That $33m would purchase Midway's Chicago studio (Mortal Kombat), Seattle studio (This is Vegas, The Suffering), and control of the company's US assets, which sounds like it includes the company's vast back catalog of arcade games and other intellectual property. It does not, however, include rights to make games based on the TNA franchise, or the San Diego studio that's been working on TNA iMPACT! 2. It also doesn't include Midway's Newcastle branch, which most recently shipped The Wheelman.
If this ends with Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero getting made into a blockbuster motion picture under Warner Bros., then I suppose I'm all for it. But the thought of the TNA license getting jettisoned is a little troubling, as that genre would certainly benefit from some more regular competition... though it's hard to say what would happen to that studio if Midway were to get split in half like this. Would the parts that don't get purchased get shut down? Or would Midway still exist in some kind of weird "we make wrestling and mission-based driving games and that's it" form? I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.
26 Comments