Bethesda appeals their loss again

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King of Creation
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Bethesda appeals their loss again

Post by King of Creation »

<strong>[ Company -> Update ]</strong> - More info on <a href="http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Bethesda v. Interplay">Company: Bethesda v. Interplay</a>

<p>From our top-secret source comes word that Bethesda is trying to appeal its loss, yet again, to Interplay in the courts. Here's the text:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
Southern Division (Greenbelt)
BETHESDA SOFTWORKS LLC,
Plaintiff/Counter-Defendant,
v.
INTERPLAY ENTERTAINMENT CORP.,
Defendant/Counter-Plaintiff.
Civil No. 09 CV 2357 (DKC)
NOTICE OF APPEAL
Notice is hereby given that Bethesda Softworks, LLC, plaintiff/counter-defendant in the
above-captioned case, hereby appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit from the order denying its motion for preliminary injunction stated in open court on the
record by the Court on August 4, 2011.
Date: August 9, 2011 Respectfully submitted,
FRIED, FRANK, HARRIS, SHRIVER &
JACOBSON LLP
By: /s/ Joseph J. LoBue
Howard H. Stahl (MD Bar No. 24741)
Joseph J. LoBue (MD Bar No. 17393)
801 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
Telephone: 202-639-7000
Facsimile: 202-639-7003
Email: <a href="mailto:howard.stahl@friedfrank.com" target="_blank">howard.stahl@friedfrank.com</a>
<a href="mailto:joseph.lobue@friedfrank.com" target="_blank">joseph.lobue@friedfrank.com</a>
Counsel for Plaintiff/Counter-Defendant, Bethesda
Softworks LLC</em></p>
</blockquote>
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SenisterDenister
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Post by SenisterDenister »

why
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Post by VasikkA »

Bethesda is a fucking gold mine to laywers. :pedopete:
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rad resistance
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Post by rad resistance »

Shit. Should of went to law school.
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Post by Cimmerian Nights »

SenisterDenister wrote:why
Bethesda has the money to pay lawyers long enough to prolong this shit to the point where they bleed Interplay out - win or lose. How Interplay is still afloat is a mystery, they can't be making that much off their back catalog, and as far as FOOL goes, I think that's a pipe dream, even if it gets made, Bethesda will take the litigiousness to even higher levels to protect their precioussss.


You have to give Bethesda credit, when it comes to marketing and lawyering up, they show some great business acumen.
When it comes to designing RPGs, they blow.

The lawyers are marketers at Bethesda are the best story tellers the company employs.

Still, they totally underestimated the sliminess of Herve.
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Post by Stalagmite »

Zenimax > Bethesda Softworks > Bethesda Game Studios (Todd & co.)


The Bethesda hierarchy. I'm sure Todd & co. are too busy with their next mediocre game that requires mods to be decent to even know/care what's going on with the lawsuit.
Last edited by Stalagmite on Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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SenisterDenister
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Post by SenisterDenister »

I don't understand why they're suing people left and right when their cases hold no water, like with filing that lawsuit against Notch and Co. about Minecraft. At this point I don't know whether to just laugh about it or feel pity because of how futile it is.
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Post by Stalagmite »

It's only a matter of time before we all love Bethesda games.



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No ? No.

Post by Blargh »

The only thing that is truly a matter of time is entropy. Huzzah. :drunk:
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Post by Cimmerian Nights »

SenisterDenister wrote:I don't understand why they're suing people left and right when their cases hold no water, like with filing that lawsuit against Notch and Co. about Minecraft. At this point I don't know whether to just laugh about it or feel pity because of how futile it is.
Because Bethesda payed $5M for a piece of paper that says Fallout is theirs, and now they will defend their right to pretend like they have something to do with creating that value and exploiting it to the hilt.

Fallout in and of itself isn't inherently great - see: FOBOS and FO3. It's the Cains, Taylors, Boyarskys etc. who made it a $5M property.

Let Bethesda have the license and run it into the ground for good, or keep making shit that is so far gone from what it was intended to be that it doesn't matter what you call it anyway.

They don't fool anybody. The legal claim is the only shred of ownership they can cling to for legitimacy.
They can buy the IP, they can produce actual games that say Fallout on the box, it don't mean shit to me.
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SenisterDenister
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Post by SenisterDenister »

So then pity. Yeah, that works.
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Post by POOPERSCOOPER »

Cimmerian Nights wrote:
SenisterDenister wrote:why
Bethesda has the money to pay lawyers long enough to prolong this shit to the point where they bleed Interplay out - win or lose. How Interplay is still afloat is a mystery, they can't be making that much off their back catalog, and as far as FOOL goes, I think that's a pipe dream, even if it gets made, Bethesda will take the litigiousness to even higher levels to protect their precioussss.


You have to give Bethesda credit, when it comes to marketing and lawyering up, they show some great business acumen.
When it comes to designing RPGs, they blow.

The lawyers are marketers at Bethesda are the best story tellers the company employs.

Still, they totally underestimated the sliminess of Herve.

This is pretty much.

In regards to your reply later in the thread I would say that even though we think Bethesda makes shit games, they have brought the fallout license from a dead niche into a more mainstream series. I don't see the series dying due to the current rate of quality because to most gamers they think its good and it's selling well. All Bethesda has to do is keep the same momentum like they have been doing and the series won't die any time soon.

