Midway Games

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Midway Games
Type Public (NYSE: MWY)
Founded 1988 [1]
Headquarters Chicago, Illinois, USA
Key people Matt Booty, Interim CEO, former Senior Vice President
Industry Interactive entertainment
Products Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter, NBA Jam, Rampage
Revenue ▲US$150.1 million (2005)
Operating income ▼-US$108.5 million (2005)
Net income ▼-US$112.5 million (2005)
Employees 820 (2006)
Website http://www.midway.com

Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) (formerly Midway Manufacturing) is an American video game publisher. Midway's legacy includes landmark titles such as Ms. Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. It was listed as the #19 video game publisher in September 2005 and the #20 in September 2006 by the magazine Game Developer.[2]

Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom/CBS Corporation, is a large investor in the company; he owned 88% of Midway at the end of 2005 while Williams Street (a division of Time Warner Inc.) holds the remaining 12% of the company.[verification needed]

Contents

[edit] History

Past logo
Past logo

Midway Manufacturing Company began in 1958 as an independent manufacturer of amusement equipment. It was purchased by Bally in 1969. After some years making mechanical arcade games such as puck bowling and simulated western shoot-out, Midway became in 1973 an early American maker of arcade video games. Throughout the 1970s, Midway was very close to Japanese video game developer Taito, with both companies regularly licensing their games to each other for distribution in their respective country. Midway entered the consumer market in 1977 by releasing the Bally Home Library Computer; the only home system to ever be developed by Midway.

Midway's real breakthrough success came in 1978, with the licensing and distribution of the seminal arcade game Space Invaders in America. This was followed by the hit U.S. version of Namco's Pac-Man (1980). Ms. Pac-Man followed in 1981.

In 1981, Bally merged its pinball division with Midway to form the Bally/Midway Manufacturing division. Three games released that year: Solar Fox, Lazarian and Satan's Hollow were the first to feature the Bally/Midway brand. From the late 1970s through the late 1980s, Midway was the leading producer of arcade video games in the US.

Bally Midway logo
Bally Midway logo

The Bally/Midway division of Bally was purchased in 1988 by the arcade and pinball game company Williams Electronics Games through its holding company WMS Industries Inc. The acquisition by WMS marked the end of the original Midway. Although WMS retained many of Midway's R & D employees, only two game designers were retained: Rampage designers Brian Colin and Jeff Nauman. Midway moved its headquarters from Franklin Park, Illinois to Williams's headquarters in Chicago, and WMS established in 1988 the new (and current) Midway company as a Delaware corporation. WMS obtained the right from Bally to use the "Bally" brand for its pinball games since Bally had completely left the arcade/pinball industry to concentrate on casinos and slot machines.

Under WMS ownership, Midway initially continued to produce arcade games under the Bally/Midway label while producing pinball tables under the "Bally" brand. In 1991, however, Midway absorbed Williams' video game division and started making arcade games under its own name again, without the "Bally" part (pinball tables would continue to be produced under the "Bally" brand until Midway discontinued this part of the business in 1999). Much later, in 1996, WMS also purchased Time-Warner Interactive, which included Atari Games, part of the former giant Atari Inc. 1996 is also when Midway changed its original corporate name Midway Manufacturing to Midway Games Inc. due to its entrance in the home console market. The original arcade division of the company became Midway Amusement Games and the newly created home division was known as Midway Home Entertainment.

In 1998, Midway was sold by WMS to its shareholders, making Midway an independent entity for the first time in almost 30 years. Midway kept Atari Games as a wholly owned subsidiary as part of this spinoff. Despite the split off, Midway retained some of the WMS executive staff and used common facilities with WMS for a couple more years. Although Midway no longer belongs to WMS, no longer uses any facilities of WMS and has terminated all material agreements with WMS, Midway to this day shares one director with its former parent company.

In late 1999, Midway left the pinball industry in order to concentrate on videogames. In January 2000, Midway changed the name of its "Atari Games" subsdiary to Midway Games West in order to avoid confusion with the other Atari company, then owned by Hasbro Interactive.

Midway has fallen on hard times since the 2000s. On June 2001, the company shut down its arcade division due to financial losses. In February 2003, Midway closed Midway Games West, putting an end to what was left of the original Atari. In October 2003 Midway said it expected to see $100 million in losses in 2003, on sales of about $100 million.

In 2004 Midway began a purchasing spree of independent video game development studios which "strengthens our internal product development team and reinforces our ability to make high quality games" (From Midway's May 2005 Quarterly Report). In April of 2004 Midway acquired Surreal Software of Seattle, Washington. In October of 2004 they acquired Inevitable Entertainment of Austin, Texas (now known as Midway Austin). In December of 2004 they acquired Paradox Development of Moorpark, California.

