Fallout MMO To Cost $75 Million, Coming In 2010

I thought the day would never come! Not that I was holding my breath for anything else related to Interplay, but the company's latest SEC filing (Security and Exchange Commission) did bring some interesting information to public light, regarding their Fallout MMO project. You might remember this one from back in 2004, but there hasn't been much talk on this topic, ever since Interplay sold the rights for Fallout 3 (and other offline sequels) to Bethesda, while retaining the rights for a Fallout MMORPG.

Well, thanks to the bureaucratic worms from Gamasutra, we now have new info on what Interplay has in store for us Fallout fans. According to their latest filing, they are planning to sell some of the company's common stock in order to raise money for the production of a massively-multiplayer online game based on the Fallout role-playing franchise. The total development budget they hope to secure for the Fallout MMO is a staggering $75 million, and they hope to start production (with an undisclosed development studio) as soon as January 2007! However, don't expect to play this before the summer of 2010, because this is what the document in question predicts:

Fallout MMO project

Preproduction Budget - $5,000,000.00

Production Budget - $40,000,000.00

Launch Budget - $30,000,000.00

Production Start - January 2007

Launch Date - July 2010

Investment offer:

- This Prospectus proposes sale of Interplay Entertainment Corp common stock which will be admitted to trade on one of the Euronext exchanges. Proceeds will be used for the production of a Massively Multiplayer On Line Game based on Interplay's Intellectual Property: Fallout (the "Fallout MMOG")

- The Fallout MMOG will be developed in the highly recognized Fallout post Nuclear Apocalyptic world giving consumers an ongoing virtual experience of today's life as if the cold war, which lasted for the best part of the second half of last century, had led to a nuclear disaster

- The budget for the Fallout MMOG totals $75,000,000 and will be funded by Interplay, its development and distribution partners.

Business model:

- The Fallout MMOG is a subscription based on line game.

(...)

- Return on investment is expected within the first 3 years

Other assumptions made by Interplay include reaching 1 million subscribers during the first year, the game becoming profitable in the second year, with a $160 million revenue per year from there on, and a net income of over $50 million per year (starting with the third year). But the most amusing part of their report is their choise of words for describing the current competition in the field of MMO gaming: "There are few public competitors", they tell their potential investors, while listing a dozen MMO games from NCsoft, Webzen, Shanda and Vivendi / Blizzard. Dream on...

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)