Midway Games sold for 100K

[Bateluer]

Text

Dang, thats less than the price of a house. Course, it does come with 70 million in debt, but that could be turned around with a few decent titles.

December 1, 2008 - Media tycoon Sumner Redstone, who controlled 87-percent of Midway Games' stock, has sold all of his shares to a private investor. According to The Wall Street Journal, investor Mark Thomas, who has had no prior ties to Midway, has agreed to pay $100,000, or $0.0012 per share for stake in the Chicago-based company.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the transaction was made to ease Redstone's financial losses. By becoming the majority stockholder in Midway, Thomas will also assume the company's $70 million debt.

Due to ongoing financial losses, The New York Stock Exchange has recently warned Midway that it would de-list the company from the NYSE if its share prices continued to fall.

The sale of Redstone's Midway stock is an attempt to alleviate the $1.6 billion of debt that Redstone and his media and entertainment company National Amusements have accumulated. Reuters reports that Redstone is required to pay half of the outstanding debt by the year's end.

Midway Games, founded in 1988, is most known for its NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, and Mortal Kombat game series; its most notable, recent release was Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which pitted the fighting series' unique cast of fighters against several beloved superheroes and villains from the DC comic books.

 

[TehMac]

Serves them right for making Stainless Steel Studios shut down, Rise and Fall would have been amazing if it hadn't been for them. Twats.

 

[Pelu]

arent those the ones who appear in Unreal Tournament III Logos????

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: Pelu
arent those the ones who appear in Unreal Tournament III Logos????

Yep, I just checked both my UT3 and Unreal Anthology game cases -- Midway logos on both.

 

[shortylickens]

I think the milking of Mortal Kombat long after it wasnt popular may have been a big factor.
Dont get me wrong, people still like it. But not nearly as much as the SNES/Genesis days.

 

[ja1484]

Epic briefly had Midway as their PC publisher before jumping ship early this year (probably because they knew about Midway's troubles and didn't want to get caught in the maelstrom). I believe EA is now publishing their PC titles.

 

[Regs]

That's a lot of debt.

 

[Borealis7]

he probably bought it (and took the 70$ mil debt onto himself) for tax purposes.
if a company is worth 100-200K$ its not going to lift off anytime soon.

 

[cyphilis]

What amazes me, is how do you get that far in debt? Who was behind the wheel of that car wreck?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: ja1484

Epic briefly had Midway as their PC publisher before jumping ship early this year (probably because they knew about Midway's troubles and didn't want to get caught in the maelstrom). I believe EA is now publishing their PC titles.

If EA with their awful DRM is publishing for Epic now then that kills any hope of an Unreal Tournament revival in the future (not that Epic has any desire to do what would be necessary to make that happen).

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: ja1484

Epic briefly had Midway as their PC publisher before jumping ship early this year (probably because they knew about Midway's troubles and didn't want to get caught in the maelstrom). I believe EA is now publishing their PC titles.

If EA with their awful DRM is publishing for Epic now then that kills any hope of an Unreal Tournament revival in the future (not that Epic has any desire to do what would be necessary to make that happen).

Yeah I think Epic is more interested in developing other IPs right now, and it's hard to blame them. 10 years behind the wheel of a single franchise has to get old. It kind of reminds me of Bungie and the Halo games and that goddam death march they've been on over there for close to a decade.

Gears of War is making a killing for Epic, and supposedly they have another new IP in development. I look forward to their future endeavors, as Gears was fun and GoW2 looks like a suitable follow up when it makes its way to PC.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Given how widespread use of the Unreal Engine is, it's almost suprising Epic still bothers to make games.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha
Given how widespread use of the Unreal Engine is, it's almost suprising Epic still bothers to make games.

Well, they gotta do *something* with their time between iterations.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

What's sad is that they won't make a worthwhile sequel to the original Unreal Tournament. They have the ability to do it but not the desire.