Midway Games

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Midway Games Inc.

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1976
resolution 2009
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat Chicago , United States
management David F. Zucker, CEO
Number of employees 820 (2006)
sales $ 219.6 million (2008)
Website www.midway.com

Midway Games (formerly Bally Midway ) was an American game development company based in Chicago , Illinois .

history

Midway was founded in 1976 as a division of Bally , a games and casinos company. Early success was achieved in the USA through the distribution of the games Space Invaders and Pac-Man, which have now become classics . The pinball machine manufacturer Williams bought Midway in 1988.

Midway gained notoriety through games like Defender , Joust , Robotron: 2084 , Spy Hunter , Tron , Mortal Kombat , and NBA Jam . In the meantime, however, Midway recorded losses and had few successful games to show.

In March 1996, WMS acquired from Time Warner the game developer and specialist in arcade games, Time Warner Interactive, better known as Atari Games . The company was assigned to the Midway Games division. In October 1996, Midway Games was floated on the stock exchange by WMS, and in 1998 WMS sold the last remaining shares. In the same year, Midway changed the name of its studio Atari Games to Midway Games West, but published more machines under the old name until 2000. In 2001, Midway gave up developing arcade games. In 2003, Midway Games West was closed.

Also in 2003, the publisher brought the well-known id Software co- founders John Romero and Tom Hall on board as project managers. In addition, Alexander Brandon was Audio Director at Midway Games until 2007 , where he worked on a variety of game soundtracks. In December 2008, investor Sumner Redstone sold its 87 percent stake to private investor Mark Thomas for $ 100,000. At the same time, the new investor Thomas assumed liabilities of 70 million US dollars.

On February 12, 2009, Midway declared its insolvency and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Previously, no new lender could be found who could settle the outstanding balance of approximately 150 million US dollars. The company values ​​were offered for sale. On May 22, 2009 it was announced that Time Warner wanted to buy the game brand and some development studios through its daughter Warner Bros. At the auction on June 29, 2009, Warner Bros. remained the only interested party; the sale was completed on July 10, 2009. Warner acquired the Mortal Kombat development team in Chicago and the studio Surreal Software , as well as the game brands Blitz: The League , Joust , Mortal Kombat , Spy Hunter , The Suffering and Wheelman .

Selection of developed / published games

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Midway Games Inc 2008 Annual Report - Form 10-K - April 6, 2009 . secdatabase.com. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
  2. ^ WMS Industries to Acquire Atari Games Corporation
  3. ^ Atari Games Sold to WMS Industries
  4. ↑ Midway Games Form S-3 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission dated November 27, 2001
  5. ^ Leonard Herman: Company Profile: Atari . In: Mark JP Wolf (Ed.): The video game explosion: a history from PONG to Playstation and beyond . ABC-CLIO, 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-33868-7 , pp. 60 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ cf. http://uk.reuters.com/article/mnaNewsTechMediaTelco/idUKBNG39418320081201 (English, accessed February 13, 2009)
  7. ↑ Golem.de : Warner Bros. wants to buy parts from Midway German, accessed on May 25, 2009
  8. ↑ Todd Spangler: Midway Completes Time Warner Sale ( English ) In: Multichannel . Archived from the original on July 20, 2009. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
  9. ↑ Ben Gilbert: Mortal Kombat team sheds Midway skin for 'WB Games Chicago' ( English ) In: Joystiq . AOL . Archived from the original on July 29, 2009. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
  10. ↑ Kris Pigna: Warner Bros. Emerges as Sole Bidder for Midway ( English ) In: latimes.com . Retrieved November 10, 2014.