Publisher Interplay has announced its third quarter earnings, showing sales falling 86 percent year over year to just $47,000, a period CEO Herve Caen calls "an important milestone" in its "difficult turnaround," as it reopens in-house development and prepares to launch development of its Fallout MMO.

The company's quarterly sales are down sharply from the second quarter, where its sale of the Fallout brand to MMO developer Bethesda saw it take in $5.9 million, a yearly rise of 872 percent.

Though the company is in somewhat of a holding pattern with few products actually on the market, chairman and CEO Caen said Interplay is "now focused on a two-pronged growth strategy."

"As we are working to secure funding for the development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) based on the popular Fallout franchise," he continued, "we are at the same time exploring ways to leverage our impressive portfolio of gaming properties through sequels and various development and publishing arrangements." Caen offered no further details on just what arrangements were being considered.

In a release, Interplay announced, though, that with the reopening of its in-house studio, it has hired former Fallout designer Jason Anderson, who previously left development of Fallout 2 to form Troika Games, as creative director not of its Fallout MMO, but of another yet unannounced MMO.