Interplay and Atari settle dispute over D&D game rights

Posted Aug 7th 2008 11:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Biz

Interplay continues to stay afloat even though the once huge publisher hasn't released a game since 2004. Indeed, the company's only major source of revenue since that time was selling their Fallout game rights to Bethesda Softworks (while retaining the rights to make a proposed Fallout MMO). Late last month, in a notice filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Interplay revealed that it has settled a long standing dispute with another financially troubled publisher Atari.

Under the terms of the agreement, Atari has agreed to purchase all rights that Interplay had on licensing games based on the Dungeons and Dragons franchise (One of Interplay's most popular games in the 1990s was the D&D themed RPG Baldur's Gate, developed by BioWare). In return, a previous agreement by Interplay to pay a promissory note of $1, 050,000 to Atari was cancelled.

Tags: atari, dungeons-and-dragons, interplay

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

The Interplay story is a sad one. I'm glad to see them monetizing their back catalog of great games with GoG and Gametap though. Hopefully they'll have enough money to release a new game at some point in the not so distant future.

As for the D&D debate, I guess I don't know that story. I do know that both companies have released some great D&D games over the years though. Baldur's Gate and NeverWinter Nights 2 are two of my all time favorites.

...bysmittyPosted at 12:12PM on Aug 7th 2008 by bysmitty

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