Fallout Online Interview

Edge Magazine has an interview with Interplay president Eric Caen and provides several quotes from it regarding Interplay’s Fallout Online project on its own website. First, Caen tells us Bethesda turned down an offer to buy the full license including MMO rights at a hefty 44 million USD extra.

“Hervé [Caen] started negotiations with Bethesda to sell Fallout to them,” reveals Eric. “My brother said: ‘If you want the full IP, the value of it is $50 million.’ They said: ‘No way. Why $50 million?’ We said: ‘Because the MMOG strength of this universe is huge.’ Bethesda said: ‘We don’t want that. Let’s buy everything else but the MMOG. Do the MMOG.’ They said that Interplay had to start development and by a certain time we had to have a full game in development.”

Additionally, Caen notes the project is going strong with 90 people working on it.

Eric Caen, president of Interplay, has stressed that the Fallout MMOG (previously known as PV13) is not vapourware. While the publisher is still not ready to reveal specifics on the game, it claims the MMOG has a dedicated team of 90 people working on it, and is scheduled for a 2012 release.

“I can’t say too much. What I can say is that everyone who is registered is getting a newsletter every five or six weeks,” Says Caen. “The content is not a typical newsletter with a lot of technical information; it’s letters from NPCs inside the game, writing to other NPCs about what they’re experiencing.

“We’re giving a lot of hints about the future of the game. We have a beta scheduled for 2012, with the commercial launch in the second half of 2012. We have 90 people working on it. Even in January 2009, you were already able to move across the world.”