https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/09/07/870242/10165014/en/Interplay-Announces-Sale-of-Significant-IP-Portfolio-Wedbush-Securities-as-Strategic-Advisor.html

Leading video game software developer, publisher, and licensor, Interplay Entertainment Corp., today announced a process to sell its library of video game assets and intellectual property. The expected sale represents some 70 titles and dozens of characters.

"Interplay has entertained millions of players with its well-recognized games, including Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Giants, Kingpin, Messiah, MDK, Run Like Hell, Sacrifice, Battlechess, Clayfighter, Dark Alliance, and Descent. As game creators, we are proud of the entertainment these properties have provided over the years. With the proliferation of mobile, augmented reality, virtual reality and other new forms of consumption, we believe that consumers are ready to experience and interact with Interplay's characters, stories and game play in ways never possible before. We look forward to seeing how this unique portfolio of interactive entertainment icons will evolve for the worldwide audience," states Eric Caen, President of Interplay.

Sad days

7 years ago

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Happy days

7 years ago
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Makes me want to cry, but I've been gaming for decades. I have good memories of their games.

7 years ago
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Best to believe in a good remake of some titles in the lead of a new corp behind the scene...

7 years ago
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Or a bad cashgrab

7 years ago
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I was hoping for some good remakes

7 years ago
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Not unexpected, they've been in a bad state for some time now. Let's hope the new owners of those properties will continue to sell the games online on GOG & Steam (and any other place where they might sell them. I think GG has some Interplay titles).

7 years ago
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I just hope that since this is all getting sold, Dark Alliance III might happen some day under a new developer. And hopefully be even better, just like II was compared to the original.

7 years ago
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Interplay has entertained millions of players with its well-recognized games

I don't recognize any

7 years ago
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You response makes me want to live up to your name

7 years ago
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lmao

7 years ago
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i think you'd need to be over 30ish.

7 years ago
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32 in just over a month.

7 years ago
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+1

7 years ago
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Old games. Some were quite influential in their day.

7 years ago
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Not even Earthworm Jim? Or MDK? Or Decent? Or Battlechess? Or Fallout? Or Baldurs Gate? Or Planescape Torment? Or Icewind Dale?

Man. You musta had a pretty shitty childhood, no offence.

7 years ago
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Fallout isnt listed on above's quote.

My childhood was good, wish i could go away from pc gaming and have fun like before.

7 years ago
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The quote cant mention games they dont own anymore (its on bethesda hands now). But they were involved with it.

Personally I would LOVE for a Sacrifice remake\sequel, but realistically it wont happen ;_;

7 years ago
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Fallout and those AD&D titles aren't Interplay IPs though, they only licensed them. And the games he didn't recognize are those listed for sale.

7 years ago
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It's better for those franchises to go to any other hands, the Caens ruined the company 10 years ago and haven't created a full-fleshed game ever since.

7 years ago
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i concur. It is sad to see a company close, but with luck we might eventually see sequels.

7 years ago
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I know they haven't done anything of interest for a long time, but whenever these sales happen, I'm worried about the stuff I love.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Or they may be whored out for quick cash in a broken state with no care from the new owner.

I'll just continue to worry until everything is over and we know who paid (if anyone does buy the series I love).

7 years ago
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On the other hand, Bethesda's Fallouts turned out fine, while being different from the ones created by Interplay. But the talent behind those old titles left Interplay and went to inXile and Obsidian.

This is what the current Interplay has been capable of: http://store.steampowered.com/app/331660/

7 years ago
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Ugh.Yet another example of a disgraced franchise.

Not much of a surprise that their last published..."game" was this:http://store.steampowered.com/app/200150/

7 years ago
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It is not uncommon for these type of sales to cause the series to just die. When a dev/publisher goes under, there is a good chance of their games going with them.

7 years ago
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Time to reboot Clay Fighter. LOL.

7 years ago
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I got one of those on my N64

7 years ago
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Damn, the memories!

7 years ago
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Kind of a stupid non-sensical statement there. Maybe he thinks they're putting them on public domain..

7 years ago
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I'm not taking the blame for this one. I've purchased some of their games multiple times on different platforms.

7 years ago
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Same

7 years ago
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The number of times I bought new disc copies of Baldur's Gate before I discovered GOG is too damn high.

7 years ago
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I got that one three times.

7 years ago
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Should be an interesting read how they managed to waste all these resources, without producing anything of value for ages.

7 years ago
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Anybody can waste resources without producing anything of value - it is easy and also fun! It isn't a mystery, just a shame...

7 years ago
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But I assume that they had not the intention to just waste / ruin everything (even further (and further)).

7 years ago
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Nobody starts out with that intention. But sometimes you are doing well and you kinda think 'things are going great, let's take some time out to celebrate and really think about our next big project' and then one day you realise you spent all the money on booze and drugs and hookers and somebody has shaved your eyebrows off and drawn a spurting member on your face in permanent marker and your only actual release in the last however many years was some crap that nobody even admits to making...

7 years ago
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They should sell it to WB Games or Sony ;)

7 years ago
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This is good as it means we may actually see some good reboots of some of these :)

7 years ago
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I`d appreciate this!! Some titles got nice untold stuff in their storys!

7 years ago
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A shame,but its not really a surprise.They were dead in a ditch since that Battle Chess remake thing happened.And even before that they were nothing more than a walking corpse that was supposed to decompose years ago.

