Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat Seems interplay may be going out of business....

Soooo what are the chances of Larian buying the Fallout 3 liscense and finishing it ? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but Interplay went out of business a couple of years ago, when Fargo sold it. The name and assets were purchased by another company, and I'm not sure if they own the rights to Fallout, or not.

Interplay in fact remained a technically independent company with seperately sold stock, though with a majority ownership by a larger company that ran the place (and fired Fargo).

As of a few weeks ago when they still maintained their website, they still owned the rights to Fallout.

The company has not yet actually declared bankruptcy, though it did announce its first quarter report would be delayed. There fan forum has disappeared, and there are many rumors--from utter demise to still clinging to existence but behind on bills and some salaries.

Vivendi Studios is the large company that owns Interplay (and Blizzard and a few others for that matter). If Interplay's figures don't look up, Viv'll probably do the same thing they did to BiS. Also, Interplay's inder a strict contract with Viv, disallowing most transfers of intellectual property (F3 source code, etc.) without express permission from Vivendi. At least, that's what I heard straight from former Black Isle devs in the days after Van Buren (F3) was cancelled.

When Vivendi owns Interplay, it does not own Blizzard, which is an independant company. It publishes console versions of Blizzard games but that's all.


Fallout 3 is already in production. Interplay hired some company to make it, I have no idea which, but my closest guess would be Silver Style.
Also, BG: Dark Alliance 2 sells very well, hence Interplay is not yet closing.

Dark Alliance 2 was booorriinngg. They didn't add enough new content.

The only Baldur's Gate for me is BG 1 and 2. That's it. I'd rather play VTM for an action RPG.

Well Gauntlet games (Dark Alliances) are smashing good fun with a group of friends... or just one friend in DA's case. There's some great coop to be had.

Baaa. I, for one, won't mourn Ineptplay.

Well, there's no reason to mourn a company per se that ceases, but I do wish some of the development teams that put out good titles were allowed to continue beyond the time allotted to them--regardless of whom they worked for. That goes for the BIS that did PS:T (many of whom got fired within 6 months of that game's appearance), for example.

Part of BIS went and formed Obsidian, who are now working on KotOR2. A member or two went in Silver Style. The rest parted in different directions: one went into Pen and Paper RPG, another joined Bioware, others created some other company, along with former Looking Glass employees (NWN: Shadows of the Undertide expantion is their work)...

Ahhh Looking Glass...the developers of my favorite game of all time... system shock 2. Do you know what the company is called?

The problem with a team that splits up in this fashion is that the team synergy which produced a single superb game is lost, and hard to reproduce; so even if several of the people went to Obsidian, I'm not inclined to think that the same qualities which made PS:T certainly one of the finest CRPGs ever created will transfer over to KotoR2. We'll just have to wait and see. Though I am heartened all the same by seeing several of 'em together. Perhaps they can triumph over some of the less than attractive features of KotoR which got overlooked while reviewers were drooling on the graphics and the lead female.

Well, all I really followed around was Feargus Urquhart, for obvious reasons.

He's Mr. Cheese now at Obsidian, so good things should come from there.

It's FloodGate Entertainment. I love Thief games so I am watching that company too <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />.


I tend to agree with you, mate; a good example would be Deus Ex 2: it has most of DE1 team along with some Looking Glass but, alas, it doesn't hold a candle to the first.
But fortunately, Obsidian Entertainment isn't just a bunch of beta testers for P:T; it's the whole team (at least that's what I read) which left under Bioware's wing.

Fittingly I just bought today a "10 Years Interplay" Anthology on a flea market. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Contains Bard's Tale as well ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" />

My first Interplay game was "Lost Vikings." <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Are there any cheats for it ? It gets quite hard in the end ...

Ah, I love the old Blizzard games:
Lost Vikings 1, Lost Vikings 2, Blackthorne and Rock and Roll Racers <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

According to GameFAQs , the only codes for the game are level codes.

I still recall the pleasures of Battle Chess, in 1988, and before that, the Bard's Tale trilogy--1986 on The Destiny Knight, can't recall the date on the others. They were a quirky company, with Brian Fargo pretty much riding herd on the lot. I think that like many other companies, they lost the ability to take chances on anything except hits when development times and game complexity increased, though Fargo hired some less than stellar management choices. (Still, nothing as bad as EA.)

Actually what they seem to have had was an absolutely inability to make money on games in recent years.

IP lost money even while producing the Baldur's Gate series, the Fall Out Series, the Icewind Dale series, and Plaescape Torment. They further increased their agony by canceling three major projects, Torn, BG3, and FO3 after major investments into these possible titles.

Though they ultimately had trouble producing games, there was a serious financial problem at the heart of the operation for years that kept them from making money even when they did produce a hit.

How do you know that Fallout 3 is already in production? I read that Interplay was going to sell the rights to the game and haven't heard anything about them reopening the project.