43165
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50551 (the bit about Masthead providing funding)
How much all the investment deals Interplay acquired are worth will of course be found out via the lawsuit. The only thing we can go by is Interplay's claim that they amassed funding, looking at their financials it's clear they didn't have revenues to compensate so the money likely came from investments.
As far as the MMO actually being in development or not, asides from the interviews there are of course the leaked screenshots, concept art, newsletters, etc so it obviously is in development in some form (remember, the development process encompasses many things).
$30 million could get you a pretty good MMO if it's focusing entirely on content (since the engine and infastructure were already done and assuming Masthead is paying their employees, costs, etc separately and not from that cash). I believe the estimates were that this generation a $15-20 million budget is considered an AAA game?
Elven6 said:
Yes. And most of us realize it doesn't look remotely likely that they amassed the funding, or they would've revealed as much long since. You simply seem inclined to take them at their word for it. Again, most of us simply know them better than that.
Elven6 said:
25 million USD gets you an AAA single-player game. MMOs are different, especially since they require very constant funding after launch. WoW cost Blizzard 200 million in its first four years, and cost 40 million to develop way back in 2004. The Old Republic has cost EA 80 million even prior to PR launching. The relatively low-key Rift MMO cost 50 million. Warhammer Online's budget was put by the rumor mill at anywhere between 100 and 200 million dollars.
A 30 million budget doesn't really get you anywhere, especially since you'll need to allocate a big chunk of that to running costs and PR. ZeniMax drew a 300 million dollar investment for purchasing studios and funding their own MMO, and that's more in a realistic ballpark.
Now don't get me wrong, you can easily finish an MMO for 30 million dollars, especially if it's just recycling a lot of Earthrise stuff. It'll just suck horribly. That's Bethesda's nightmare scenario.
But that's even assuming Interplay has 30 million. We all know they do not.
It obvious that Interplay won't survive and finally this smelly corpse can be put to ground. FOOL won't be finished...and when the time to release it finally comes around Herve wont be anywhere to be found, and why would he, this man killed off a fairly decent gaming company, mind you he isn't the first nor will he be the last to kill off a gaming company.
Remember this face. Mr.Hervé Caen CEO of Interplay.
Remember this face. Mr.Hervé Caen CEO of Interplay.
Brother None
Hmm, very strange that Brother None "knows" that Interplay does not have the 30 million financing.
Bethesda has tried on multiple occasions to get a preliminary injunction against Interplay stating that Interplay did not raise the necessary financing, the 30 million, and asking the Federal judge to immediately terminate Interplay's license to use Fallout online or to sell the old Fallout games that Interplay made. Bethesda lost the original preliminary injunction as well as the appeal of the preliminary injunction despite Bethesda shuffling between two of the largest, most powerful law firms in existence. Surely, if Interplay had absolutely no proof of 30 million Interplay would already be dead in the water by now. Not only has Interplay defeated the preliminary injunction, twice, they have also fended off several sneaky attempts by Bethesda to try to get the case decided outside of a full trial. Again each time Interplay won. Not only that, but the judge refused to throw out Interplay's counter claims basically stating that Bethesda has been trying to destroy them for years now in order to get the full Fallout IP on the cheap. Again, the judge looks at preliminary evidence and made a ruling that there is enough shenanigans there to warrant this counter claim case moving forward. So, Interplay still has a chance to win the full Fallout license back from Bethesda. Interplay listed a lot of evidence of Bethesda's wrong doing, dirty dealings, etc. that don't look so good for Bethesda. I'm thinking there are probably some suits at Bethesda shaking in their boots right now imagining their Fallout cash cow going back to Interplay.
Seems to me that it would be pretty hard for Interplay to consistently, on several occasions, fool two very distinguished federal judges in different courts (the assigned federal judge and the appeals judge) who both poured over all of the financial and other information on this case. (in contrast, Interplay was able to win a preliminary injunction against Topware who tried to release a game, Battle vs Chess as a rip off of Battlechess, which, incidentally, Interplay is releasing on multiple platforms in the near future.)