On August 4, 2005 Midway acquired the privately held Australian-based developer Ratbag Games. The Studio was renamed Midway Studios-Australia. Four months later, on December 13th, Midway announced to its employees there that it was shutting the studio down, leaving its employees based at that studio without a job. Two days later on the 15th, the studio was closed and their Adelaide premises emptied.

As of 2007, Midway Games is currently in a legal battle with Mindshadow Entertainment for the Psi-Ops video game rights. According to Loredana Nesci and Steven Lowe, attorneys for Mindshadow, Midway Games copied the Psi-Ops story from a screenplay written and owned by their client.

Recently Midway CEO David Zucker has revealed his company plans to open a new casual games portal. Zucker said that the successes of internally-developed massmarket DS and Wii games Touch Master and Game Party had inspired the company by "returning to its roots" - the Midway brand first rose to prominence in the arcade era.

On March 6th 2007 Midway reported its 2007 full year and Q4 financials, reporting revenues down just under $10m to $157.2m for 2007 and with losses growing to $97.4m, up from $77.8m year on year. The firm announced that it had enterted into a new $90m credit agreement with National Amusements, terminating its $30 credit facility with Wells Fargo. However, CEO David Zucker remained upbeat, saying the introduction of PS3 exclusive Unreal Tournament 3, and the company's growing success in massmarket games, were setting it up for a "significant 2008".[3] On March 21, 2008, David Zucker resigned as CEO. He was the third executive to resign in three months from the company. Succeeding Zucker is Senior Vice President Matt Booty on an interim base ([1] Chicago Tribune)

[edit] List of Midway's Subsidiaries

[edit] Divisions

  • Midway Amusement Games : This was the original arcade division of the company (founded as Midway Manufacturing Company), and is now an honorary entity which maintains Midway's former arcade games. The Midway, Bally/Midway, and Williams arcade game library are now copyrighted as "Midway Amusement Games, L.L.C.". Midway Amusement Games is located in Chicago just across the street from Midway's main offices.
  • Midway Home Entertainment: Based in San Diego, California, Midway Home Entertainment publishes and markets all video games made for home consoles and operates with a good degree of independence from its Chicago parent. Midway Home Entertainment is also largely in charge of the relationship between Midway and the console manufacturers of its games (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo). The division originally started in 1986 as a popular Texas video game publisher called Tradewest. The latter company was acquired by WMS Industries in 1994, and was renamed Williams Entertainment, Inc. which in turn became Midway Home Entertainment in 1996. It was Midway Home Entertainment who enabled Midway to enter the video game console market for the very first time and, back then, all console video games were developed by Midway Home Entertainment while all arcade games were by the Chicago studio. For a number of years, Midway Home Entertainment operated in both Corsicana (Tradewest's original site) and San Diego until 2002 when the Corsicana location was shut down.
  • Midway Technical/Customer Support: Midway's customer service department. Handles customers inquiries either through the internet or over the phone. The division is located in San Diego but not in the same building as Midway Home Entertainment.
  • Midway Games Ltd: Midway's European branch situated in London, England . The tasks of Midway Games Ltd. can be easily compared to those of Midway Home Entertainment in North America. The division Midway Games Ltd. should not be confused with Midway Games Inc. which is the official name of the whole Midway entity.
  • Midway Germany GmbH: Based in Munich, Germany, Midway Germany GmbH publishes, distributes and sells all Midway video games in Germany. Midway Germany GmbH was inaugurated on February 2005 by Midway Games Ltd of London.
  • Midway Games SAS: Midway's French division located in Paris, France. Midway Games SAS does the equivalent in France of what Midway Germany GmbH does in Germany.

[edit] Studios

[edit] List of arcade games developed or licensed by Midway (selection)

[edit] Video games

  • ¹ Originally developed by Williams.
  • ² Originally developed by Atari Games.
  • ³ Originally owned by Rareware.
  • [4] Co-Owned by Nintendo.
  • [5] Owned by Namco.

[edit] Pinball (under the Bally brand)

[edit] List of console games developed or licensed by Midway (selection)

[edit] Arcade system boards

Some of Midway's arcade system boards:

  • Astrocade
  • MCR
  • MCR II
  • MCR III
  • MCR-68
  • Y-Unit (1991-1992)
  • T-Unit (1993)
  • X-Unit (1994; used only in Revolution X)
  • Wolf Unit (1994-1996)
  • V-Unit (1995-1996)
  • Zeus
  • Zeus II
  • Seattle
  • Vegas

[edit] References

  1. ^ Midway in its current form was incorporated in 1988 in Delaware by WMS Industries. Midway Games Inc. considers 1988 as its official founding year.
  2. ^ Game Developer's Top 20 Publishers, 2006 from Gamasutra
  3. ^ MCV Reports Midway Financials
  4. ^ Original made by Atari

[edit] External links