Interplay Entertainment < section begin = " CXPortalFeaturedArticle " / > Interplay Entertainment ( founded as Interplay Productions ) is the company that published " Fallout " , " Fallout 2 " , " " , and " " . It was the owner of the " Fallout " franchise before it was sold to Bethesda Softworks . They started publishing games from other companies in 1988 , but it wasn ' t until 1993 that they managed another hit , and started the " Descent " series , first produced by Parallax Software . Starting in 1992 , they were noted for pumping out a few Star Trek games , and in 1997 they released " Fallout " and " MDK " , followed by " Baldur ' s Gate " in 1998 . Although the games were successful Interplay continued to bleed money and was on the verge of bankruptcy . Interplay went public that same year in order to avoid bankruptcy and pay off debt . The name of the company was changed to " Interplay Entertainment Corp " . Interplay Entertainment Corp continued to publish outstanding games but at the same time bleed money . In a bid to shore up the companies finances they struck a deal with French company Titus Interactive for financing in return for stock and stock options . Unfortunately losses mounted and control of the company went to Titus Interactive . < section end = " CXPortalFeaturedArticle " / > Under Hervé Caen . Downfall . Interplay , under control of Titus installed a new president , Hervé Caen . Fargo stayed on for a while as company chairman . Several years later Titus was starting to get into financial and legal trouble and eventually had to close business in 2004 . Since his installment as president , Caen had tried to shift the company ' s attention towards console games , an area where the company had never had much success . They missed the 2002 Christmas season , making Interplay ' s already precarious position desperate . Interplay was evicted by its landlord for not paying rent on the very day that Titus quit business , and most of the remaining staff had to leave because they weren ' t getting paid . Hervé and a few others relocated to another office , trying to get the company going again by selling off their various assets , but its various debts were simply too staggering . They licensed the rights to " Fallout 3 " to Bethesda Softworks . On November 29 , 2006 , Interplay was served with an involuntary bankruptcy order . The following day , Interplay filed a SEC form , stating their intent to seek European funding for a Fallout MMOG project . The form notes their intent to begin development in January 2007 . Re - emergence . In November 2006 , Interplay , still headed by Hervé Caen , filed a Form 8 - K filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) regarding a potential Fallout massively multiplayer online game . In April 2007 , Bethesda Softworks , the developer of " Fallout 3 " , purchased full rights to the " Fallout " IP for $ 5 . 75 million USD . While Bethesda now owned the rights to the Fallout MMO IP , clauses in the purchase agreement state allowed Interplay to license the rights to the development of the MMO . Specific requirements were stated in the agreement that if not met , Interplay would immediately lose and forfeit its license rights for Fallout . Development must have begun within 24 months of the date of the agreement ( April 4 , 2007 ) , and Interplay must have secured $ 30 million within that time frame or forfeit its rights to license . Interplay would furthermore need to launch the MMOG within 4 years of the beginning of development , and pay Bethesda 12 percent of sales and subscription fees for the use of the IP . In November 2007 , Interplay reopened in - house development and hired " Fallout " developer Jason D . Anderson as creative director for an unannounced MMO . Given the aforementioned facts , it ' s most likely that the game Anderson is working on is Interplay ' s " Fallout " MMO , given that he is the contact name of Interplay ' s jobs appliance and that Fallout is referred in the job requirements . On June 30 , 2008 , it was announced that , LLC ( created by Frederic Chesnais , former Chief Executive Officer of Atari , which now also owns MicroProse ) purchased 2 , 000 , 000 shares of Interplay stock , as consideration for entering into a game production agreement . On April 2 , 2009 Interplay announced a binding letter of intent with Masthead Studios , a Bulgarian - based developer , to fund the development of " Fallout Online " . Masthead and Interplay teams will work together under the direction and control of Interplay to complete development of the project . In 2010 , Interplay formed Interplay Discovery for the purpose of making pinball and other arcade games , to help fund Project V13 . On December 31 , 2010 Interplay stated that they currently had a loss of over $ 2 . 8 million in deficit and over the previous financial year lost over $ 1 million due mostly to what they described as historic operating losses and deficits in shareholder equity . Due to this the company announced in late May of that year that they had significant doubts as to their ability to function as an ongoing business concern . Legal Issues . On April 15 , 2009 , it was announced that Bethesda Softworks moved to rescind the " Fallout " MMORPG license . On September 8 , 2009 , Bethesda filed two lawsuits , accusing Interplay of two counts of breach of contract , trademark infringement and unfair competition . In the first lawsuit , Bethesda claims that Interplay is in breach of the " Fallout " MMO agreement for failure to commence full scale development by April 4 , 2009 and to secure certain funding for the game . Interplay disputes these claims . The second lawsuit concerns Interplay ' s continued sale of " Fallout " , " Fallout 2 " , " Fallout Tactics " , and " Fallout : Brotherhood of Steel " . According to Bethesda , the licensing contract requires all advertising , packaging and other promotional material to be sent to them for approval first , which , according to the lawsuit , was never done by Interplay regarding neither the " Fallout Trilogy " pack , nor any of the releases through Good Old Games , Steam and other digital distribution platforms . Bethesda also claims that the name " Trilogy " constitutes unfair competition , since it suggests that the pack includes Bethesda ' s own " Fallout 3 " . The lawsuit ended some time in early January 2012 , with Bethesda paying Interplay $ US 2 Million in exchange for Interplay dropping all claim to the Fallout brand . Bethesda now owns all rights to the " Fallout " name and IP with the exception of sales of the first 3 games ( " Fallout " , " Fallout 2 " , and " Fallout Tactics " ) which continued through till December 31 2013 , at which point Bethesda then controls publishing and distribution of these games . This means Bethesda now has full rights to produce further " Fallout " games including MMO ' s . Post lawsuit . In May 2012 , Interplay attempted to resurrect one of their remaining dormant IP ' s - Battle Chess - farming development to Subdued Software , with Interplay publishing . Seeking funding via a Kickstarter , the project fell well short of its $ 100 , 000 goal , with only $ 16 , 000 being pledged . It has since been placed on steam as a part of the steam " early access " program . Despite the loss of the " Fallout " franchise and many fans belief that the game had been canceled , Interplay continuously listed the PV13 project as " coming soon " on their website for some time afterwards . On 20 December 2012 , Interplay launched on the Black Isle website a funding campaign for a new Project V13 , and confirmed the work on the previous incarnation had been abandoned . They proposed to construct a prototype game in order to encourage the eventual development of a Strategy RPG . Press response to the campaign was generally negative , noting a lack of rewards , beyond access to a proposed forum for contributors to the campaign , no indication of funding goals , and the end product being a prototype , not an actual product . All references to PV13 however have since been removed without comment or refund .