Last year, Interplay received an investment of close to a million dollars and Interplay has slowly but surely begun releasing more and more games through deals with outside developers. If anything, Interplay appears to be gaining steam and slowly turning around from 120 million in debt during their hey day, to less than 2 million (a large portion of Interplay's current listed "debt" is actually just deferred income and money "owed" to the executive team at Interplay.)
So, again I ask you Brother None, how do you "know" that Interplay did not raise the necessary 30 million? Or could it be that Bethesda miscalculated, blundered and thought that they could pound Interplay into dust with the full weight of their money and huge law firms, only to be bested by the small but plucky little engine that could, Interplay.
But, even if Brother None is right on this and has some sort of insider knowledge that none of us have, Interplay can simply claim that Bethesda interfered with their ability to raise the 30 million with all of their dirty little tricks that they played on Interplay. The judge saw enough possible wrong doing to move that case ahead.
Seems to me Interplay has two ways to win this, show that they have the 30 million or just provide enough doubt in regards to the dirty dealings of Bethesda trying to sabotage them. Case in point, Bethesda did not even allow Interplay to advertise Fallout on their website, while Interplay was in process of raising money. Bethesda did numerous little tricks like that during that time, including trying to prevent Interplay from selling their old games when that was clearly part of the deal.)
Hmm, very strange that Brother None "knows" that Interplay does not have the 30 million financing.
Bethesda has tried on multiple occasions to get a preliminary injunction against Interplay stating that Interplay did not raise the necessary financing, the 30 million, and asking the Federal judge to immediately terminate Interplay's license to use Fallout online or to sell the old Fallout games that Interplay made. Bethesda lost the original preliminary injunction as well as the appeal of the preliminary injunction despite Bethesda shuffling between two of the largest, most powerful law firms in existence. Surely, if Interplay had absolutely no proof of 30 million Interplay would already be dead in the water by now. Not only has Interplay defeated the preliminary injunction, twice, they have also fended off several sneaky attempts by Bethesda to try to get the case decided outside of a full trial. Again each time Interplay won. Not only that, but the judge refused to throw out Interplay's counter claims basically stating that Bethesda has been trying to destroy them for years now in order to get the full Fallout IP on the cheap. Again, the judge looks at preliminary evidence and made a ruling that there is enough shenanigans there to warrant this counter claim case moving forward. So, Interplay still has a chance to win the full Fallout license back from Bethesda. Interplay listed a lot of evidence of Bethesda's wrong doing, dirty dealings, etc. that don't look so good for Bethesda. I'm thinking there are probably some suits at Bethesda shaking in their boots right now imagining their Fallout cash cow going back to Interplay.
Seems to me that it would be pretty hard for Interplay to consistently, on several occasions, fool two very distinguished federal judges in different courts (the assigned federal judge and the appeals judge) who both poured over all of the financial and other information on this case. (in contrast, Interplay was able to win a preliminary injunction against Topware who tried to release a game, Battle vs Chess as a rip off of Battlechess, which, incidentally, Interplay is releasing on multiple platforms in the near future.)
Last year, Interplay received an investment of close to a million dollars and Interplay has slowly but surely begun releasing more and more games through deals with outside developers. If anything, Interplay appears to be gaining steam and slowly turning around from 120 million in debt during their hey day, to less than 2 million (a large portion of Interplay's current listed "debt" is actually just deferred income and money "owed" to the executive team at Interplay.)
So, again I ask you Brother None, how do you "know" that Interplay did not raise the necessary 30 million? Or could it be that Bethesda miscalculated, blundered and thought that they could pound Interplay into dust with the full weight of their money and huge law firms, only to be bested by the small but plucky little engine that could, Interplay.
But, even if Brother None is right on this and has some sort of insider knowledge that none of us have, Interplay can simply claim that Bethesda interfered with their ability to raise the 30 million with all of their dirty little tricks that they played on Interplay. The judge saw enough possible wrong doing to move that case ahead.
Seems to me Interplay has two ways to win this, show that they have the 30 million or just provide enough doubt in regards to the dirty dealings of Bethesda trying to sabotage them. Case in point, Bethesda did not even allow Interplay to advertise Fallout on their website, while Interplay was in process of raising money. Bethesda did numerous little tricks like that during that time, including trying to prevent Interplay from selling their old games when that was clearly part of the deal.)
