Interplay and Bethesda are still fighting it out in court, with the former countersuing the latter over the Fallout MMO. While all this legal wrangling may take a while to sort out, Interplay has released a few pieces of concept art from the MMO project (codenamed "Project V13") to bolster its claim that work was indeed proceeding.

Interplay is in trouble, it seems. The company's recent 10-K financial report has revealed that Bethesda is already claiming a breach in the two companies' license agreement for the Fallout MMO.

Interplay reports that the team behind the upcoming Fallout MMO is bringing in Chris Taylor, who worked on the original Fallout game. If you were worried that the MMO won't be faithful to the series, this might ease your mind. More details after the article.

So what's going to be in our videogaming menu starting this week? A whole lot of DS games once again, we tell you, though there's a few gems or two in the Nintendo handheld rough on Tuesday. There's a music rhythm game for almost every console out there, plus a couple new additions to the portfolio of PC games. Somehow we're also seeing another relaunching of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 the "Refresh" edition. We don't know why it's re-listed, but it is. The full list follows at the full story.

With the Leipzig convention well underway, the 2007 Games Convention Developers Conference began discussion panels for each segment in the game industry. And one of the first GCDC-related news, as you dear readers can plainly see, was the topic of four online game developers in a panel tackling Life After World of Warcraft.

 

"There's plenty of life after WOW," said Jeffery Steefel of Turbine Inc. (Lord of the Rings Online). Jeff Hickman of EA Mythic (Dark Age of Camelot), Robert Westmoreland of independent Cryptic Studios (Marvel Universe Online), and Matt Firor of Zenimax Online Studios (under Bethesda) agreed with Steefel.

World of Warcraft, recently hitting the nine million subscriber mark, has become the MMORPG to beat. Game developer studios have vowed to create their own WoW-killers before, but Blizzard's cash cow continues to reap success, even as it nears its third year. "They had an established franchise, a frantic customer base, and they executed extremely well," said Westmoreland, pinning down the the prime strengths of the game.

But Westmoreland believes that it was a one time fluke - "an anomaly" - that allowed Blizzard to catapult to the top. The panel was sure that even when while WoW rolls on, there was still a place for newer games, such as NCSoft's Tabula Rasa, to carve its way into the market. "The market will segment and diversify, and that's beginning to happen. That's why all these games can exist at the same time," Steefel said earlier.

But Westmoreland warns against tracing World of Warcraft's footsteps, saying, "I think it's an anomaly, and you can't just focus on that because you'll get yourself into trouble." Instead, the panel encourages the age old way of finding that suitable formula. Westmoreland says that if a game is fun, it will take care of itself.

Gamasutra reports on a piece of business news with two gaming fallouts - er, implications. Bethesda Softworks has recently bought the Fallout license from Interplay Studios (and not just the rights to dev Fallout 3, but the whole enchilada) for US$ 5.75 million, according to papers filed before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), found by Fallout fansite No Mutants Allowed.

Here's the fallout. Interplay used to own the IP and Bethesda simply licensing the IP for the Fallout 3 installment. Now as Bethesda owns the IP, not only can it securely move forward with the creation of Fallout content without backchecking with the owners (since they are the new owners), but it reaps the intellectual property's income...

... especially from Interplay, now the licensee for its old IP. The same documents also reveal a contractual obligation by Interplay to launch its Fallout massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) within six years from the Effective Date of the agreement between them and Bethesda, with full-scale development occurring within the first twenty-four months... or else Interplay forfeits its license rights. It does give a potential window to when we'll see that Fallout MMOG.

And with the money from the Bethesda enchilada purchase, they may have some seed to start the project. Hey, at least Bethesda's not doing an MMO, like they said.

"We get asked that a lot," admitted Pete Hines, Vice President-PR/Marketing for Bethesda, when Pro-G UK asked him if the company had any plans for an Elder Scrolls MMORPG. The interview is centered around the Shivering Isles expansion to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, Xbox 360, PS3), and the MMO bit came towards the end, but because they "get asked that a lot," we're going to clear that up first.

The answer is no, not really, Pete explained his opinion that they couldn't do an Elder Scrolls MMO "unless it was with some fresh idea that no one has ever tried before." This isn't an unqualified "no," though. "Certainly, there's a chance, it's something we've talked about, but it's not anywhere in our immediate future." The key is to come up with that "something new" that will work in an MMO environment, and as it stands with Oblivion on the one hand, and World of Warcraft on the other, it just won't work.

The problem is that they are very different experiences. If you play Oblivion then everything you do in the world is about permanence - the world literally revolves around you. I finished that quest, it stays finished and if I kill someone he stays dead. With MMOs anything you do in World of Warcraft can be done by someone else two minutes later. That guy is going to respawn two minutes later and that other guy still needs a trinket even though you just gave it to him.

In Elder Scrolls stuff not related to MMOs, though, Hines said that Bethesda's current aims are to wrap the Shivering Isles expansion and the PS3 Oblivion up, then move to Fallout 3. A future Elder Scrolls sequel isn't being ruled out, not after Oblivion's success, but it's not in the cards as of now.

GameDaily is apparently done with its selection process for person of the Year. Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price and Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard come in at a tie for slot number 5. Cliffy B gets fourth place. WoW Wizard Rob Pardo gets number 3 Slot. Satoru Iwata comes in at second.

So who gets top honor this year? It's ESA president Douglas Lowenstein.

If you're wondering why he deserves top spot, just try to recall how many times the guy went to Capitol Hill. Too bad he's making an exit.

Anyhow, you could also check out QJ's 2006 Community Awards and let your voices be heard.

You can decry the Spike TV Video Game Awards show as much as you want, but you can't deny the fact that the Awards is very much supported and some people do think that the award Spike TV gives out has some weight to it.

So who are the big winners this year? Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion managed to nab five awards, so they're pretty much this year's "top dog", much to the dismay of a lot in the crowd.

You see, throughout the night Gears of War and Oblivion was neck and neck until the last award. With each game having four awards each, the only remaining award for the night was the Game of the Year.

The games that got the biggest applause when nominees for the award were announced were Guitar Hero 2 and Gears of War. But as we've said, Oblivion won, and they went home happy. The audience were stunned to say the least. Oh well.

What else happened? Comedienne Sarah Silverman said that gamers "should get an award for their work in AIDS prevention," Tenacious D rocked the house, and the Wii got an award for best breakthrough tech. Oh, and the Critics Choice Award, the only award open for games released after November 7, went to The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Get list of the nominees and winners after the Jump!