Vivendi and Interplay have kissed and made up

Kreegle · Post by **Kreegle** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 6:42 am

<strong>[ -> N/A]</strong>

<a href="http://www.gamespydaily.com/">GameSpy Daily</a> reports:<blockquote><em>Vivendi Universal Games and Interplay, have resolved a lawsuit related to a distribution agreement between the two that went sour. Details on how the matter was settled out of court were not disclosed. VU Games will resume its distribution of Interplay's games including Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in Asia Pacific and North America and any other Interplay titles in those regions until 2005. </em></blockquote>Wow, blimey! I didn't even know that they'd broken up! Shit, I didn't even know that Interplay were going to survive until 2005! Thanks for the tip, Matt.

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 6:53 am

Chuck and Herve have prolly been giving sexual payments to VU, since thats all they have now.

FRENCH+MEXICAN= HONOR

Dan_Wood · Post by **Dan_Wood** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:44 am

I still don't know why we shift all the shitty game houses over to someplace like Red Orb or Buena Vista... At least then we could use the 'It was published by <foo>, it _has_ to be crap,' as opposed to the crapshoot we always get.

Also, while we're at it, why not have ratings on games as to how bad they're going to suck...

I personally think FOT should have gotten the 'What Game? Expensive box' labeling...

Ooe · Post by **Ooe** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 8:03 pm

They've got to LOVE secrecy, those corpers, umm i mean *cough-cough*...

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 8:12 pm

Does this mean IPLY is going to, you know, not go belly up?

Menno · Post by **Menno** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:08 pm

atoga wrote:Does this mean IPLY is going to, you know, not go belly up?

I think it still can go belly up. VU is just doing the manufacturing/distribution until 2005. If the games still sell like shit (Run Like Hell, soon to be followed by F:BOS), I doubt Interplay can stomach the losses.

Which leads me to my question, if VU is pretty much performing the role of a publisher, what's the purpose of Interplay? I mean its not uncommon for a publisher to sign over it's publishing rights to another publisher for a game that's released in another region; but when you can't even publish and distribute a game in your own home territory, what use are you? I'm not an expert of the gaming industry, so I'm probably wrong, but when you're supposed to be a publisher, yet can't even publish your own game, isn't that a huge waste of money? Why not just sell off your gaming development houses and get out of the business.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:17 pm

Well, Menno, nobody--but nobody--can fuck things up like the Interplay-Titus bastard love child we have now. IPLY provides critical screwing up skills to the process. Besides that, the useless, inefficient middleman is a traditional part of any commerical process.

Menno · Post by **Menno** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:20 pm

Spazmo wrote:Well, Menno, nobody--but nobody--can fuck things up like the Interplay-Titus bastard love child we have now. IPLY provides critical screwing up skills to the process. Besides that, the useless, inefficient middleman is a traditional part of any commerical process.

Haha, I understand now. Is Interplay the only company that gives 12-16 month development cycles for RPG's, where most RPG's now get around 2-3 years?

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 10:22 pm

Not quite. There's Atari, who expect a flawless, huge RPG in 18 months, but they're assholes, too.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 3:41 pm

lol, Menno, I love your avatar. Techno-pirate!

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sat Nov 08, 2003 3:46 pm

Interplay's last two RPGs, IWD2 and Lionheart, both flopped bigtime.

Frankly, I'm amazed Interplay might make it to 2004.

Bleusilences · Post by **Bleusilences** » Sat Nov 08, 2003 5:28 pm

IWD 2 wasnt bad at all, but lioheart was a let down. Anyway, i knew interplay was in is last hours when bioware left. Does shiny have left too?

Post by **DarkUnderlord** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 12:36 am

Shiny? They sold Shiny. I'm pretty sure that's the only reason they made any profit in one of their financial quarters.

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 3:19 am

Bleusilences wrote:IWD 2 wasnt bad at all, but lioheart was a let down. Anyway, i knew interplay was in is last hours when bioware left. Does shiny have left too?

The sales figures for IWD2 were very, very low.

And Shiny, along with the Matrix license, got sold to Infogrames for $56M, but a lot of that went to pay back loans Interplay had gotten from various other companies to aquire and use the license.

Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD · Sun Nov 09, 2003 4:12 am

Bleusilences wrote:IWD 2 wasnt bad at all, but lioheart was a let down. Anyway, i knew interplay was in is last hours when bioware left. Does shiny have left too?

IWD 2 had possibly one of the most shitty and disappointing endings in any game ive ever played.

i liked lionheart even though it was kind of linear and there were obvious bonus' for taking the warder class over the others.

Bleusilences · Post by **Bleusilences** » Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:11 pm

I can't wait to see them sink like Apogee.

Duck and Cover

Vivendi and Interplay have kissed and made up

Vivendi and Interplay have kissed and made up

Well, damn...