Founded in 1983, Interplay hit the stage just as video games would collapse and nearly take the entire industry with them. Decades later, Interplay has been struggling to find their place, and it seems that place will having nothing to do with their current collection of franchises.
Interplay is selling off all kinds of intellectual properties from their cache of over seventy titles and characters to whoever would like to buy them. This will include Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Clayfighter, Dark Alliance, and Descent. Interplay didn’t announce if the sale marks the beginning of the end, or if they’ll use the money to further development of new games.
“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.”
I’m not sure if that means Interplay will focus on mobile, VR, and AR, or if they just want to see these properties venture off into such spaces. It’s sad to see Interplay, the original developers of Fallout and publisher of Baldur’s Gate, fall so far. Just last year they had a KickStarter for a new Descent game, but they gave no word about what will happen with that title.
