Interplay Finally In Process Of Going Under?

Random Guru 42 writes "GameSpot is reporting that Interplay is sliding further down the spiral of going out of business. Hopefully the rumors of Interplay's demise are greatly exaggerated." We previously covered earlier rumblings of Interplay's demise, and Sivar writes "According to a Fallout news website, Interplay has 'told the employees to file for unemployment' [a later source indicates 'the employees have until Friday to move all of their personal possessions out of... the Interplay offices]." Finally, an update to the GameSpot story has an un-named, masked employee insisting on the closure rumors: "No, that's not true" - it's also pointed out Interplay "...is facing a battery of lawsuits, including one by Arden Realty for $432,000 in back rent and another by BioWare for $156,000 for unpaid Baldur's Gate royalties."

Ahh Interplay

[isorox]

A shame. Interplay have been arround for longer then some slashdotters have been alive, and certainly longer then many have been on the internet. List of games interplay have published [gamerland.com]

The good (?) news

[obeythefist]

Generally when a gaming house goes into recievership, the game franchises they own go up for sale, the proceeds going to the creditors to pay all that backrent.

So for all you Descent/Freespace fans, there's a chance that somebody decent (are there still decent game houses now?) will pick it up and make it gold again in a year or so.

well

[jonaac]

Interplay failed three times to pay the employees. Forgot for about two months to tell them they weren`t covered by medical, dental and insurance plans anymore, then restarted paying for those plans then stoped again.
They stoped paying rent and the owner of their rented space went to litigation. They stoped paying Atari for the D&D rights for eletronic gaming media,wich meant they lost the right to sell most of their backcatalogue, and Vivendi refuses to pay them anything else on Baldurs Gate: Darl Alliance3 until that`s settled, wich doesn`t seem likely. The crappy fallout game for consoles was an expensive sales failure. After Fallout3 they had already canceled two projects, and were working in just one, that was having some troubles because of yet again legal troubles.

So they told the devs and artists to go pick their personal belongings, while removing things during the long weekend. They are saying to the employees to go and ask for unemployement, in a bid to see if they won`t have to pay them what they owe.

They had 1.2 million dollars in the bank late December, and no one knows what happened to that.
The CEO told everyone last week he needed 3 million to pay salaries, rent and taxes, since they also owe money to the irs.

Good luck for the devs and artists, no matter how good many of them are in the context of the gaming industry in CA things aren`t good for getting jobs, i hope they get what they are intitled from Iplay and find better jobs.

Star Trek's Ally?

[StarWreck]

I am sad to see Interplay go, despite my best efforts. You see, I never pirated Interplay Software... I actually bought their games, more than from any other company.

I have originals of: - Star Trek: Judgement Rights (3.5" disks) + the Movie & Sound Pack Expansion (3.5" disks)
- Star Trek: Judgement Rights Limited CD-ROM Collectors Edition
- Star Trek: StarFleet Academy (SNES)
- Star Trek: StarFleet Academy (PC CD-ROM)
- Star Trek: StarFleet Command
- Star Trek: New worlds

Unfortunately, I had always wanted to buy but never got around to buying:
- Star Trek: StarFleet Academy - Checkov's Lost Missions
- Star Trek: StarFleet Command 2
- Star Trek: StarFleet Command 3
- Star Trek: 25th Anniversary

Possibly some others too, alas. Perhaps I shall eventually get them, a load of crap it will do for Interplay though. Interplay gave us the best Star Trek games for more than just one era of video gaming history - from 100% IBM Compatibles with 2 megs of RAM to the Super Nintendo to Fire Breathing Monsters of a Souped up PC. Interplay... I'll miss ya!