Interplay's sole purpose now is probably hoping to win these trials and get some money out of it. Is FOOL even in development anymore?
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Post by Cimmerian Nights »

Yeah, I can't disagree with you, they have a commercially successful formula from TES, what better way to get more mileage out of it than repackaging it in an unique setting like Fallout. I don't begrudge them that, or trying to turn a buck.

My point is just, at a certain point, a Bethesda Fallout game is so far removed from what the series was about, and it's being pushed to people for whom the series held no meaning. I'd wager the majority of fans who picked up the series at Fallout 3 are more interested in playing Oblivion than Fallout 1 or 2.

I've always said it, but it's like they make RPGs for people who hate RPGs.

And really, the Fallout setting, as originally laid out, is great. But most of it's elements are derivative of something else - be it Mad Max, Canticle for Leibowitz, Boy and His Dog etc. Anybody with half a brain could cobble together different elements like that.

So for them to turn around and defend the IP (that they had nothing to do with creating) from copyright infringement is kind of farcical to me.

It's all about branding. They paid for this brand, they're trying to maintain it, (I guess enhance it in their way???)

I guess if I wanted to make a Fallout like game, I would hire some of the talent that created Fallout. Bethesda wants to make a TES like game in a different setting using their existing formula, that why they used the same people from Oblivion and just purchased a ready-made IP on the fly to slap over it.


Anyway, I see them putting more effort and care and concern into legally 'marking their territory', then I do them enhancing the brand. But again, they only own it because they were highest bidders, not because of any creative acumen.

They can't buy ownership in the sense that they did or could create the IP. Otherwise they would have.
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Post by Stalagmite »

Why does everyone think Bethesda is like some ultimate sales figure top selling co.? It's not. Black Ops sold 5.5 million copies it's first DAY of release, Oblivion has only CURRENTLY sold around 6 million copies, and that's including the estimated STEAM sales. If you look at Activisions history, they sell extremely well with low production values, then they crash and burn. Look at Guitar FAIL Hero. Crash and burn. Bethesda is forced to make games actually better with their own fanbase and anyone who enjoyed Morrowind or else they continually run the risk of crashing and burning themselves as a company due to the fact that they have grown in size and considering almost all ES fans (a large #) bitch to them about making games "dumbed down" or whatever you wanna call it. If anything they have to make their games better or they risk some serious psychotic feedback whilst Activision does not.
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Post by Cimmerian Nights »

Stalagmite wrote:Black Ops sold 5.5 million copies it's first DAY of release, Oblivion has only CURRENTLY sold around 6 million copies, and that's including the estimated STEAM sales. If you look at Activisions history, they sell extremely well with low production values, then they crash and burn. Look at Guitar FAIL Hero. Crash and burn.
I wouldn't compare RPG sales to genres with broader appeal or ones that require you to purchase additional equipment, not going to give you much insight. Like comparing ticket sales of a foreign film to Harry Potter.
Bethesda is forced to make games actually better with their own fanbase and anyone who enjoyed Morrowind or else they continually run the risk of crashing and burning themselves as a company due to the fact that they have grown in size and considering almost all ES fans (a large #) bitch to them about making games "dumbed down" or whatever you wanna call it. If anything they have to make their games better or they risk some serious psychotic feedback whilst Activision does not.
If by 'make better' you mean pander to broader and shallower markets with dumbed down mechanics, gimmicky mini-games, and shiny graphics, then yeah. I've seen them burn the Arena fans off with Morrowind, the Morrowind fans burned off with OB, Fallout fans burned off with Fallout3.

Why would they try to keep their current fans happy, when there is always a new crop of less demanding konsole kiddies more open to a more mainstream game who will line up around the block and have almost no other RPG choices on their sophisticated consoles?
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It's not made better if you compromise the design to appeal to a bigger, more casual, less demanding market just to keep your bloat afloat.
That's good business, it's not good game design.

Give me examples of how they've made TES better to placate existing fans.
Or Fallout, what concessions did they make to the pre-existing Fallout fanbase to make Fallout better?
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Post by SenisterDenister »

Best reference to Dazed and Confused in a debate ever.
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Post by Retlaw83 »

What we're failing to keep in mind, is that Stalagmite thinks more mainstream equals better.
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Post by rad resistance »

I say expose DaC to the mainstream. Lets get some AZN investers in this here place and make millions. Ya picking up what i'm putting down?
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Post by Stalagmite »

Retlaw83 wrote:What we're failing to keep in mind, is that Stalagmite thinks more mainstream equals better.
Pure hipster logic. I find it funny how one of the first accusations I received when I joined was me myself being a "Hipster", I was so lawl'd that I actually looked it up and I learned that hipsters are just anybody who bashes "Mainsteam" just because it's mainstream.

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Thank you, DAC, for you're REAL thick framed glasses have garnished me more pure logic in the long run.


EDIT: I apologize to Cimmerian Nights, for it appears that he's actually made some good arguments. However, the thorns in my side at DaC have yet again posted their stupid shit thinking that they are DaC revolutionaries and have no actual substance to add to the DaC community with their emo bullshit. People like that destroy the site in the long run actually.

Too bad many oldies already consider the site dead and I can see why with the shit exhaust it fumes.
Last edited by Stalagmite on Sat Aug 20, 2011 7:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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I AM SO SO SORRY

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