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Midway closes studio, cancels games
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 17th December 2008
Midway's only major release this quarter, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe has been a critical flop.
Midway has announced redundancies across all territories also, losing staff in San Diego, Austin and Chicago according to GamesIndustry.biz. The move sees the total workforce of the company being decimated with more than 25 percent of the publishers total employees being terminated.
The historic publisher and games developer has been facing hard times as of late, with rising losses and spiralling debts leading to a possible de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange. The publisher is currently in danger of defaulting on debts of around £150 million GBP.
Shareholders have been desperately trying to distance themselves from the company too, with majority shareholder Sumner Redstone selling his controlling stake for just $100,000 USD - a move which caused the share prices to drop another 40 percent.
"The cost-reduction measures are vital for us to rationalise our operations and provide the resources necessary for our core properties to succeed," commented Matt Booty, president and CEO of Midway.
"These initiatives, along with the other steps we have taken this year, are a response to the specific challenges we are facing at Midway, many of which have been amplified by the current economic conditions."
Midway seems to have been pinning all its hopes on its latest title, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, but reception to the beat-em-up has been luke-warm at best. Tell us what you think about the game and the company in the forums.
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any chance of a Bit-Tech review?
What on earth are they going to release now that mortal kombat flopped? Sigh...
Midway hasn't sent us a copy despite requests, so not really, no. We could go out and buy it, but it doesn't really seem worth it.
Yeah, as a literacy boy Joe you should know decimated means 10%, not 25%. tut tut. ;)
It's true. I check with at least one stylistics and linguistics graduate and he told me so. :p
CardJoe wrote: "I know the literal meaning of the word (From Latin, meaning "A tenth"), but I think most people would agree that the word has semantically shifted enough to be appropriate in this context, as the word is more commonly used to mean a culling or mass murder/punishment."
The last fighting game I played was probably Mortal Kombat 4 about 10 years ago. I don't own ANY consoles, only a PC, so I'm not a big fighting game fan.
My friend recently bought a PS3 and he was showing it off to me. I played all his games, fifa, burnout, blah blah, all bored me shitless. That fighting game though, MK vs DC, I really loved. It was fast and easy to play like the old MK games, a lot of the moves were the same controls too, so it was easy for me to get in to. But there were LOTS more moves for every character. There were about 10 characters, half of them were new, so I there was a lot of stuff to learn and look forward to. And the game itself had improved a lot. Not only were the graphics great and there is lots of locations to fight at, but its 3d now too, so you can sidestep which adds a whole new dimension. I only played it for a few nights but I liked it so much, it made me wonder about buying a PS3.