Oh great, just what we needed, another one of the investor fanclub come to paint a rosy picture of Interplay to us as if we're buying. Just a notice: we're not. But you know that very well. Dontcha?
Never said so. I said, on multiple occasions, that elven, and now you, are stating as fact something which is not only supposition but looks highly unlikely from the outside looking in. There is no evidence they have 30 million. They are a low-revenue broke company. We all put two and two together and make four. You put two and two together and make "everything is going great for Interplay!"
One of us is being reasonable. The other is just expressing wishful thinking. Which one's which?
I'm not sure you understand how injunctive hearings work. Interplay never had to show the judge 30 million in financing to win against Bethesda's injunctive claim because a) merit is only one of multiple factors for injunctive hearings and b) the case of merit can be made for not having 30 million "straight up" because the contract is vague about it.
Hey, I'm not saying Interplay's lawyers aren't owning Bethesda's up and down the room, because they have been for some time, I'm just saying that exactly because the contract was sloppily worded (amazingly so, to be honest), a denial of an injunction has nothing to do with showing 30 million cash in hand. If anything, the biggest consideration for the judge here is that it can do no harm to Bethesda, for now, to have Interplay continue work on it, which defeats the whole purpose of an injunction.
Just for clarification, unless the injunctive ruling clearly states the main argument is succeeding on merit, you really, really shouldn't try to extrapolate ruling on injunctions or accepting of cases as victories.
*chuckles* You amuse me. Bethesda's not scared of anything because they know Interplay is just a shell. Really, the only bad case scenario for Bethesda here is Interplay finishing and releasing FOOL on time, but even if they do, there's still options open.
Also, it's worth noting Fallout is only a cash cow because of Bethesda. What's Interplay going to do with it? License it back? Not a lot of people can make Bethesda-esque games. Make a more Fallout-ish game out of it? Heh. That would be a disaster, the IP is tainted by Bethesda expectations now.
Hah! Just darling. I wonder if you'll ever join us here in the real world. Maybe when Interplay finally goes bankrupt.
Don't get me wrong, Bethesda has been underhanded through all of this. I just like how you're painting of Interplay as the good guys, even though they're nothing but a shell scavenged from a corpse and having done enough shady work themselves.
troybilt said:
Never said so. I said, on multiple occasions, that elven, and now you, are stating as fact something which is not only supposition but looks highly unlikely from the outside looking in. There is no evidence they have 30 million. They are a low-revenue broke company. We all put two and two together and make four. You put two and two together and make "everything is going great for Interplay!"
One of us is being reasonable. The other is just expressing wishful thinking. Which one's which?
troybilt said:
I'm not sure you understand how injunctive hearings work. Interplay never had to show the judge 30 million in financing to win against Bethesda's injunctive claim because a) merit is only one of multiple factors for injunctive hearings and b) the case of merit can be made for not having 30 million "straight up" because the contract is vague about it.
Hey, I'm not saying Interplay's lawyers aren't owning Bethesda's up and down the room, because they have been for some time, I'm just saying that exactly because the contract was sloppily worded (amazingly so, to be honest), a denial of an injunction has nothing to do with showing 30 million cash in hand. If anything, the biggest consideration for the judge here is that it can do no harm to Bethesda, for now, to have Interplay continue work on it, which defeats the whole purpose of an injunction.
Just for clarification, unless the injunctive ruling clearly states the main argument is succeeding on merit, you really, really shouldn't try to extrapolate ruling on injunctions or accepting of cases as victories.
troy said:
*chuckles* You amuse me. Bethesda's not scared of anything because they know Interplay is just a shell. Really, the only bad case scenario for Bethesda here is Interplay finishing and releasing FOOL on time, but even if they do, there's still options open.
Also, it's worth noting Fallout is only a cash cow because of Bethesda. What's Interplay going to do with it? License it back? Not a lot of people can make Bethesda-esque games. Make a more Fallout-ish game out of it? Heh. That would be a disaster, the IP is tainted by Bethesda expectations now.
troy said:
Hah! Just darling. I wonder if you'll ever join us here in the real world. Maybe when Interplay finally goes bankrupt.
