They paid too much for licenses, paid too much for development, the game flops. Then, they need to pay everyone. Then, they need to pay for their offices, power, water, internet, computers, possibly food, transportation, press deals, advertisement, legal fees. If they can't cover everything, they start getting nailed by fines... I know Interplay was fined for not having a normal office after they couldn't afford it. They were fined for being unable to pay some salaries. They couldn't afford advertisement. They couldn't afford more licenses. They couldn't sell their current licenses (they needed them for royalties and nearly nobody would buy a flopped license). They're still developing stuff--gotta keep that up or they'll lose a future revenue source. They borrow money, take loans, and they can't pay interest. All of this ends up with a company (Interplay) in debt, digging their own grave. Finally, they put down the shovel and are trying to climb out... hopefully Fallout Online will gain a bit more hype from Fallout 3--Interplay has had years to think about what was done wrong... I don't know if they'll revive the Freespace series or if they'll dismiss it as a horrible flop, though they're most likely to simply run the business off of Fallout Online. Hopefully they come back to the grave and see this community still thriving (and decide not to send out cease and desist letters to everyone of us), and thus decide to at least look back into Freespace as a product, and hopefully with
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