Today Interplay released its 4th quarter 2003 results and apart from
the usual digits & numbers (Interplay seems to be doing better, but
still has financial hurdles to overcome) the real interesting bits came
during the conference call disclosing several new titles. The fact that
Interplay wants to focus on console titles is no surprise, neverthless
KingPin 2 is in the works, but also new titles in the long running
Decent & EarthWorms Jim franchise. Most important of all, an external
studio is working on Fallout 3 (although not set in the typical D&D
universe due to the Atari/Interplay dispute).

Their stock is a nice $0.121 and dropping

The best part of Herve's talk today is..

FALLOUT BOS 2 IS IN THE WORKS

After listening to all 41 exciting minutes of Interplay's conference call, I can offer some first-hand details.

Interplay has traded all rights to D&D games, including Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale products (except for the existing back catalogue), for full ownership of the 'Dark Alliance' trademark. I'm not clear if future 'Dark Alliance' game will keep the 'Baldur's Gate' prefix. As reported, with no D&D rights future Dark Alliance games will be set in a new game universe that Interplay will devise. There was a hint that an adaptation of SPECIAL would be used for the ruleset. It's likely a new engine will be licensed.


On Fallout 3, Caen said "Fallout 3 is not actively being developed right now and we will have an announcement soon on that project". Later, several questions were posed by an investor. The exchange went as follows, starting with a question clarifying whether IPLAY would develop or publish Fallout 3:

Caen: We plan on publishing Fallout 3
Caller: Most likely it will be done through an external studio, correct?
Caen: Correct.

As you can see there is quite a bit of "wiggle room" here. There was no discussion about the likely studio (if indeed one has been selected) or the engine to be used. Later Caen was asked if Interplay would ever work with Obsidian to which he replied "That's an option, yes" but this was clearly an open statement and not meant to signify a specific relationship.

Finally, although reduced from 207 staff to 113, about 75 of those remaining are developers.

But some bleaker short term news appeared in a Form 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. In it the company noted a few problems it was facing: The company owes three months worth of rent on its Irvine, California headquarters and has been served with a Three-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Surrender Possession. If the company can't meet that deadline it will be forced to leave its headquarters and disrupt its business while it seeks a new location.

Interplay also said in the filing that the Internal Revenue Service is seeking approximately $70,000 for payroll tax penalties on taxes that were allegedly not paid for. Interplay estimates that it owes an additional $10,000, which it has accrued in penalties for nonpayment of approximately $99,000 in Federal and State payroll taxes, which were due on March 31, 2004 and are still outstanding. If Interplay can get by these problems then the company expects it can be profitable and successful in the future.

Caen mentioned a handful of projects in developed/to be developed. He mentioned Fallout 3 (PC), Kingpin (PC/Xbox), Fallout: New Action RPG game- not a sequel to FOBOS (Xbox/PS2), Exhaulted (PS2/Xbox), Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 3, Earthworm Jim. I asked a question about Fallout 3, and Caen said it will be published by Interplay and developed by an external development studio. (I'm guessing Trokia Games/Silver Style)