Don't get me wrong, Bethesda has been underhanded through all of this. I just like how you're painting of Interplay as the good guys, even though they're nothing but a shell scavenged from a corpse and having done enough shady work themselves.
More info
The original contract does state that Interplay must "secure" a minimum of 30 million. There is no debate about 30 million being required. (well actually there was a brief little side road on that for a short while, a failed attempt by Interplay to defeat the injunction by muddying that part of the contract, before the judge nixed that and said that for Interplay to claim 30 million was "secured," Interplay has to show some sort of evidence backing that claim up, which Interplay eventually reluctantly did.)
The main debate in this case evolved into what the word "secure" means. Interplay claims 30 million secured does not mean be able to unload a suitcase and show 30 million cash but rather to have evidence that there are deals in place for a minimum of 30 million to be allocated as needed, over time. Interplay listed deals with I2G (for 15 million), Masthead (for 20 million), and deals that were nearly completed but shut down in mid negotiations, with BVD, and others, due to the lawsuit being filed by Bethesda.
Interplay argues, rightly so, in my opinion, that "securing" money for an expensive game that takes years to make is not the same as gathering up all of the cash in one place at the same time in a giant pile to show to someone. Money is allocated as needed. All that needs to be established is that there are avenues to access the 30 million, that deals are "secured," in place to be used as needed. That's my reading of the contract anyways. Interplay argued that it is standard practice in game development to allocate as the project goes forward not all up front at once.
The judge did already require Interplay to show something resembling their definition of 30 million minimum. Interplay showed something that at least approximated this, to the judge's satisfaction, or the injunction would have been upheld on those grounds. If Interplay could have shown nothing resembling 30 million then they would have lost that one but then had to try to then win on the issue of Bethesda messing with them. Interplay won the case before the issue of Bethesda's misdeeds were fully considered, meaning that Interplay showed something that could possibly be construed as 30 million, depending upon one's interpretation of the contract. True, an injunction is not the same as a full trial, but if something is clear up front, it is clear, and an experienced federal judge will put a kebosh at that time. A judge will not allow a case to get past the injunction phase if the other side has nothing to show. It is a huge waste of the court's time and money. Better to squash it right away. Lawyers know this and most lawyers are not stupid enough to advise a company to throw tons of resources at a lost cause, if there is absolutely no chance of winning. Or if the lawyer is that stupid or dishonest, then they will, at some point, have some action taken against their license. (None of this means that Interplay's interpretation of "secure" will ultimately win the day, as Brother None is right that this was only a preliminary injunction, but the judge did require Interplay to show some degree of evidence on this, despite Interplay's protests that they are not required by contract to show exactly how they will secure the financing. Interplay lost that small battle and had to pony up the goods--show the full deals to the judge and to Bethesda.)
As for a minimum of 30 million being too small to make a dent in today's market for an MMO, the current head of Bethesda's MMO division, Matt Firor, made a very successful MMO for somewhere between 10 and 20 million, from what I heard.
Bethesda has been working on an MMO for almost as long as Interplay, but Bethesda won't even release the name of the game that they are working on. hmm, wonder why that is... Maybe because Bethesda has been plotting and playing dirty all along and was working on their own version of Fallout from very early on in this. Even if this is not the case, it seems preposterous to me that some suits at Bethesda aren't at least a little worried by this. Even if Bethesda has a 99% chance to win, which I don't think they have, I'd think that their suits who see the cash flowing in regularly from Fallout would not want to risk that 1 percent chance of letting this all be decided by a jury. Sort of like in my sport of mixed martial arts, even clear cut victories can be taken away if you "leave it in the hands of the judges." Best to KO, TKO, or submit an opponent. Humans sitting in judgment can be odd ducks at time, not something you want to rely on for something of paramount importance to one's livelihood. I've seen some pretty ridiculous decisions in my day. Actually, I was clearly on the wrong end of a decision in a boxing match once. Not that I complained at the time about the judges most generous misperceptions but it showed me how fallible people on the outside looking in can sometimes be...
