Part of Midway Acquired by WB: What happens to the other parts?
July 5, 2009 by srfto
The global slowdown has, indeed hurt the gaming industry as well. The worst is, even the best studios with the brightest minds are facing the heat.
You’ve certainly heard of Midway Games the American video game developer and publisher, with such famous titles as Mortal Kombat, Ms Pac-Man, Spy-Hunter, the Rush series, NBA Jam etc…After the stock market turmoil, the key investor in Midway, Sumner Redstone, who owned 87% of Midway, sold all his stock and this led to panic. In Feb 2009, Midway filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and subsequently, on 21 May 2009 Midway announced that Warner Bros had bid $33 million for most of the assets of Midway Games, including their Chicago and Seattle studios and the Mortal Kombat franchise.
A story, datelined July 2 2009, on the Chicago Tribune web site reports that Warner Bros. has been cleared by a Delaware bankruptcy judge to purchase two of Midway’s development studios (Chicago and Seattle) along with most of the company’s IPs, including the Mortal Kombat franchise. As previously announced Warner Bros. will pay $33 million for those assets.
The question now bugging everyone is – what about the other two Midway studios not bought by Warner Bros. (the ones in the UK and San Diego)? It is rumored that they are required by law to shut down the studios within 60 days. There’s no word yet if any other companies might be interested in acquiring those studios but the UK studio is trying to promote their own open world action game, Necessary Force, as a last ditch attempt to get a publisher to buy their studio.
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