Hopefully their IP's will find a new home thats worth a damn.And who knows-maybe we'll get FreeSpace 3 one day after all.

7 years ago*
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I truly would like to work on a new MDK game but as an indie dev, I have no way of getting that IP. I hope these IP's land on firms that will actually pay the respect they deserve.

Also... Earthworm Jim, man...

7 years ago
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Here's hoping somebody decent buys the earthworm jim license.

7 years ago
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Not at all surprised considering the shit show that happened with Descent last year. Coupled with those 90% sales on GoG, this was only a matter of time.

Best guess about the games future (at least imo) would be Nightdrive or (more likely) Retroism picking up the popular titles like Earthworm Jim and letting the others rot unless they are bundled together.

Just as I was writing this, I remember about that new Descent game and I checked their forums about how this sales affected them and found this.

tl;dr: The IPs are being bundled together. This is can either put the entire catalogue in danger or it can save them all at once. /shrug

7 years ago
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HOPE it is SAVING them, not like Homeworld Cataclysm.... which lost its source Code while kinda same circumstances..

so no Remastered of this historic piece of gaming developement..

BTW good found thread

7 years ago
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Well it depends on how much they are asking for them. Last I checked, they still owe money to a lot of devs, including those behind the Descent games which haven't been paid in almost 10 years.

Hoping for the best, but the current outlook isn't that great :/.

7 years ago
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I wonder if they can legally sell the rights to Descent then. Furthermore, I've remembered Dark Alliance is just the portion of a franchise of games that belongs to a bigger setting, Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms. I don't think Hasbro would just allow any new game to the new owner.

7 years ago
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Interplay just owns the name Descent so I would say yes. They licensed the name out to a 'reboot' that is currently in kickstarter and they own the Freespace titles when they bought it. Not sure how much just the name would sell for (hell a good chunk of their library is rather sub-par) but they are all being bundled together so it doesn't matter.

What happens after the sale (if a buyer is found) is what interests me. Descent 1/2/3 have already been pulled due to non-payment and I wonder if this can bring them back in some form.

7 years ago
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Nordic Games will likely also be interested. They've been buying up a lot of older IPs.

7 years ago
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That is true though this catalogue isn't all that sexy. Retroism is fine putting any old shit up for sale but I don't see Nordic buying into this mess just for EWJ and maybe MDK. Maybe if the Star Trek games comes with it, though I was surprised Interplay had the money to bring those back in the first place. I guess it was a last ditch attempt to raise money.

Then again, Nordic is fine with selling Citadels after that piece of shit was bundled with another set of IP they bought so who knows.

7 years ago
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Nordic Games did buy the Aquanox series. A series that's both relatively old, and relatively unknown.

It would be interesting to know if there was something more going on behind the scenes that allowed them to get the rights back for the Star Trek games. It's possible that the contract that was originally signed was more lax than a contract would be these days, and thus Interplay retained the rights to keep those games on the market (and just did not think it would be worth to make them run on modern machines). Wonder what will happen to those games now, transferring a licence like that might be messy...

7 years ago
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If the new owners can release a version of Atomic Bomberman that works remotely well on modern PCs I will pay them all the moneys and love them forever.

Such a good game, actually my favourite Bomberman title.

And yanno what, I'm ready for an MDK reboot. That game was epic back in the day...

7 years ago
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I still got a German DOS beta disc for the original MDK. :P

7 years ago
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Yes, I'd love to see MDK come again. Such an odd game...

7 years ago
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There was MDK 2 HD remake, for sure, because I have it on DVD(bought with gaming magazine). There's no MDK 1 remake though.

Oh and MDK 2 is on Steam as well. http://store.steampowered.com/app/213350/

7 years ago
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Wow, a surprising amount of nostalgia for me on that list. I'd forgotted all about Battle Chess.

7 years ago
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MDK, Messiah, Kingpin, Earthworm Jim, Freespace... Jesus. I still have all those games on CDs... I remember Messiah very fondly. Quite a unique little game, with Fear Factory music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEDqwCps3qg

7 years ago
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Need to keep an eye on those titles!

Interplay on Steam

7 years ago
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I don't recognise them or any of their games. The only games that are older than me that I've played are Nintendo.

7 years ago
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Sad day ?
Maybe, but the blow is lessened by the realization that this is something that's overdue by a decade or so. They've not done anything meaningful after the repeated bankrupcy threats that ended with them selling the rights to Fallout to Bethesda.

Expect delisting, a shuffle of rights and a re-listing under new publishers for their games.
(I kind of expect THQ Nordic to step in and snap things up, with Volition/Deep Silver making a bid for the Descent franchise as their main competition.)

7 years ago
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one homemade gif in its honor

View attached image.
7 years ago
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Wanted to say the same, sad news, Interplay is a legendary producer of ambitious and very high quality games. Currently producers can't reach this quality (I know some exception always can be found) of producers like Interplay, Microprose..

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Wow, is that the last of the old guard?

7 years ago
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Maybe Night Dive will snipe a few titles. They love the old stuff.

7 years ago
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Fond memories of MDK, I'd love to see that title picked up by the right people. Original Shiny people are still working, but looks like just in small companies doing casual/phone games type stuff.

7 years ago
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