The original contract does state that Interplay must "secure" a minimum of 30 million. There is no debate about 30 million being required. (well actually there was a brief little side road on that for a short while, a failed attempt by Interplay to defeat the injunction by muddying that part of the contract, before the judge nixed that and said that for Interplay to claim 30 million was "secured," Interplay has to show some sort of evidence backing that claim up, which Interplay eventually reluctantly did.)
The main debate in this case evolved into what the word "secure" means. Interplay claims 30 million secured does not mean be able to unload a suitcase and show 30 million cash but rather to have evidence that there are deals in place for a minimum of 30 million to be allocated as needed, over time. Interplay listed deals with I2G (for 15 million), Masthead (for 20 million), and deals that were nearly completed but shut down in mid negotiations, with BVD, and others, due to the lawsuit being filed by Bethesda.
Interplay argues, rightly so, in my opinion, that "securing" money for an expensive game that takes years to make is not the same as gathering up all of the cash in one place at the same time in a giant pile to show to someone. Money is allocated as needed. All that needs to be established is that there are avenues to access the 30 million, that deals are "secured," in place to be used as needed. That's my reading of the contract anyways. Interplay argued that it is standard practice in game development to allocate as the project goes forward not all up front at once.
The judge did already require Interplay to show something resembling their definition of 30 million minimum. Interplay showed something that at least approximated this, to the judge's satisfaction, or the injunction would have been upheld on those grounds. If Interplay could have shown nothing resembling 30 million then they would have lost that one but then had to try to then win on the issue of Bethesda messing with them. Interplay won the case before the issue of Bethesda's misdeeds were fully considered, meaning that Interplay showed something that could possibly be construed as 30 million, depending upon one's interpretation of the contract. True, an injunction is not the same as a full trial, but if something is clear up front, it is clear, and an experienced federal judge will put a kebosh at that time. A judge will not allow a case to get past the injunction phase if the other side has nothing to show. It is a huge waste of the court's time and money. Better to squash it right away. Lawyers know this and most lawyers are not stupid enough to advise a company to throw tons of resources at a lost cause, if there is absolutely no chance of winning. Or if the lawyer is that stupid or dishonest, then they will, at some point, have some action taken against their license. (None of this means that Interplay's interpretation of "secure" will ultimately win the day, as Brother None is right that this was only a preliminary injunction, but the judge did require Interplay to show some degree of evidence on this, despite Interplay's protests that they are not required by contract to show exactly how they will secure the financing. Interplay lost that small battle and had to pony up the goods--show the full deals to the judge and to Bethesda.)
As for a minimum of 30 million being too small to make a dent in today's market for an MMO, the current head of Bethesda's MMO division, Matt Firor, made a very successful MMO for somewhere between 10 and 20 million, from what I heard.
Bethesda has been working on an MMO for almost as long as Interplay, but Bethesda won't even release the name of the game that they are working on. hmm, wonder why that is... Maybe because Bethesda has been plotting and playing dirty all along and was working on their own version of Fallout from very early on in this. Even if this is not the case, it seems preposterous to me that some suits at Bethesda aren't at least a little worried by this. Even if Bethesda has a 99% chance to win, which I don't think they have, I'd think that their suits who see the cash flowing in regularly from Fallout would not want to risk that 1 percent chance of letting this all be decided by a jury. Sort of like in my sport of mixed martial arts, even clear cut victories can be taken away if you "leave it in the hands of the judges." Best to KO, TKO, or submit an opponent. Humans sitting in judgment can be odd ducks at time, not something you want to rely on for something of paramount importance to one's livelihood. I've seen some pretty ridiculous decisions in my day. Actually, I was clearly on the wrong end of a decision in a boxing match once. Not that I complained at the time about the judges most generous misperceptions but it showed me how fallible people on the outside looking in can sometimes be...
You know it is pointless. Regardless who wins. Betheada or Iplay. It would be like Gaddafi vs Saddam you know.
By the way. BN makes a lot of sense here. So troybilt you're kinda embarrassing your self here a bit.
By the way. BN makes a lot of sense here. So troybilt you're kinda embarrassing your self here a bit.